Chapter 2: Midnight Confessions in a Dorm Room
The FaceTime window pulsed on Leilani’s laptop, a rectangle of humid Hawaiʻi night. Kai’s face, sharp with concern, was suddenly shoved aside. Another face filled the screen, rounder, warmer, etched with laugh lines that deepened as she smiled.
“Lei-lei.” The voice was soft, like wind through sand.
“Mom?” Leilani sat up straight, the gossip alert forgotten. “What are you doing there?”
Her mother, Malia, settled into the frame next to a grinning Kai. She was in the same back sitting room, wrapped in a well-worn kimono robe. “I heard my daughter was causing scandals with princes. I had to come hear the news directly from the source.” Her eyes twinkled, but the worry in them was real.
“It’s not a scandal. It’s a… misrepresentation.”
“It’s a picture, sweetheart. A very pretty one. You look like your great-aunt Eleanor.” Malia’s smile softened. “He’s handsome. Seems sad around the eyes.”
Leilani felt a flush creep up her neck. Her mother had a sniper’s aim for the heart of a thing. “It’s complicated, Mom.”
“What with our family isn’t?” Malia sighed, the sound filled with a thousand stories. “Kai told me what you said to that lady. About your ancestor.” A fierce pride flashed across her face. “Good. Let them be uncomfortable. That’s their problem to hold, not yours.” She leaned closer to the camera. “But listen. This photo… it’s out of the bottle. People will talk. They’ll dig. They’ll find the ‘official heir’ stories in the old digitized newspapers. Are you ready for that?”
The question hung in the digital space between them. The cozy dorm room, with its quilts and proverbs, suddenly felt like a poor disguise.
“I don’t know,” Leilani admitted, the truth a quiet defeat.
“Then you get ready.” Malia’s voice was gentle but firm. “You remember who you come from. You stand straight. And you call me. Every day.” She blew a kiss. “I love you. Be akamai. Be smart.”
Kai’s face returned, his expression now more thoughtful than anxious. “She’s right. The dig is already starting. I saw a forum thread. Just be ready.” He gave a little chin lift. “Call you tomorrow.”
The screen went black, leaving Leilani in the sudden, absolute quiet of her New York room. The ghost of her mother’s perfume, a mix of pikake and coffee, seemed to linger. She looked at Will’s text again. Are you alright?
Her thumbs hovered over the screen. The polite thing would be to say she was fine, to downplay it. But she was tired of polite. Tired of downplaying. He’d asked for real.
Not really, she typed. It’s a lot. The walls feel thinner. She hesitated, then added. You want to see where the mystery girl actually lives? Come now. No aides. Just you.
The three dots appeared immediately, then stopped. Started again.
Give me twenty minutes, he replied.
She didn’t tidy up. The political science textbooks remained sprawled next to the binder labeled “Mele & Hula.” The small Hawaiian flag, the Hae Hawaiʻi, was still tacked precariously above her bed. She lit a stick of pōhaku incense, the earthy, mineral scent pushing back against the city air. It was the smell of home, of solid ground.
A soft, precise knock came at her door exactly nineteen minutes later. She opened it.
Will stood there, dwarfing her narrow hallway. He’d changed into dark jeans and a grey sweater, a baseball cap pulled low. Behind him, at a professional distance, stood Marcus. Marcus gave Leilani the faintest nod, then positioned himself against the wall, a silent sentinel blending into the industrial carpet.
“Hey,” Will said, his voice barely above a whisper. He looked past her into the room, his gaze taking in the quilt, the records, the incense smoke curling toward the ceiling. “This is you.”
“This is me.”
He stepped inside. She closed the door, shutting out the world and his security. The room was small enough that his presence immediately filled it, a sudden, warm intensity. He took off his cap, running a hand through his hair. He looked exhausted.
“I’m so sorry, Leilani. The press office is issuing a bland statement about respecting the privacy of friends. It won’t stop anything.”
“I know.” She sat cross-legged on her twin bed, her back against the wall. After a second’s hesitation, he mirrored her, sitting facing her, their knees not quite touching. The bedsprings groaned under his weight.
Silence stretched, but it wasn’t the easy quiet of the library. This was charged, humming with everything that had been cracked open.
“My mom says you look sad around the eyes,” Leilani said finally.
He let out a short, surprised breath. “Your mother saw the photo?”
“She was at the house with Kai. They called.”
