“Can I help you?”
I didn’t recognize her. A woman, about the same age as my mother, answered, but with a single pass of my hand, I realized she was nothing but mortal. I took a stab in the dark. “I need to speak with your husband.”
She nodded, yelling over her shoulder for an Oliver.
A man I recognized from Mirror Lake, wearing baggy plaid pants and no shirt, came to the door. He tilted his chin at me and my father. With a pass of his hand, his confused expression tightened, and he excused himself from his wife and stepped out onto the porch next to us.
“What brings you here?” His eyes stared at me, but that was because my father didn’t have the shimmer of magic when Oliver checked, since my father was currently non-magical like the mortals who lived in this realm.
“A few things,” I said. “First, I’m looking to get in touch with Liliana from the bookstore. Do you know where she lives?”
He squinted at me. “Why do you need Lily?”
“I need to discuss a book with her.”
Recognition dawned on him, and he nodded. “I don’t know where she lives, but I have her contact info.” He stepped into his house and returned with a little card with the bookstore name and some other numbers. “She spends most of her time at the bookstore. If she’s not there now, she’ll be there at some point. Even on Sundays and Mondays, when they’re closed, she still puts in a full day’s work. Is there something going on with the book?
I took a deep breath. Maybe he could help me. “Your coven is using books to pass a curse among the mortals.”
“A curse?”
His denial caused my hands to tingle with power while the moonstone in my pocket called to me. One touch and pain would convince him to tell me everything he knew. My hand reached out but my father stopped me.
“You don’t know of a curse?” my father asked.
The man straightened his glasses and shook his head. “No, but I do know of the enchanted Wonderland books. Liliana says they bring us a long life. She never said anything about a curse.”
“Foolish!” I blurted out. “Magic must have a balance.”
He cocked his head at me. “Yes, but…” His jaw fell open. “I didn’t realize an enchanted object would need a balance, too.”
“Every witch knows that!”
“Well, not this witch. Nor any of my coven.”
“Liliana would know,” my father said, finally dropping my arm that I had forgotten he was restraining. “But maybe it’s something else.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Sir…Oliver.” My father seemed almost human at the moment. “Why did you get the book?”
“For my wife. She’s sick.”
I narrowed my eyes at the woman who sat on a sofa behind the large glass window. “She looks perfectly fine.”
He nodded. “She has lung cancer. Or at least, she had lung cancer. I’m not sure. All she needs to do is finish reading the book, and she’ll be cured. Something my magic isn’t capable of.”
“And Liliana gave you that book?” I asked, grinding my teeth even though I already knew the answer.
“Yes. And when Mary is done with it, I need to return it. Liliana enchants it again and gives it to someone else who needs it. She’s doing good.”
At the expense of others. But why?
What was in it for her?
Did she get a power rush out of the situation? “I need the book,” I said. I wasn’t letting anyone else get their hands on it.
“I—I don’t think so.” Oliver placed his hands on his hips and positioned himself firmly in the center of the doorway.
I growled, reaching out and unable to control myself. I shot him with a touch of pain, just enough to make his knees weak. “More will come.” As I summoned more magic, ready to zap him again, his eyes widened at what he saw behind him. I twisted over my shoulder to see Luna and Izzy standing right behind me. Luna stretched out her neck, pushing me out of the way of the doorway, and the look on Izzy’s face…well, I had to look away.
“Oh, Greyson,” my father said. “There’s an easier way. Give me the stone.”
I clenched my jaw and my father held his hand out again. “Do you want to help your little girlfriend or not?”
I begrudgingly dug in my pocket and pulled out the stone, handing it over.
In a second, the man was frozen in time, right on his porch. My father pushed past him and froze his wife right beyond the door. “Find the book. Quick. This only lasts so long.”
I nodded, rushing from room to room, easily finding the book sitting on the nightstand in their bedroom. “Got it,” I said, heading out the door.
“Good.” My father followed me close. “I always knew we made a good team.”
“And if you didn’t wipe my memory, and try a second time, I’d be sitting in that dungeon right beside you.”
He tsked. “I guess you’re right. Well, it’s a good thing I wanted power more than you back then, now wasn’t it?”
Chapter 19
Izzy wouldn’t return to Luna’s back, and with shaky legs and one hand against the house’s old, wooden siding, she sat down on a rocking chair on the witch’s front porch with her arms crossed over her chest. Luna, my mostly silent dragon, whined as she turned herself invisible again when two big, golden dogs barked as a woman came around the corner of the block walking them.
“Come on,” I said, offering Izzy my hand. “We have to go.”
She pointed at the closed door. “What was that?”
“I needed this book,” I said, holding up the prize.
“Not that. Your little zap of pain?”
“Motivation.”
“More like torture! Grey, I thought you were a healer, not a…a…big bad evil witch!”
My gut twisted. “Well, the secret’s out! I’m not a do-gooder. What you saw there,” I pointed to the front door. “That’s who I am. Who I fight against…Every. Single. Day. I’m not like you and can always look at the bright side. Come on Izzy. You’re dying. How can you be so happy all the time?”
