Watching Mrs. Griffin suddenly turn serious, Lorne felt his heart sink a little.
"Lorne," Mrs. Griffin suddenly turned to him and said in a very even tone, "you're a Beyonder, aren't you?"
She... figured it out?
Well, she did sound me out right at the start.
Lorne stopped denying it and nodded.
An expression that said "just as I thought" appeared on Mrs. Griffin's face.
"You must be... Sequence 7 by now?" she pressed.
Actually, I'm already Sequence 6, Lorne said silently to himself.
But out of caution, he simply nodded again without correcting her assumption.
Mrs. Griffin looked him up and down again, a knowing smile touching her face. "It seems your voyage wasn't just an ordinary holiday."
Speaking like an elder offering guidance, she cautioned him, "Lorne, Beyonders aren't all-powerful superhumans. The dangers behind this path go far beyond anything you can imagine."
Her words stirred Lorne's curiosity. He ventured, "Then what Sequence are you now, ma'am?"
Mrs. Griffin didn't answer. She merely smiled and said, "That's a very rude question, you know."
Lorne could only smile sheepishly.
Only then did Mrs. Griffin give him a full account of what had happened: how a dangerous Beyonder had broken into the house and thoroughly searched his room, and how, just as she discovered the intruder and was about to act, an accomplice had suddenly appeared and rescued them.
"What?" Lorne asked in surprise. "You mean two Beyonders of fairly high Sequences came here to search my room?"
"Yes, that's right." Mrs. Griffin nodded and added, "One of them was at least Sequence 7. The other was definitely above Sequence 7."
This...
Lorne's expression grew grave.
He wasn't worried about a Sequence 7. Even a Sequence 6 didn't frighten him. He had even fought the Sequence 5 Admiral of Blood