"What—?!"
Phei froze.
His whole being stopped as if someone had reached into the machinery of his existence and crushed the gears between two fingers. His breath caught halfway inside his chest and refused to move. The hand he had lifted toward Diana remained suspended in the air, his fingers still, his eyes wide, his body locked beside Mother as the warm airport lights poured over him and suddenly felt too bright, too exposed, too late.
Mother turned toward him at once.
She had been smiling a moment ago, teasing him with that soft helpless affection only she could use against him without suffering consequences, but now her expression changed. Her eyes searched his face, then Maddie's, then Brian's, then the women gathered near the cars, and the confusion deepened because something had happened to all of them at once.
Maddie had frozen too.
That was what struck Phei next.
Maddie Whitmore, chaos demoness, stood beside her car with her smile gone.