“The house.” He said it like a sacred word. He looked around again, his eyes lingering on the framed ‘ōlelo noʻeau. “What does that one say?” he asked, pointing to the neat calligraphy.
“I ulu no ka lālā i ke kumu. The branches grow because of the trunk.” She pulled her knees closer. “It’s about ancestry. You are here because of who came before.”
“A directive,” he murmured, echoing her own word from weeks ago. He was quiet for a long moment, just looking at her. The digital clock on her desk clicked forward. “Do you hate me?” The question was raw, stripped of all prince-ness. Just a tired boy who’d caused a friend pain.
“No,” she said, and meant it. “I hate the machine. You’re just stuck in it too.”
He nodded, his gaze dropping to the space between them on the faded bedspread. He reached out, his movements slow, deliberate. His fingers brushed the back of her hand, then settled there, his touch warm. He traced the line of her knuckles, a faint, wondering pressure.
“When I saw that photo,” he said, his voice a low murmur in the incense-scented dark, “my first thought wasn’t about protocol or headlines. It was that they’d caught you looking at me like I was just… me. And my second thought was sheer terror, because I knew what I’d dragged into your life.” He lifted his eyes to hers. The blue was stormy, turbulent. “I’ve spent my life watching people carry the weight of my family’s history. The expectations. The bloody, glorious, oppressive history. I’ve felt guilty for it. Resentful of it. But I’ve never envied anyone’s burdens before.” His thumb stroked a slow arc across her skin. “But yours, Leilani… yours I wish I could help carry.”
The air left her lungs. It wasn’t a romantic line. It was a confession of profound understanding, and it was more intimate than any touch. He saw it—not the fairy tale, but the anchor of her legacy. And he named it for what it was: a weight.
She turned her hand under his, lacing her fingers through his. The connection was electric, a current of shared isolation.
“You can’t carry it,” she said softly. “But you can… witness it. Without flinching. You did that tonight. When I told that woman about my ancestor. You didn’t look away.”
“How could I? It’s who you are. It’s magnificent.” He shook his head, a faint, frustrated motion. “Everything in my world is about softening edges, making things palatable, blending in. You… you stand at the edge of the sea and tell it to move back. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
He leaned closer. The space between them evaporated. She could see the faint gold stubble on his jaw, the tiny scar above his eyebrow. His breath was warm on her lips.
“They’re going to come for you, Leilani. Not just the gossip sites. The proper papers. They’ll dig up your lineage. They’ll call you a princess. They’ll twist it.”
“I know.”
“What will you do?”
She thought of Kai’s words: You control that story, or it controls you. She thought of her mother’s fierce pride. She thought of the Queen, writing in captivity, her words now a weapon in her descendant’s hands.
“I think,” Leilani whispered, her forehead nearly touching his, “I’ll tell the truth. My version of it. No more ‘nice little Hawaiian’ switch. If they want a story about a princess, I’ll give them a story about a kingdom. Let them try to package that.”
A slow, real smile broke across his face, brighter than any camera flash. It was the smile from the library. The one that was just Will. “Then let me help. Not as… this.” He gestured vaguely at himself, the idea of his title. “But as someone with a very loud, very obnoxious megaphone. When you’re ready. If you want.”
It was a dangerous offer. Aligning her cause with his platform was a double-edged sword. It would bring global attention, but also global scrutiny. It could legitimize or it could trivialize.
Outside her door, a floorboard creaked. Marcus, shifting his weight. A reminder that the world, with all its rules and dangers, was right outside.
Leilani didn’t answer with words. She closed the last fraction of an inch and kissed him.
It wasn’t a gentle first kiss. It was a collision, an affirmation. His hand came up to cradle her jaw, his fingers sliding into her hair. Hers fisted in the soft wool of his sweater, holding on as if to steady herself against a tide. The taste of him was mint and something indefinably anxious, and she drank it in. For a long minute, there was no dynasty, no overthrow, no flashing cameras. There was just this: warmth, pressure, a silent conversation more honest than any they’d had.
When they finally parted, breathless, he rested his forehead against hers, eyes closed. “Well,” he breathed.
“Yeah.”
He pulled back just enough to look at her, his expression serious. “That… complicates my plan to be a noble, helpful friend.”
“Your plan was terrible anyway.”
He laughed, a quiet, joyful sound that seemed to startle him. He brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. “What happens now?”
