Jee picked up his cup of coffee and took a sip. His eyes were thoughtful, pondering over what I’d said.
“You know it’s possible it is his ghost.”
“You don’t think I’m crazy?”
He shook his head. “When you have a protector, and a bond like you two have, it’s not a stretch to think even death can’t break it.”
“What do I do? Can I speak to him? Can I …” I tilted my head to his ear and whispered, “Can I bring him back?”
He got a faraway look. “The dead are better left that way. That kind of magic … Even the Iniquitous would be out of their minds to try something like that.”
I wrung my fingers together. “Do you know who my dad is?”
He nodded, looking toward the cabinets across from us. “Thaddeus,” he whispered. “I knew him once upon a time. Scary guy. Powerful, conniving, and ... brilliant.”
“You knew him?” I whispered.
He grinned, his smile almost predatory like a shark. “I’m not all enchanter, dear girl.”
I gulped. “What are you?” The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
Ethan clomped down the steps. “I want you three in the car in ten minutes.”
Jee tilted his head at me. “A story for another day.”
He slipped away and disappeared who knew where.
His easel had vanished from the living space a few days after we got here. I didn’t know where he’d hid it. I hadn’t found an extra room, but it didn’t mean anything, because magic.
I dumped my cereal and went upstairs to throw some clothes on and put my hair back in a sloppy ponytail.
The last thing I wanted to do today was this.
I couldn’t back out, though, not when I’d pushed for this.
Mostly, I was terrified of hearing Theo’s voice again—actually, it scared me more that I might not hear it.
Yesterday had been the first time in months I’d heard him.
I’d chalked the first time up to my imagination, but I was having a harder time letting go of yesterday. I’d heard him. I knew I had.
But was it him? Or my imagination playing the cruelest of tricks on me?
***
“Okay, I’m calling it a day,” Ethan announced.
I slumped onto the ground, exhausted. I was drained from using my magic.
Winston said the more I used it the stronger I’d get and the less draining it would be when we worked on spells. I was disappointed, though, since Theo and I had worked so hard before that I wasn’t stronger than I was. But I had to remind myself, I’d only come into my powers less than a year ago.
More than anything I was saddened I hadn’t heard Theo today.
Again, I began to doubt myself, to question whether or not it was my imagination.
Winston’s boots appeared in my field of vision and I lifted my head from the ground.
“You okay?” he asked, and I nodded. “You did good today.”
I huffed out a laugh.
“No, seriously, you did.”
“Thanks,” I muttered.
“You’re being too hard on yourself, you’re incredible. You got the summoning spell on the second try. Do you have any idea how long it took me to learn that one?”
I shook my head.
“Months.” He crouched down beside me. “I know you want to master everything in the blink of an eye but that’s not realistic.”
“You’re right,” I admitted, “but I still wish otherwise.”
He chuckled. “Don’t we always.”
Standing up straight he held out his hand to me and I took it.
“Thanks for working with me.”
He smiled. “You don’t need to thank me.”
“Yes, I do.”
Ethan clapped his hands together, calling our attention.
“I thought we could stop at a restaurant on the way back and get something to eat.”
“Really?” Adelaide beamed. “That’d be so nice.”
I nodded in agreement. It was hard being stuck in Jee’s apartment all the time. Getting out some was nice.
“We better start back to the car then.”
Adelaide looped her arm through mine, and the guys walked ahead of us. Winston kept looking back at us questioningly and I smiled to assure him I was okay.
“Did you hear him today?” she whispered.
“Adelaide,” I breathed. “Please, don’t go there.”
“It’s only a question,” she mumbled.
I sighed, knowing I wasn’t getting out of this. “No, I didn’t hear him.”
“You’re lying,” she growled.
I shook my head. “I wish I was.”
Tears pooled in her eyes. “It isn’t fair.”
“Nothing’s fair.” Trudging through the thick leaves, sticks, and clumps of snow that had begun to melt, I added, “We can’t get hung up on the unfairness. If we do we’ll drive ourselves insane.”
“I want someone to tell me it was a bad dream,” she confessed. “I want to wake up and for it to all go away.”
“Me too.”