“Do you think my charming personality comes easy? Look at who my parents are. I’ve been sick nearly my entire life, and I choose to not let it get me down. That’s not who I want to be remembered as.”
“It’s too late for me. All the seven kingdoms know who I was in my youth. Who my father made me to be.”
“Yet they still come to you to be healed! I saw it with my own eyes. They see that you changed. Why can’t you?”
I opened my mouth to argue, but then I stopped. Had I changed? Maybe for a bit. When Nieva left me, it gave me the final push to be someone else. Someone better. Not even to win her back, but because that was who I wanted to be.
But I was so tired of fighting to be better. Being evil came easy. Things got done. Just look at the book I held, and my father working at my side. Who thought that would happen again?
A warm hand rested on my shoulder, and I spun around to meet my father’s brown eyes. I stepped back, my thighs pressing into the porch railing as I tried to get away from both Izzy and my dad.
Only my father stepped closer. “Greyson, you are innately good, not evil. When you were young, you used to play with the other children in Kista. One day, a fight broke out over an enchanted top one of the parents brought in from Onieth. Your best friend at the time pushed the other child down, causing them to scrape their knees. Do you remember what you did?”
I shook my head. “I don’t remember anything from Kista.”
“Yes, of course you don’t.” He looked down. “I took those memories from you at some point.” He held up the stone, rubbing it between his thumb and index finger, then placed his hand on my wrist.
My head flashed with a thousand thoughts in a swirling tornado, but the dust settled as quickly as it came on.
“Do you remember Brandon? He was your friend at the castle.”
Brandon. The name rung a bell, then my head filled with images of the ginger-
haired child. Of rolling in mud with him, of twisting water snakes on our fingers and of having wishing bug races. Then the memory of the little toy top that magically kept spinning and Brandon shoving the girl away, having her fall and scraping her knee.
Brandon said she didn’t deserve the top.
And I had been so angry at him, I felt my magic form on my fingertips.
But my instinct wasn’t to douse him with a dose of pain. Instead, I turned my back on him, healing the girl I didn’t even know. When Brandon begged for my attention, I led the girl away, to the room where my father stayed.
“That’s how I first discovered my innate power,” I said, still lost in the memories.
My father nodded. “And ever since, I had tried to exploit it. It took a few memory wipes before you began to remember only the bad.”
My jaw clenched. “Why are you telling me this?”
My father shook his head. “Because, like you changed, so have I.”
I laughed. “I doubt it.”
“Like everything, only time will sort out the truth.” He stepped away, leaving me with Izzy.
“I’m sorry,” I said, turning to the lass I had once thought was so frail, but now only saw her inner strength shining through. “I’m messed up.”
She blew out a breath. “Me, too.” And a small smile grew on her lips that made me realize that we both might be a little bit messed up, but we both had the power to change that.
Like starting with getting Izzy’s health back.
Like helping Ruby.
But I’d need to face my mother, and if she wouldn’t take the spell off the books, I’d have to kill her. There was no other way. I had to save Izzy and Ruby, even if it meant sacrificing my own soul in the process, which would also mean losing Izzy, but if she lived a long healthy life because of it, it was a risk I’d take. I would just have to keep my agenda a secret.
“Any ideas for hunting down Mom?” I handed Izzy the business card Oliver gave me.
She flipped it over in her hand. “A quick google search would bring up her address. There’s not much privacy here these days.”
“And how do we do that?”
She stood up and took a few unsteady steps forward, but this time when I offered her my arm, she took it. “Pretty easy.” She descended the porch steps and stood out on the sidewalk. When the woman walking her dogs came close, Izzy intervened. “Excuse me,” she said, batting her eyelashes like they were her magical ability. “Could I use your phone to look up an address? We’re a bit lost.”
The woman nodded and handed over the most unique-looking phone I had ever seen. When I was a child, I had seen cellphones here, but they looked nothing like these modern, flat ones that were more like a palm-sized computer.
The dogs sniffed my legs, then sniffed the air to where Luna had been. She must have put some distance between her and the dogs that seemed to be able to sense dragons, even cloaked with invisibility. I scratched one of the furry beasts behind the ear. If I wasn’t a dragon guy, I’d get a dog. Sure, dogs were said to be man’s best friend, but whoever said that never had a dragon.
“Your mom lives about six blocks from here,” Izzy said, handing the phone back and thanking the woman. “That way.” Izzy pointed up the street.
The small pale blue house was modest. It was what I would have expected from the owner of a small bookstore and not that of an evil witch stealing the health from some and giving it to others, but I imagined she needed to keep up appearances.
As we stepped up to the porch, my father fell back.
“Coming?” I asked.
He shook his head. “If she sees me, it’ll complicate everything. We didn’t leave on good terms.”
“I thought she took off on you?”
“She did. After…I…well…I met Ruby’s mom.”
“So, after you tell me to face my demons, you’re not facing yours?”
He set his jaw, and I only whispered, Chicken, under my breath as I helped Izzy up the steps. I had been counting on him providing me with backup, but it looked like I was on my own. Here it went. I would take a lesson from Izzy in directness and try to get what I wanted without twisting the story first. Then if Izzy’s way didn’t work, I’d resort to my father’s way. Taking what I needed by sheer force.