Now. The word was a cliff edge. She looked at their joined hands, then at the Hawaiian flag on her wall. The truth was a path she’d agreed to walk, and it was narrower and more exposed than she’d ever imagined.
“Now,” she said, her voice finding a new steadiness, “I call my cousin. And we start writing the next sentence ourselves.”
She pulled her phone from the rumpled quilt. Will’s hand lingered on her knee, a point of anchoring heat. Kai answered on the first ring, his face appearing on screen, already mid-sentence.
“—figured you’d call. Wait. Is that a prince in your bedroom?” His eyebrows shot up. “Scandalous. I approve.”
Will leaned into the frame, giving a small, awkward wave. “Hello. Sorry about all this.”
“Whatever, man. You okay, Lei? For real this time.”
“Yeah.” She took a steadying breath. The plan crystallized as she spoke it. “The photo’s out. They’ll find the lineage next. I’m not hiding from it anymore. But I’m not doing their fairy tale, either.”
Will’s thumb rubbed a slow circle on her knee. “We’re going to control the narrative. But we need to be smart.”
“We?” Kai’s gaze darted between their two faces on his screen, noting the new proximity, the charged silence. A slow grin spread. “Oh. It’s like that, huh? Okay. Operatives in two theaters. I’m listening.”
“It has to be secret,” Leilani said, looking directly at Will. “No more photos. No public dates. If this is… something we’re doing, it’s ours. Not theirs.”
Will nodded, a flicker of relief in his eyes. “Complete secrecy. My team can manage that. Discreet transport. Private places. It’ll be like… intelligence work.” He almost smiled. “Rather more exciting than my usual engagements.”
“So you’re dating,” Kai stated flatly. “The heir and the spare. Hilarious. And you want me to be what, the secret keeper? The alibi?”
“More,” Leilani said. “You’re the strategist. When the story about my lineage breaks, I need you back home, on the ground. Give the local reporters the real context. Talk about the land trusts, the cultural work. Steer them toward the present-day fight, not just the historic crown. Be the voice from the ‘āina.”
Kai was silent for a moment, thinking. She could see him turning it over, seeing the angles. “So you two play secret boyfriend-girlfriend in New York, building your… whatever this is. I amplify the real story at the source, using the attention as a megaphone for the actual issues.” He shrugged. “It could work. It’s a total mess, but it could work. What’s your first move?”
Leilani looked at Will. He squeezed her knee. “We disappear,” he said. “Tomorrow night. I know a place. No security inside, just Marcus at the door. A room that’s just a room.”
A flutter, half anxiety and half wild anticipation, moved through her. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Will echoed, the word a private promise.
“Cool, cool,” Kai said, clapping his hands once. “I’ll start prepping Auntie Malia. She’ll love the drama. I’m your covert cousin, feeding you intel and running interference. Just don’t do anything that’ll get your faces on a souvenir T-shirt.” He pointed a finger at Will. “You. You hurt her, I don’t care what castle you live in. We have volcanoes.”
“Understood,” Will said, utterly serious.
They talked for another twenty minutes, weaving the fragile scaffolding of their plan. Codes were established. A burner email. Vague check-in times. When the call ended, the silence in the dorm room was profound and different. It was a plotted silence, full of intention.
Will had to leave before the dorm lobby got too quiet. The leaving was clumsy, their bodies navigating the small space, hands brushing, catching. At the door, he didn’t kiss her again. He just pressed his forehead against hers, his eyes closed. “Tomorrow,” he whispered, and it sounded like a vow.
Then he was gone, the door clicking shut, followed by the soft receding footsteps of two men down the hall.
The next day passed in a surreal blur. Classes were a distant murmur. She jumped at every notification, but they were only mundane things. Will’s burner email arrived in the afternoon: details, an address in the West Village, a time.
When evening fell, she dressed simply. Jeans, a dark sweater, boots. She told her roommate she was studying at the library all night. The lie felt strange in her mouth.
A black sedan, nondescript, idled two blocks from her dorm. Marcus was driving. Will sat in the back, dressed similarly. He looked like any other college student, save for the tense line of his shoulders. He didn’t speak, just took her hand as she slid in. His palm was warm, slightly damp.
The car moved through the city without fanfare. They didn’t go to some glittering high-rise. They stopped in front of a quiet, narrow brownstone. Marcus got out, opened their door, and gave Will a single nod before taking a post by the front steps, a silent, watchful statue against the falling night.
