Tessa studied them with a look of sympathy that hadn’t been there before. It was the difference between logically knowing something had been done to them. Where the knowledge was distant, with no real emotional attachment to it. And seeing firsthand how those actions had affected and shaped them. It was a shocking sight that brought the information into stark and horrifying relief.

“Could he really be doing something like that?” Zack asked in a rough voice after Zara had collapsed into his arms. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing even. The blood from her broken nose had slowed to a trickle, while the cut on her lip had already dried into a crusty mess.

“Would you even believe me if I said no?” There was a sudden weariness in her voice, as the question reminded her of what Dorn had said. “I would like to believe that my father isn’t a monster. At the same time, I can’t help but remember how he looked at you before. If he was passionate enough about a project, then maybe…” She trailed off, not knowing what more there was to say.

“How did your mom do it?” Zack didn’t let the silence stick around for long. “She has an office at your house, and people must see her coming and going. Even if they don’t know that she is one of the king’s hidden advisors, they must know that she is at least alive.”

“Mom,” Tessa shrugged. “I don’t know. They had this whole affair about her being sick and dying when I was younger. Then the day after the funeral, she was back at the house, healthy as ever. Some of the servants and other staff were replaced at the same time. I guess for people she could trust. Any time she goes out, it is in a mask and outfit designed to conceal her identity. As for the office, the rumor is that since dad is always at the lab and I’m at school, part of the house was rented out to the crown for their purposes.”

“And people believe that?” Zack snorted.

“It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds, since they actually do exactly that. At houses all around the country, the crown rents out a room the owners have sworn to never touch for official meetings. The locations are inspected carefully before each meeting, of course, just to make sure.”

Zack shifted Zara onto her back and put her head in his lap. “And what about your mom? There have never been rumors that she is still alive and living the life of a spy? She is happy and content to only live unmasked at the mansion?”

Tessa backed away from them as his fingers gripped the young girl’s crooked nose. “There are always rumors, but with the authority she wields, it is easy enough to make them go away or appear utterly ridiculous. As for the way she is forced to live. She hates it and has had enough. It is one of the many reasons that she is planning to reveal herself soon. It has been a long time coming, but she says it is finally time.”

Zack pulled and straightened his sister’s nose without warning. The sudden flare of pain rousing her from the emotionally exhausted slumber.

“Thanks, it was getting hard to breathe.” The girl muttered, wiping a hand across the crusted blood to clear it away. Then she buried her face in his chest and closed her eyes once more.

“I guess I just don’t understand how you nobles think. If Dorn is anything to go by, then institutionalized thinking is pretty prevalent among your crowd. That alone makes the deception more believable to me.” He glanced at his sister’s hands. Taking in their rough state and the skin that had been torn from her palms and knuckles. Gripping the hem of his old, ragged shirt, it ripped with a slight tug. Quickly, he wrapped the rags around both hands and leaned back. Wishing, as always, that there was more he could do for her.

“He’ll be back soon, I’m sure. Dorn won’t let the sight of him running away from her go. He’s too proud for that.”

“He didn’t run away.” Zack carefully pulled pieces of dried blood from Zara’s hair. “Didn’t you notice? He had already backed into the hallway before he said anything. He expected the reaction he got from one of us.” He laughed hollowly. “Though, if I had to guess, he was betting on it being you or me instead.”

“What?” Tessa swallowed and licked her lips, continuing the question in a soft voice as if she was afraid of the answer. “What really happened to you both when you were younger? Why did Zara react so violently to what Dorn said?”

Zack fought against the resurgence of memories, and the urge to scratch his many scars. The thin, precise ones caused by a scalpel still ached with phantom pain. Even the scars that had healed and fully disappeared ached and itched. It was enough to make him want to tear at his own skin, to get at the itch that lay just beneath the surface.

He inhaled a shuddering breath and pushed his emotions to the back of his mind. A place where they wouldn’t interfere with what he was about to tell her. The door holding everything at bay was thin and would crumble within minutes. Despite repeated efforts over the years, it had refused to get any stronger. In the end, it had been better to just bury everything down deep and ignore it.

He and Zara had already agreed that needed to change. Maybe, for him, this could be the first step along that path.

“We were taken when I was around ten years old, and Zara was maybe seven. I can’t quite remember our specific ages at the time. They weren’t important enough to celebrate in the orphanage. One of the workers there had sold us, and probably others, to a research institute. Zara was collateral, a hostage to ensure that I did my best to help them and never rebel. In return, they promised to not experiment on her as they did me.”

His finger traced the back of her neck, just below the hairline. At one time, a thin, precision scar that matched his own had been there.

“They lied, of course, though she did her best to hide it from me. I was their first, and as far as I know, one of their limited successes. It was enough to keep them from separating us, and little more.” The door in his mind shook and cracked. He didn’t have much time left to tell her their history.

“We were held there against our will for more than three years. Constantly being experimented on, given strange cocktails of drugs that had been mixed with items from inside the portals.”

Tessa started in surprise.

“That’s not possible. That’s what you were going to say, right?”

She nodded.

“They’re right, but also wrong. What do you think happens if you take the juice of a fruit, or pulp, a plant and mix everything together over there? Make it so everything is combined into one liquid, with the base for the mixture having come from over here?”

“Wouldn’t it still disappear, like the meat in the stomach example Quinn mentioned?” Tessa had her eyes closed, and her fists were clenched tight.

“It depends. If they mix everything together properly with the right amounts of each, then it becomes something that no longer belongs to the portal. If they don’t mix it properly, then parts of the mixture will disappear upon their return. In either case, the liquid would be examined, split into parts for later mixing, and then injected into a subject. Me, and sometimes her.” The crack in his mental door grew wider.

“After the injection, they would cut open parts of my body to learn how it affected or changed me, if it did at all. I’ve heard there have been some recent innovations in medical technology now that would have enabled them to see everything without cutting me.” He swallowed and sped on ahead, skipping over the truly grisly details.

“That was only at the beginning, of course, things changed again a couple of months after we were taken.” His hands clenched tight, the knuckles popping in rapid succession. “That was when they succeeded somehow, or something else happened. I don’t know. But that was when my status page appeared, that was when,” He shook his head and forced his hand to unclench. “A mere ten-year-old boy became a traveler. They had their own portal there. The institute had been built around the thing. Making sure knowledge of its existence was kept private and for their use alone.”