Enigmatic: Sapphire City Supers

Chapter 28: The (Un)subtle Art of Deception

There was a moment of silence as I slowly turned to find her standing with an expression of shock on her face.

"Um, hi," I managed. "This is unexpected."

"Is it?" She cocked an eyebrow. "I know I'm late, but I told you I'd be over soon."

Oh god. I completely forgot that I had texted Grace at the bottom of my pit of despair, hoping she'd be able to distract me from my agony.

I glanced back at Ewan to judge how he was feeling. He was obviously trying his best to look innocent but was failing on account of our rather compromising position, and also just how pleased with himself he looked.

There was no other path I could see here besides honesty.

"Okay. Well. Obviously, I forgot about that and got a little ... distracted ... by Ewan." I saw the beginnings of a smirk start to creep across her face and felt heartened. "And before you give me a hard time, this literally just happened and you are the first person to know about it."

In another instant, there was an explosion of sound and movement, and Grace was suddenly hugging us both tightly to her. I was reminded of that day at the museum as I got squished into Ewan's hard chest.

"Yes!" Grace squealed. "You guys, this is the best possible thing I could have walked in on." She drew back and took a long look at Ewan, before saying the last thing I expected from her. "You're Kenna's masked man, aren't you? Enigma? I still haven't recovered from walking through a door, you know."

Ewan looked amused, and didn't bother to deny it. "No refunds on Super rescues, ma'am."

Beside him, I was reeling. "How on Earth did you figure that out? I've barely figured it out."

She took one look at my incredulous face staring at her and snorted with laughter.

"Oh honey, because I'm not in the throes of it." She gave me a sympathetic pat, and then turned her attention to Ewan. "I started getting suspicious of you after both museum episodes. You managed to disappear and reappear conveniently, plus how better to guard a collection than to have a Super curator? But especially, after I thought about it a little, I realised that Enigma looked at Kenna exactly the way you do, Ewan, when you think nobody's watching."

My heart leapt and I felt my face flush a little as that sunk in. When I chanced a glance at Ewan, he looked flustered.

"It was that obvious, huh?"

"Well," she said with a mixture of sympathy and satisfaction, "it would be to me since I'm Kenna's self-appointed fairy godmother and matchmaker."

"Do you see what I've had to deal with?" I grumbled to him, though I was secretly so pleased with the confession she'd forced out of him. "She meets her soulmate, or whatever, and thinks she's got a talent for it or something."

Luckily, Grace was in tune with my sarcasm. "Love you too, sweet cheeks!" she exclaimed brightly, snuggling up to me. Then she gave us both a suspicious look. "Were you two planning on hiding from us all?"

I imagine that guilt probably flashed across our faces in unison.

"Well..."

"Uh, the thing is-"

"It's mostly because of Seb, and we're not sure how to break it to him," I finally managed. "There's a lot of moving parts at the moment."

"What do you mean by 'moving parts'?" Her tone was more curious than interrogating.

Ewan and I glanced at each other, and made a silent decision.

"In the interest of full disclosure, there's a few more things you should know," I began.