Page 56 of Truthfinder’s Promise

“Do you guys want to talk about it?” Meredith finally asked.

“Yeah. But can we wait till Val’s back? I’d rather just do this once.”

Val returned thirty minutes later, by which time the double batch of blueberry muffins Random had whipped up were almost out of the oven. She dropped two tactical duffel bags inside the door, her gaze zeroing in on Jace and Siren, who were holding hands on top of the kitchen island.

“We’re good,” Jace said, no doubt noting the over-protective older sister look in Valkyrie’s eyes. She didn’t look wholly convinced, but she relaxed a little and sat down.

“So you’re pregnant?” Valkyrie said it in what was—for her—a gentle prompt.

“Yeah.” Siren’s smile wobbled, her eyes tearing up. “Stupid hormones,” she muttered.

Jace squeezed her hand. “We talked about having kids a while back. I was ready but—”

“—I wasn’t quite there yet,” Siren finished. “When I decided I was, I sort of thought I’d just surprise him, you know? But I’ve been off since I realized I was pregnant. I thought—” Her voice cracked, and she swallowed and started over. “I thought I was going to lose it the first day. So I didn’t say anything. And every day after that, I thought I was going to lose it. So I kept not saying anything, and by the time I realized it wasn’t going to get any better I’d been not saying something for so long I didn’t know how to start.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but how can you not know what’s wrong?” Meredith asked. Siren was Life Aspect. She was literally growing new life. Her Aspect should be all about that.

“I don’t know.” Siren got the words out and promptly burst into tears again. Jace pulled her onto his lap while the rest of them looked at random points around the room to give her time to collect herself. Meredith had never actually seen Siren cry. Not in public.

“Stupid. Fucking. Hormones,” she gritted out. She sucked in a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “I have to admit, I thought Life Aspect meant I could breeze through pregnancy blissfully mitigating all the shit normal women have to go through. I should be able to. I tracked down some journals from the last Life Aspecter on record, and she had the world’s most perfect pregnancy. I know because she documented every boring damn day of it.”

Meredith looked to Jace. “And you don’t have any ideas either?”

He shook his head. “If the baby had a physical birth defect, something that would cause problems, her Aspect should fix it. Aspect itself doesn’t manifest in the womb, so there shouldn’t be a problem with the baby’s Aspect.”

“That’s…not entirely true.”

Every head in the room whipped to Random.

“Not the part about her Aspect being unable to fix a health problem” he said hastily, “but about Aspect not manifesting at this stage.”

Jace’s face promptly drained of what little color it had possessed. “Life and Death manifest at conception,” he said softly.

Random nodded. “And I don’t think she’d have any issues with Life.”

Siren looked at her stomach, then back up. “You think I’m growing a Death kid?”

“I know one person who could tell you.”

Siren pulled out her phone and tapped the screen a couple times before putting it to her ear. “Aunt Ella, hi. Can Jace and I stop by for tea later? Your house, not the cafe.” Siren paused to listen and frowned. “No, we do not need marriage counseling. And last time I checked you were not a marriage counselor. Why would you think we needed that?”

Siren listened. “Hold on a minute.” She hit the phone’s mute button and wiggled around on Jace’s lap to glare at him. “You told her I was being distant over white jasmine?”

Aunt Ella did practically everything over tea.

“She said it was a ‘bolstering tea’, and you were,” he muttered, pulling her in a little tighter. “I couldn’t talk to our friends about it because I didn’t want to be unfair to you, so I drank a lot of tea in the last two months.”

“Wait a minute, so that’s where you’ve been sneaking off to all the time? Aunt Ella’s?”

“Yes,” he said, drawing the word out. “Where did you think I was going?”

“Nowhere,” Siren said quickly. Too quickly. And just like that Siren’s sudden interest in Meredith’s love life made sense.

“You did not think we were having an affair,” Meredith accused. “Please tell me you didn’t think that.”

“No!”

“This is why you were so obsessed with finding me a boyfriend.”