Hidden (House of Night Novels)

microscope and the fledgling was pressed against a glass slide.
    “I see colors,” Shaylin said. “I don’t know what to call it. I—I was blind before the night I was Marked. I had been since I was five. Then, zap! I get a red crescent moon in the middle of my forehead, my vision back, and with it I get colors. Lots of colors. Because of them I know things about people. Like I knew Neferet was rotten inside the second I saw her. Even though on the outside she was beautiful.” I watched her clench her hands together behind her, and hold still under the High Priestess’s scrutiny. “It’s the same way I know Erik Night is basically an okay guy, but he’s weak. He’s always taken the easy road. Your color is black, but not like flat black. It’s deep and rich and I can see little lightning bolts of golden light zapping through it.” She sighed. “I think that means you’re really old and smart and powerful, but you also have a serious temper, which you keep under control. Most of the time.”
    Thanatos’s lips tilted up. “Go on.”
    Shaylin looked quickly at Stevie Rae and then back at Thanatos. “Stevie Rae’s colors are like fireworks. That makes me think that she’s the kindest, happiest person I’ve ever met.”
    “That’s only ’cause you never knew Jack,” Stevie Rae said, smiling a little sadly at Shaylin. “But thanks. That’s a real nice thing to say about me.”
    “I’m not meaning to be nice. I’m just trying to tell the truth.” Her eyes went to Aphrodite. “Well, most of the time I’m trying to tell the truth.”
    Aphrodite snorted.
    I waited for her to get to me—to tell Thanatos that my colors had gotten darker because I was super worried—but she didn’t say anything about me at all. She just gave a little nod of her head, like she’d decided something inside herself, and finished by saying, “That’s why I’m here. I need your advice about how to use my gift and to know the truth about it.”
    I think it was then that I started to respect her. Thanatos wasn’t just any High Priestess. She was a member of the High Council and her affinity was for death. Okay, Thanatos was scary. Seriously. Yet here was Shaylin, all less than a hundred pounds of her, less than a month old as a fledgling, standing up to Thanatos, without giving away anything too private about me. She hadn’t even said the stuff about Aphrodite’s flickery nice spot color. That took guts. Lots of them.
    I glanced down at Shaylin’s clenched hands and saw that her fingers had gone white. I knew how she felt. I’d had to stand up to a powerful High Priestess shortly after I’d been Marked, too.
    I moved closer to Shaylin. “Whatever you want to call what she sees, Shaylin has a gift. I agree with Damien. I think it’s True Sight.”
    “We all do,” Stevie Rae said.
    “Can you help me?” Shaylin asked.
    Thanatos surprised me then. She didn’t say anything. She turned and walked over to her desk, gazing down at it as if the answer to Shaylin’s question were written on the big daily calendar she used as a desk pad. She just stood there like that, with her head bowed, for what seemed like a super ridiculously long time. I’d decided that I needed to clench my hands behind me to keep from fidgeting, too, when the High Priestess finally turned around and faced the four of us.
    “Shaylin, the answer I have for you is the same as the answer I have for Zoey and Stevie Rae and Aphrodite.” I heard Aphrodite mutter something about not remembering asking her a damn question, but Thanatos spoke over her. “Each of you has been unusually gifted by our Goddess, and that is fortuitous for us because we will need all of the powers Light can gift us with if we are to battle Darkness.”
    “You mean beat Darkness, don’t ya,” Stevie Rae said.
    I knew Thanatos’s answer before she spoke it. “Darkness can never truly be beaten. It can only be battled and exposed by love and Light and truth.”
    “Losing side. Again,” Aphrodite said under her breath.
    “I am going to give each of you a task so that you may exercise your gifts. Prophetess, I give the first to you,” Thanatos spoke to Aphrodite.
    Aphrodite sighed heavily.
    “You have been gifted by Nyx with visions that are warnings of dire things to come. Did you have a vision before Neferet’s press conference?”
    “No.” Aphrodite looked surprised by Thanatos’s question. “I haven’t had a vision for about a week now.”
    “Then