“Where is she now?” He leaned ever so slightly to the left, as if he was nuzzling my neck, so I could scan the courtyard. A crowd of newcomers had arrived, and they stood between us and the fountain, blocking our view.
“I don’t see her anymore,” I said. “She was by the fountain.”
“What is she doing here?”
“No idea. Gnosis is a big funding source for Theden—maybe that’s the connection?” Still, it was odd to see her here, at a trendy tech launch party. Odd, and very unlucky for us.
“Do you want to leave?”
“No,” I told him. “This is our best shot at getting to Griffin. We’ve gotten this close—I can’t give up now. We’ll just have to make sure she doesn’t see us.” I felt a boldness in my chest. It was an unfamiliar feeling, but not an unpleasant one. I wasn’t used to being so sure about things. Not without Lux calling the shots, anyway.
North slipped his hand in mind. “If that happens to require a few more of those kisses, I suppose I could oblige.” He glanced at his watch. “We’ve still got an hour until Griffin’s speech, so he’s probably in the crowd somewhere. Assuming we can find him, the trick will be getting him alone.”
“Not once he sees me,” I said, confident in that.
It was even easier than I hoped. As we were making our way through the crowd, my head angled down to avoid being spotted, we passed right by Griffin, who was talking to a group of women in expensive cocktail dresses. North elbowed me, I lifted my head, and there he was, two feet away from me, looking like he’d been airbrushed into the room. The first thought that popped into my head was How did the offspring of two gorgeous people end up looking like me? The second was He is smiling, but his eyes are sad.
I opened my mouth to say something but didn’t have to. Griffin was already staring at me, his mouth slightly ajar. “Excuse me,” he said to the women, cutting one of them off, his eyes still on me. He stepped through them as if they weren’t there. They swiveled their heads to look at me.
“I think you knew my mother,” I said lamely. “Av—”
“You’re her daughter,” he said, then made a sound that was like a laugh but coarser. “Of course. For a second, I thought— But of course you couldn’t be.” His eyes lifted to look past me then fell back to my own. “Is—Is your mother here?” There was such unbridled hope in his voice that my own caught in my throat. I just shook my head.
“Rory needs to talk to you,” North said then. Griffin looked over at North as if seeing him for the first time. North offered his hand. “Gavin West,” North said, giving him his cover name. We’d agreed I wouldn’t use mine.
Griffin shook it, but his eyes were back on me. His smile was kind, but his eyes were even sadder now, almost wistful. “Rory. Have we met before? I know I’d remember your face, but your voice—it’s familiar. And your name.”
“We met at the Theden Masquerade Ball,” I told him. “On the balcony.”
“You were the girl in the peacock mask,” Griffin said, and I nodded. “Well, it’s nice to meet you again, Rory.”
“You too,” I said. My nerves made it difficult to smile. Griffin seemed to notice. He glanced at North then back at me.
“It’s quieter inside,” he said then. “How about we talk there?”
We followed him through a side door and into the library’s small café. The chairs were stacked on the tables and there was a sign blocking the entrance, but Griffin stepped past it and took down two chairs.
“I’ll wait over there,” North said, pointing to a bench by the stairs.
I nodded and looked at Griffin. His face was half curiosity and half confusion. I needed to say something before his guard came up. Please don’t let me screw this up, I prayed. I didn’t want to ambush him with what I knew, not if I wanted the truth, but I didn’t have time to skate around it either. His keynote was scheduled for eight o’clock, and it was already seven twenty-five.
“Thanks for agreeing to talk to me,” I began. “I—I have a lot of questions, and no one to answer them.”
“Your mom,” Griffin said then. “Something happened to her, didn’t it.” His voice didn’t go up at the end because it wasn’t a question.
I nodded slightly. “She died right when I was born.”
He buried his face in his hands for a second, and when he dropped them back to his sides, he looked his age for the first time. There were lines extending like sunbeams from the outer corners of his eyes. It was ironic, smile lines beside sad eyes.
“And your dad?”
I eyed him. Was he trying to see what I knew, or could he honestly not know that I was his child? “My dad?”
“Yeah. I mean, you know, is he in the picture? Is he around?” Griffin looked uncomfortable, like we’d crossed into unpleasant territory.
“I’ve never met my father.”
This didn’t seem to surprise Griffin, and in fact, something like relief flashed in his eyes. So he did know. He was trying to see if I did. I gritted my teeth. It wouldn’t help me to get angry with him. Putting him on the defensive was the quickest way to shut this down.
I kept my voice casual. “I know you have a speech to give and all, so I won’t take up too much of your time, but I was just hoping you could tell me what happened between you and my mom.”
Griffin sighed. “I haven’t talked about your mom in fifteen years.” He tugged at his tie. “No, longer. Not since she left.” He reached inside his jacket and pulled out his handheld. It was shiny and metallic and the size of a matchbox. The Gemini Gold. He tapped his screen and it lit up. It was 7:35. “I have to be in the prep room at quarter till. This isn’t a ten-minute story, but I’ll try to make it one.” He snapped his Gold into the metal band on his wrist and ran his hands through his hair. It was the exact shade of mine, so dark brown it looked black, but straight where mine was wavy. Unlike my dad’s, whose straw-colored hair was flecked with silver, Griffin’s showed no hint of gray.
“Your mom and I met our first year at Theden,” he began, his eyes brightening for the first time all night. “I fell for her the very first time we spoke—we were in practicum together, and she sat next to me on the first day. There weren’t pods back then, just desks with laptop docking stations, and she couldn’t get hers to turn on. Our teacher was this horrible, crotchety old man—Mr. Siegler—and Aviana was terrified he’d yell at her if she asked him for help. So I helped her, and in the span of about five seconds fell madly in love.”
My heart turned over in my chest. It was easy to imagine that moment, my mom flustered and nervous the way I’d been on my first day, Griffin all confidence and charm. It was the beginning of something, something that could’ve gone a thousand different ways, with a thousand happily-ever-afters. Yet here we were.
“I never imagined I had a shot with her,” Griffin continued. “She was totally out of my league. I, meanwhile, didn’t even have the IQ to be at Theden. My family had to pull strings to get me in.” His eyes clouded over. “My parents never liked Aviana,” he explained. “My stepfather hated her.”
“Why?”
“She was . . . different. She didn’t play the game the way everyone else did.”
“The game?”
“The ambition climb,” replied Griffin. “I’m sure it’s the same now as it was back then. All that drive and competition, the fight for top grades. Aviana didn’t care about any of that. And yet, she was our valedictorian.”
“I don’t understand. My mom was expelled from Theden. How could she—?”
“Expelled? Aviana?” Griffin laughed. “Hardly. She was the campus darling.” He looked at me curiously. “Who told you she was expelled?”