Protecting Truth Read Free

are his own poetry or someone else’s, I’m not sure.
    Hearing his familiar voice, raspy with a British accent, I relax. “Haven’t you heard it’s not nice to sneak up on people?”
    “You seem so peaceful resting there. I dare say, it compelled me to speak in verse,” he says in a playful, sophisticated tone.
    “You’re weird, Turner.” A point I have never said out loud but have thought often.
    “Quite possibly.” He flicks the light switch on. I glance up from where I rest.
    He leans lazily against the wall with his arms across his chest, hands resting on his shoulders, a strange pose he often takes. His dark wavy hair, a well-coordinated mess, falls into his eyes and frames his cheekbones. His physical appearance, that of a fraternal twin, is similar in beauty to Bishop’s, but different, in a darker, complex manner. The intensity of his silvery slate-colored eyes always hold my gaze until they embarrass me, and I’m forced to look away, face red and burning with heat.
    “I hate it when you stare at me like that,” I say, to make him feel as guilty as I do.
    “I’m not sure what you mean, Seraphina.” He strolls forward with dramatic confidence.
    “I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”
    “Why?”
    “Just don’t. Okay?” The longer, formal version of my name feels of a more intimate nature, one that I exclusively reserve for Bishop.
    “As you wish, my lady.” He bows as though rolling an imaginary feather cap from his head, and then he holds out his palm. A small package sits inside his curled fingers.
    “For you,” he says.
    “What’s this?” I grab the box.
    “Don’t know. Ms. Midgenet asked me to deliver it.” He unsnaps the cuffs of his long-sleeve shirt and then rolls them up to his elbows while I inspect the package.
    I turn the brown paper-covered box around in my hand and squint at the return address. One glance leaves me electrified. I hadn’t expected the delivery to arrive so quickly. I repress a smile, remembering Turner always watches me closely. Too closely. I clear my throat.
    “Thanks,” I say, pulling myself from the floor.
    “Aren’t you going to open it?” He cocks his head, trying to decipher the look on my face.
    “Later.” I shrug. I dip the box behind my back and hope the old phrase “out of sight, out of mind” holds true.
    “Really?” A mischievous smile rolls across his lips. “I think,” he says, looking at the ceiling as though he’s in deep contemplation, then starts to pace with a finger at his lips. He stops and turns to face me. “No. We should open it now!” He charges, swipes the tiny box from my hands, and vanishes, running in the opposite direction, out the door of the training room.
    Without thinking, I chase after him. His speed, a blur in time, is unmatched by any other student Protector. And I, of course, am merely a Wanderer, not the team member normally known for speed.
    When I reach the door, he’s already rounded the corner at the opposite end of the hallway, two hundred feet away, headed through Olde Town, the ancient underground city below Washington Square Academy for Wanderers.
    Desperation forces me forward. The last thing I want is for him to open the package. But I know that, being Turner, he will. After so many of his childish pranks, I’m convinced the boy walks this earth to aggravate me.
    Several hundred stairs later, I find him, as expected, in the laboratory. Chalkboards with scientific diagrams, inventions, and complex contraptions cram the claustrophobic space. Each seems to be of another, earlier century, although what they do is beyond current technology. Silver steam crawls through at regular intervals. I suspect the fog has much to do with the weather machine Professor Raunnebaum designed to keep Olde Town a perfect, year round, seventy-two degrees.
    I maneuver around several intricate machines with large cranks, bronze pipes, and multicolored gauges. If I weren’t so obsessed with defending myself from