Which meant my mother’s death.
And it would be worth it if it resulted in Ruby’s and Izzy’s lives.
At least that’s what I kept telling myself.
Things didn’t go well the last time my mother and I met, but this time would be different. I had one of her precious books, and I knew what she was doing. I would only leave once the curse was lifted. One way or another.
I rang the doorbell as Izzy clutched my side with her sweet, innocent face admiring me like I was something special. I was going to miss her when this was over. Either we got her health back, but she hated me for doing it, or I kept my morality and she lost her life.
And Ruby’s, too.
I really didn’t have a choice.
“What are you looking at?” Izzy said, wiping her face. “Do I have a dragon scale stuck to my cheek?”
I shook my head. “No. You’re perfect. I’m happy you insisted on having me break you out of the hospital.”
“So, you’re apologizing for refusing to and making me cling to Luna instead?”
“Yeah. I am saying that.” I leaned down and kissed her cheek.
“Well, Grey. I love you, too.” She blushed.
And the world dropped away from under my feet. “You…love me? We’ve only known each other for…a week. Days, really.”
She slapped my shoulder. “It was my flirtatious charm. Come on, you know what I mean. I just really appreciate everything you’ve done for me and are doing for me.”
She didn’t mean it. Didn’t love me. I mean, how could she? But the giddiness I felt inside when she said those words made me want her to love me. And I wanted to love her, too. What had my father said? Only time would sort out the truth.
And how did I get that time?
By being a better man.
My skin hummed with the magic I had loaded myself with from the moonstone, ready to give my mother a dose of pain until she reversed the spell put on Izzy and Ruby. Instead of concentrating on the magic, I let it go, flowing back into the air and into the moonstone.
Why did there have to be a fight?
Not every adventure needed that kind of climax.
As the front door moaned open, revealing a woman behind it, my heart pounded until the woman was in full sight.
But it wasn’t my mother who stood in the open doorway.
It was a woman I had seen in Mirror Lake’s reflection.
Izzy’s long-lost aunt.
Chapter 20
The tears flowed down both women’s faces the moment they set eyes on each other. Izzy stood on her own and crossed the distance between them, allowing their arms to encircle each other’s bodies tightly.
“My little Izzy. You’ve grown up.” Her aunt’s voice shook.
Izzy pulled away, wiping her eyes and taking my arm for support. “You’ve been here this whole time? Thirty minutes away from my home? And you left me there? Left me in the hospital?”
Then Izzy glanced down at the book I held in my hand and back at her aunt. “You stole my health! You…” Her eyes dashed between her aunt and me as if the pieces were beginning to weave themselves into a story. “Were you sick?”
“No, Izzy. No.” Her aunt took a step forward, but Izzy recoiled into my side. By now, my mother had stepped into the living room. “Come in. Sit down. There’s so much you don’t understand.”
I glared at my mother, who was watching me like a bird of prey watches a mouse. She inclined her head, offering me a seat. Why was she welcoming me now, when at the bookstore, she recoiled at the thought of me?
I shut the door behind us, leaving Luna outside to watch my father, and helped Izzy to sit beside me on the loveseat. Izzy’s aunt and my
mother sat down across from us on the sofa. I neatly laid the book down upon my lap.
“So, spill,” Izzy said. “How did I read that book and end up sick like at least a dozen other people?”
Izzy’s aunt glanced at my mom, who gave her a nod.
“You weren’t given that book to take your health or make you sick. You were given that book to heal you.”
Izzy shook her head. “That’s not true. I got sick while reading that book in the hospital.”
“But why were you in the hospital in the first place?”
“Antibiotics for pneumonia,” Izzy spat. “That wasn’t life-threatening.”
“But do you know why you got pneumonia?”
Izzy shook her head. Her face scrunched up, like there was something she should know but couldn’t place her finger on it.
Izzy’s aunt reached across the coffee table for Izzy’s hand, but she jerked away, snuggling deeply into my side.
Her aunt pushed her short, nearly black hair behind her ears. “You were diagnosed with childhood leukemia. You had pneumonia as a side effect of your immune system dysfunction. It’s also why you always had bruises and bone and joint pain.”
Izzy slowly nodded.
“Izzy. I gave you that book to heal you. Without it, you’d be dead by now.”
“Childhood leukemia is very curable,” Izzy said. “I know. I was friends with lots of children with that disease while in and out of the hospital.”
“Acute lymphocytic leukemia is curable, yes,” Izzy’s aunt said, twisting a ring on her finger, “but they said you had juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia, and because of the negligence of my sister and her dead-beat husband, we didn’t catch your disease early enough.” She wiped her eyes. “Liliana and I had just met. She offered me another option—outside of mortal medicine. Connected with our magical roots.”
Izzy’s voice shook. “Who had to die to help me?”
“Nobody died,” Izzy’s aunt said.
“That’s not true!” Izzy said. “The people who have been reading that book are dying.”
Tears formed in Izzy’s aunt’s eyes, and when I looked over to my mother, her eyes were wet as well, but she nodded.
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