Read All That We Are (The Commander Book 7) for Free Online

someday the Focuses would have to learn to be able to give juice to an Arm, but that day was nowhere near.  Until then, no real Arm ‘households’.
    I sat and watched as Inferno did its wondrous dance around me.  Gilgamesh had cornered Ann on the other side of the giant room after catching her studying him, Sinclair and Sky.  Instead of chasing her away, he wanted to make her pay for the privilege.
    “How did someone of your training end up in a mess like this?” Gilgamesh said.  He radiated a mixture of Crow fierceness and Crow cuddliness, a trick I had seen him use on my people when he wanted answers from them.  These days, he was as dangerous as I was, in his own way.  If not more so.  He, for one, was good enough at masking his own metapresence to spy on Rogue Crow and his people, something none of the rest of us could do.
    “My anthropology career was cut short when I became a Transform,” Ann said. “The Focus they assigned me didn’t know what to make of me. She thought the only possible skills for women included prostitution, sales, cutting hair, and taking notes in shorthand.  Not” Ann wiggled her eyebrows “anthropology.  I spent eighteen months doing back-breaking gardening before I managed to learn about Lori and get myself moved here.”
    Gilgamesh shrugged.  “So these days you’re studying Major Transform group dynamics?” he said, and she nodded.  He glanced over at Sky and Sinclair, who were both studying him .  “Sky and I have never had an easy relationship, even from before either of us met the Focus.  On the other hand, I often feel as if I owe my life to Sinclair.  He’s the one who told me I was a Crow, and he’s helped put me back together after several of my, um, adventures.”
    Hmm.  That was considerably more information than I expected Gilgamesh to cough up.  And more personal, too.  Ann Chiron the Anthropologist had achieved nightmare status to many Crows, and I guessed Gilgamesh had decided to deal with his fear Crow fashion, by confronting it.  Good for him.
    Ann nodded.  “I can see the difference in the way you interact, but it’s subtle, and there’s still tension.  You Crows and the Arms seem to be about at the same level of fractiousness, if you don’t mind me saying so,” she said.  “With the exception of young Sir Dowling, the three Nobles I’ve met have a much more instinctive grasp of interpersonal dynamics.  The same way the Focuses do.”  She gave him one of her disarming grins, but I felt Gilgamesh’s disquiet at being a research subject.
    Join the crowd.
    “You consider instinctive backstabbing, backbiting, conspiring, plotting and general bitchiness as less fractious than what the Arms do?” Sky said.  I had wondered how long he would be able to hold back.
    “All the Major Transforms’ interactions are primitive,” Ann said.  “For instance, Occum’s household is the Major Transform equivalent of an out-of-control college frat house.”
    That almost sounded like fun.  I didn’t say anything, though, content to sit back and watch.
    “I wouldn’t say avoiding conflict is ‘primitive’,” Sinclair said.  “I’d always thought it was rather enlightened.”
    “Running away from problems isn’t always a solution,” Gilgamesh said.  Ann backed away to let the Crows argue.
    “Avoiding conflict isn’t the same as running away,” Sinclair said.  “There’s backing away into the shadows, being polite and nice, and disappearing into thin air, just to name three.”
    “Disappearing into thin air?” Ann said, curious.  “Crows can actually turn invisible?”
    “The trick is called ‘the vanishing’,” Sky said.  “Or that’s at least what I call it.  It’s an advanced Crow trick.  I can’t do it, though.”
    “I’ve seen the trick on multiple occasions,” Gilgamesh said.  “Our Guru, Shadow, can do it.  So can Rogue Crow.”
    “I’ve seen it too,” I said.  “It’s