Will led her up a short flight of stairs to a painted blue door. He used a key. “It belongs to a friend of a friend,” he murmured. “They’re in Paris for the semester.”
The apartment was small, warm, and gloriously ordinary. Overstuffed bookshelves lined the walls. A guitar leaned in a corner. The smell was of old paper, lemon polish, and faintly, coffee. There was no gold, no crests, no history. Just a space.
For a long moment, they just stood in the center of the room, hands still clasped, listening to the unfamiliar quiet.
“It’s perfect,” Leilani breathed.
“It’s a room,” Will said, the tension finally leaving his shoulders. He turned to her, his eyes searching her face. “No one knows we’re here. No one is watching.”
It was the most breathtaking gift he could have offered. The freedom of being unseen. She let go of his hand only to slide her arms around his waist, resting her head against his chest. He held her tightly, his chin on the top of her head. They stood like that for a long time, just breathing each other in, the only sound the distant hum of the city and their own heartbeats.
They ordered greasy Chinese food from a place around the corner. They ate it straight from the containers, sitting on the floor, leaning against the sofa. He told her stupid, funny stories about his younger siblings. She told him about the time she and Kai accidentally stranded their canoe on the reef. They laughed, loud and unguarded, the sound echoing in the safe, secret room.
Later, they lay side by side on the rug, staring at the ceiling. His finger traced lazy patterns on her palm.
“This is the most normal I’ve felt in years,” he said, his voice quiet with wonder.
“It’s not normal,” she corrected softly. “It’s stolen. That makes it better.”
He rolled onto his side, propping his head on his hand. His expression was serious again. “What we’re doing with Kai… it’s dangerous. For you. When your lineage goes public, they’ll come at you hard. Comment sections. Think pieces. Maybe worse.”
“I know.” She met his gaze. “But hiding wasn’t protecting me. It was just making me lonely. This way… I have allies. I have you. We’re not just taking the hit. We’re aiming the blowback.”
He leaned down and kissed her, softer this time, a slow exploration. It tasted of soy sauce and possibility. When he pulled away, his eyes were bright. “Partners in crime, then.”
“Partners,” she agreed.
His phone, his private one, buzzed once on the floor. A single, pre-arranged alert from Marcus. Time was up.
The return to the world was jarring. The cool night air outside the blue door felt like a shock. Marcus materialized, wordlessly opening the car door. The drive back was silent, their intertwined hands resting on the seat between them a pocket of warmth in the dark.
At her drop-off point, he walked her to the corner. No dramatic goodbye. Just a quick, hard kiss in the shadow of a doorway, his body blocking her from the street.
“Tomorrow,” she said.
“Tomorrow,” he echoed.
She walked back to her dorm alone, the scent of him on her sweater. Upstairs, she saw the alert on her real phone. A Google news notification for her own name. She clicked it.
It was a small piece in a Hawaiian online news blog. The headline was straightforward: “NYU Student Linked to Prince Traces Lineage to Queen Liliʻuokalani.” The article was brief, factual, quoting publicly available genealogy records. It was out.
She didn’t feel panic. She felt a sharp, clean focus. She forwarded the link to Kai and to the burner email. Two words: “It’s started.”
Her personal phone buzzed a second later. A text from Will’ official phone, a bland, friendly thing about a missed study session. Perfect for prying eyes. Underneath, a second message came through from the UK number.
The sentence is written. Now we write the paragraph.
She looked at the small Hawaiian flag over her bed. It no longer looked like a secret. It looked like a standard. She texted Kai back. “Give them hell.”
His reply was instant. A photo of him sitting at the koa wood table in the palace back room, a stack of historical land documents in front of him, giving a thumbs up. “Already on it. Love you, cuz. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
She smiled, setting the phone down. The room was the same, but she was not. The secret was a living thing now, coiled and potent, and she was holding one end of it. Across the ocean, her cousin held another. And somewhere in the midnight city, a prince held the third.
They had a plan.
They had a plan. For three weeks, the plan was a taut, delicate wire they walked every day. Leilani’s name surfaced in a few more regional articles, a curiosity piece. Kai, from the back room of the palace, fed measured, powerful interviews to Hawaiian media, steering every question about the “princess” toward the ongoing fight for land and water rights. Will’s public silence was deafening, which only fueled more speculation. Their private world existed in stolen hours in the West Village apartment, a pocket universe of takeout and tangled limbs and whispered strategies.
