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between him and James. They
all shared the same thought.
    “Do you think Zachariah is in league with the
Mercesti?” Gabriel asked at last.
    “I’m afraid it’s a distinct possibility,”
Knorbis replied. “It would certainly explain his absence these many
years.”
    The words didn’t sit well with Caleb. He had
deeply respected Zachariah as a second commander and considered him
a model Gloresti. This news rattled him.
    “What could these Mercesti be searching for
that would drive them to such extremes?” Amber asked, her golden
eyes reflecting the concern they all felt.
    Jabari sighed. “That’s another reason we’re
here. The fact is…we don’t know.”
     
    Sophia hadn’t considered the fact that Quincy
would have to carry her up to the top of the cliff until they were
out of the forest and standing at the cliff’s base. Even then, at
first she just paused and looked up, remembering how her dad had
carried her up to the top for her first flight lesson about a month
ago.
    Her parents had been so excited. So had her
aunts and uncles, who came along for the trip. She had wanted to
share that excitement, but the fact was, she was scared to death.
She couldn’t help but worry about something going wrong.
    Still, she listened obediently to all of
their instructions. She knew Clara Kate had just the month before
managed to bring forth her wings with little effort after her
eighteenth birthday, which meant their class could fly. According
to everything her parents and aunts and uncles so eagerly imparted
to her, all she had to do was have faith and she would be on her
way.
    After weeks of attempting to fly, she
determined that the only one who didn’t have faith in her was
her.
    “I’ll take you to the top,” Quincy said a bit
hesitantly, pulling her thoughts back to her current
circumstances.
    She glanced at him and frowned in
consideration. She supposed there was really no getting around
it.
    “Fine,” she said coolly.
    She hated that her pulse quickened when he
touched her…hated that she wished his hands were on her for a
reason other than obligation. A flush of heat built in her neck and
cheeks as he scooped her off the ground and she registered the
strength in his upper body. She deliberately focused on the cliff
face as they lifted from the ground. She was absolutely not
interested in his piercing silver gaze or the poetic curve of his
lips. And she wasn't at all affected by being pressed against him.
Definitely not.
    When they landed a moment later, she didn’t
look at him or speak as she quickly and purposefully pulled off her
sundress to reveal her bathing suit underneath. She didn’t want to
see his repulsion or his pity over her waif-like build. She
carefully folded her sundress and set it aside, then crossed her
arms and stared down at the water below, fighting the urge to jump
just to put space between her and Quincy.
    “Flight is about—” he began.
    “Faith. Yeah, yeah. I get that. That doesn’t
help.”
    “Actually, I was going to say that flight is
about aerodynamics,” he corrected, surprising her into looking at
him. “Your mind works differently than most of your kin. You need
to understand how something works before it makes sense to you.
That is in complete contradiction to faith. So we’ll need to try a
different approach with you if you are to fly.”
    She opened her mouth, but couldn’t think of
anything to say, so she closed it.
    “You can assume the form of most any animal
about your size—except for those that fly. Don’t you want to be
able to change into those forms, too?”
    She hadn’t ever thought about it that way.
And why hadn’t she? she wondered in bemusement. But now that he
issued the suggestion, she felt her first real surge of interest
and excitement over this lesson. So she nodded.
    They spent a couple of minutes discussing the
mechanics of flight, which she found reluctantly fascinating even
though she already new most of it. And then she allowed