Elena POV
The grocery store was the last place I expected to be recognized. I'd chosen it deliberately—small, out of the way, the kind of place that didn't attract the attention the upscale markets near Kael headquarters did.
"You're her." A woman near the produce section, maybe sixty, stared at me with an expression somewhere between awe and disbelief. "You're the one from the broadcast. The Release."
I set down the tomatoes I'd been examining. "I—yes. That's me."
"My granddaughter." The woman's voice caught. "She's psychic. Low-grade, nothing dangerous, but she's spent her whole life terrified of what she is because of everything The Veil did to people like her. Made her hide it. Made her think it was something shameful."
"I'm sorry she had to feel that."