The pressure was a constant hum in Leilani’s bones, but it was a focused energy now. She used it. She combed through the family’s digital archives, unearthing scanned letters of protest from her ancestors, land deeds with wax seals, the quiet, relentless paper trail of resistance. She compiled a dossier, not of genealogy, but of grievance. It lived in a encrypted cloud folder she shared with Will and Kai.
“It’s not enough to be descendant,” she typed to them late one night. “You have to be a descendant of something specific. Of a crime.”
Will’s response was immediate. “Then we need the crime recognized by someone with a bigger gavel.”
That bigger gavel arrived in an email a day later. It was forwarded from her academic advisor, subject line: Invitation to Speak – Pacific Islander Heritage Month Luncheon, The White House. Her first thought was that it was spam. Her second was a cold, full-body tremor. She read it three times, the formal language blurring. They wanted her to give a brief talk on the importance of preserving indigenous histories, with a focus on her own family’s legacy and their historical homestead.
She called Kai, her hands shaking. “They’re inviting me to the White House.”
Silence on the line. Then a low whistle. “The occupied capital wants to hear from the occupied kingdom. The irony is so thick you could choke on it.”
“What do I do?”
“You go,” Kai said, his voice hardening. “You walk right into that white mansion. And you look him in the eye.”
Telling Will was different. They were in the safe apartment, rain streaking the dark windows. She showed him the email on her phone. He read it, his expression unreadable. Then he handed it back, walked to the window, and stared out at the wet street.
“I can’t go in with you,” he said finally, his voice flat. “You know that, right? If I’m seen there, with you, in that context… it becomes an international diplomatic incident. A royal endorsement. It would undermine everything you’re trying to say. It would make it about me.”
The truth of it was a physical ache. She’d known, but hearing it was a different hurt. “I know.”
He turned from the window, his face strained. “Marcus can drive you. I can be… nearby. But I’ll have to wait outside. Like some… like a chauffeur.” The word tasted sour in his mouth.
“Not like a chauffeur,” she said, crossing the room to him. She put her hands on his chest, feeling the frustrated drum of his heart. “Like my secret. My hidden sword. It’s better this way.”
He covered her hands with his own, holding them tight against him. “I hate it. I want to be in that room.”
“I know. But you’re giving me this by staying out of it. You’re giving me the chance to have my own voice.”
He pulled her into a fierce, silent hug, his chin resting on her head. “Then use it,” he murmured into her hair. “Use it like a weapon.”
The day in Washington D.C. was brittle and cold, a different kind of cold than New York. It felt governmental, sharp. The car, with Marcus driving and Will in the back seat beside her, slid through security gates with a quiet authority. Kai was already there, waiting by a side entrance, looking out of place in a dark suit, his posture stiff. Seeing him here, on this colonized east coast grass, was both a shock and a profound relief.
Will got out first. He and Kai faced each other for an awkward moment, two soldiers from different armies. Kai gave a curt nod. Will returned it. “Take care of her in there,” Will said, the words not a request but a transfer of duty.
“Always,” Kai said, his eyes finding Leilani’s. He reached into a bag and pulled out a small, fresh lei of maile. Its green, leathery leaves and subtle, spicy scent were a shockwave of home. He placed it gently over her head. “For the Queen,” he whispered.
Then they were inside, ushered by aides through corridors of silent power. Portraits of past presidents watched them pass. The air was sterile, filtered. Leilani’s heart was a wild drum in her throat, the scent of the maile her only tether. Kai squeezed her arm once, hard. “Breathe, Lei. You belong here more than they do.”
They were led to a waiting area outside the Oval Office. Kai was asked to wait. An aide gestured for Leilani to enter alone. The door was heavy, dark wood. She pushed it open.
President Obama stood from behind the desk. He was taller than she expected, his smile warm but measured, his eyes sharp and instantly present. “Ms. Kalani,” he said, extending a hand. “Thank you for making the trip.”
The room was smaller than it looked on television. The light was soft. She shook his hand, her own feeling small and cold. “Thank you for the invitation, Mr. President.”
He motioned for her to sit on one of the sofas. He took a chair opposite, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “I’ve read the briefing materials. Your family’s history is… remarkable. And difficult.” He got straight to it. No small talk. “You’re here about the land.”
