Page 30 of Legacy Found

The closer I get, the quieter the room gets.

I feel it happening behind me and around me, conversations trailing off table by table, that ripple I've come to recognize as Jessica is about to do something. I keep walking. It's just a thank-you. I don't understand why a thank-you requires a hush.

The green-eyed one sees me coming. I watch his eyes catch on me across the hall, and then he stands.

Just stands. Out of his chair, unfolding to his full height, and there's a flicker of surprise on his own face like he didn't decide to do it. Around him, his two friends go still. The whole table of hangers-on stares.

I stop a polite distance away and smile, because smiling is free.

"Hi," I say.

Up close, the green-eyed one is — okay, they weren't exaggerating, any of them, my own eyeballs at breakfast included. Rich dark hair, green eyes that are actually paying attention, the kind of face that makes you lose your thread. That odd ache under my ribs eases the second I'm near him, goes warm and quiet, and it's so unexpected and so nice that I nearly forget why I came over.

Almost.

"Which one of you is Luke?"

Green Eyes blinks. "I am."

"Perfect. Torres told me you carried me to the medical center." I smile at him. "So, thank you. Genuinely. That was really kind, and I appreciate it. I know I wasn't exactly a convenient armful."

"It wasn't a problem," he says.

"Well. I appreciate it anyway." I give him a nod, mission accomplished, and start to turn back toward my table, because that's the whole errand, that's the entire thing I came to do.

"Wait."

I turn back. He looks faintly startled to have said it.

"Yeah?"

For a second he doesn't seem to have a plan for what comes after wait, which I find oddly endearing in someone who otherwise looks like he plans everything. Then he recovers, smooth again. "We haven't actually met. Properly." He extends a hand. "Lucian Draeven. My friends call me Luke."

"Jessica." I shake it.

And it's — normal. It's a perfectly normal handshake, warm and firm, except the moment our hands connect that warm-quiet feeling floods all the way up my arm, steadying, right, and I have to consciously let go a beat later than I mean to. The whole dining hall seems to inhale. I have no idea why shaking a hand is apparently front-page news, but I've stopped expecting these people to make sense.

Luke gestures to the enormous one beside him — the biggest person I've ever stood next to, black hair, pale eyes like a frozen lake, an expression I couldn't read with a decoder ring. "This is Prince Evren Soren."

"Nice to meet you." I offer my hand automatically, because that's what you do.

Soren looks at my hand.

For a second — I swear — it looks like he's going to take it. His own hand almost lifts. Then he clasps both hands behind his back instead, and inclines his head a precise inch.

"A pleasure," he says.

"...Okay," I say, slowly lowering my abandoned hand. Formal, then. Some people are formal. I decide not to take it personally; not everyone's a hand-shaker, and the man looks like he was raised by a mountain.

Then there's Ander.

I look at him.

He looks at me.

Well. This should be fun.

I offer my hand anyway, because I'm nothing if not consistent. "Hi again."