She had rehearsed a speech. A poised, academic presentation of facts. It evaporated. The weight of the maile lei around her neck, the smell of the islands in this sterile room, summoned something older and fiercer from her bones.
“Yes,” she said, her voice finding a strength that surprised her. “But not just as a descendant. I’m not here as the ‘Princess of Hawaii.’ That’s a fairy tale they like to tell to make the history softer.” She held his gaze. “I’m here as the great-great-great-granddaughter of a queen who was imprisoned in her own home. Who was forced to sign away her nation at gunpoint because a bunch of old white businessmen wanted more sugar money.”
She saw no flinch in his face, only a deep, listening focus. It gave her courage.
“That crime,” she continued, “it wasn’t just about a crown. It was about land. It was always about land. My family’s homestead, it’s one of the last pieces. It’s not a palace. It’s a house. But it’s a house that’s been ours since before the overthrow. And now there are developers circling. Offers. Pressure. They want to turn it into a view lot. They want to erase the last physical proof that we were here, that we were sovereign, that we didn’t just vanish when the marines landed.”
She was leaning forward now, her hands clasped tight in her lap. “I’m not asking for a crown back. I’m asking for a door. One door that can’t be kicked in by money or lies or time. I’m asking you to look at that theft, over a century old, and say it stops here. With you.”
The President was quiet for a long moment. He looked at her, really looked, his gaze taking in the lei, her ice-blue eyes blazing in a face pale with adrenaline. He glanced at the dossier she’d sent ahead, now open on the coffee table between them—the land patents, the letters, the maps.
“My job,” he said slowly, “is to uphold the laws of this country. The laws that annexed Hawaii. The laws that govern that land today.” He paused. “But my conscience,” he continued, his voice lower, more personal, “tells me that some laws are born from a fundamental wrong. And justice isn’t always about the law. Sometimes it’s about making a correction.”
He stood up and walked to the window, looking out at the South Lawn. “I can’t give you back a kingdom, Ms. Kalani. No president can.” He turned back to face her. “But I can use the authority of this office to protect what’s left of its heart. That land your family lives on? I’m naming it a National Historic Site. A category I’m tailoring specifically for it. The designation will state that the property is held in perpetual trust for your lineal family. Only you and your descendants can live there, steward it, preserve it.”
Leilani’s breath caught. Her vision blurred at the edges.
“It will be protected from developers,” he said, his tone final, absolute. “From any state or federal land grabs. From anything and anyone.” He met her eyes again, a steeliness entering his voice. “And I’m going to sign an executive order that binds this designation. Any president who comes after me, any congress, any court that tries to undo it… they’ll have to fight through a legal fortress I intend to make unbreakable. They will not succeed.”
The world narrowed to the sound of her own blood rushing in her ears. The cold, formal room seemed to warp and bend. She felt the presence of her grandmother, her great-grandmother, the Queen herself in the quiet, proud set of her own shoulders.
“Why?” she heard herself ask, her voice a hoarse whisper. “Why would you do that?”
President Obama offered a small, weary smile. “Because sometimes history needs a door held open. So the truth can keep walking through.” He walked back to the coffee table, picked up a pen, and initialed the top page of her dossier. “Consider it held.”
The meeting ended with a handshake, a few quiet words about the logistics. Leilani moved through it in a daze. When she stepped back out into the hallway, Kai was pacing. He stopped dead, reading her face.
“Lei?”
She couldn’t speak. She just grabbed his arm, her fingers digging in. She pulled the maile lei from her neck and pressed it into his hand. The scent filled the space between them. Her tears came then, hot and silent, streaking down her face.
Kai understood. His own eyes glistened. He pulled her into a tight embrace right there in the hallway, ignoring the glance of a passing aide. “She did it,” he whispered, his voice thick. “You did it.”
Outside, the cold air hit her like a slap. Will was waiting by the car, his shoulders hunched against the wind. He saw her face, saw Kai’s arm around her. He strode forward, his own anxiety etched deep.
“What happened? Are you alright?”
Leilani looked at him, at his dear, worried face, at her cousin’s fierce joy, at the imposing white facade behind them. A strange, triumphant calm settled over her. The wire they’d been walking had just transformed into solid ground.
She took Will’s hand. She looked at Kai. “He’s protecting the land. Forever.” She squeezed Will’s fingers, her grip strong. “It’s done.”
Will exhaled, a cloud of relief in the frosty air. He started to smile, but then his eyes shifted to something behind her.