I felt like I was missing half of myself, and I didn’t think I’d ever recover from it. I’d have to learn to live in a new way.
“Do you think he’s watching over us?” Her voice was soft. “Wherever he is?”
A snowflake swirled through the air and I answered without hesitation.
“Yes.”
***
We stopped at a local Italian restaurant. It was small, family-owned, with pictures of generations of owners and their families on the walls.
I swirled my pasta around and took a bite. Winston and Ethan joked about something and Adelaide sat sadly beside me.
She’d been down since our conversation in the woods. I didn’t know how to make it better, but I couldn’t lie to her and tell her I heard him when I didn’t. Giving her false hope wouldn’t be good, especially when the voice probably didn’t even exist.
Adelaide pushed her food around her plate, much like I’d done with my cereal this morning.
I hated seeing her like this. I missed the happy, sweet, bubbly person she’d been when I first met her. The person who’d been willing to defy orders to be my friend.
“Hey.” I knocked my shoulder against hers and she looked at me. “I don’t like seeing you like this.”
She frowned and exhaled a heavy breath. “Today’s … a bad day. Some days hurt more, you know?”
I knew exactly what she meant. “I know. You can talk to me. Only if you want.”
“Thanks.” She gave me a small smile.
I doubted she would, but I wanted her to have the option. I knew how I was, though, and I preferred to keep everything bottled inside. It wasn’t easy talking about your feelings—your hopes and fears.
Winston snagged a breadstick from the basket. “Come on, smile!” He pointed the breadstick at Adelaide and then me. “We’re out, we’re eating good food, and we’re with friends.”
I pressed my fingers to the corners of my lips and forced a smile. “Look at me, I’m smiling.”
He tossed a napkin, at me and I laughed, catching it before it landed on my shirt.
“That doesn’t count and you know it, Pryce.”
I threw the napkin back at him. “How about this?” This time I gave him a genuine smile—granted it was over exaggerated and cheesy but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“I’ll accept that.”
“Wise man,” I laughed. I picked up my fork and swirled more pasta around it.
“Your turn.” He turned his attention to Adelaide.
She rested her head in her hand and gave a small sad smile.
Winston frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“I miss my brother, that’s all.” She shrugged like it was no big deal.
Winston swallowed. “It’s okay to miss him.”
“I know, but missing him is hard. If I miss him it means he’s really gone. I know it’s been months, but I’m not re
ady to accept it.”
With only a few words she broke my heart.
I’d been so caught up with how I felt with his loss, I hadn’t stopped to think about her.
Of course, I knew she was hurting, he was her brother after all, but she’d kept herself more together than I had so somewhere along the way I started thinking she was okay with it.
But she’d lost her parents, and now him—she had no one left.
It wasn’t something you accepted over night.
Loss also had a way of sneaking up on you when you least expected it. You’d think you were doing fine, and then out of nowhere something would remind you of the person and you’d feel the loss all over again.
Winston reached across the table and placed his hand over hers. She looked up at him and they exchanged something in their glance before he cleared his throat and sat back.
“How are you guys doing with the training?” Winston asked Ethan.
Even though we were in the same field training, we didn’t really pay much attention to what Adelaide and Ethan were up to.
“She’s doing well.” Ethan smiled at her across the table. “I’m sure in a month’s time she’ll be exceptional.”
Adelaide’s cheeks heated with his praise. “Thank you,” she mumbled awkwardly.
I bumped her shoulder with mine. “Own it, rock star.”
She shook her head, unwilling to bask in the praise.
We finished eating and headed out and back to the car.
I lingered on the street a moment longer, letting the others get into the parked car. I looked up at the sky, at the sun shining between the foggy clouds.
“If you’re there,” I whispered, “if you’re listening, know I love you, and I’m so, so, sorry.”
The words didn’t feel good enough, but they were all I had.
“I did everything you wanted,” a shaky voice pleaded.
“Not everything.” The second voice I recognized instantly.
Thaddeus.
“She got away. It wasn’t my fault. I did everything—”
“Shut up, Finnley!”
Finnley? As in Finn?
“You were supposed to bring her to me and you didn’t! You failed your duty, you failed yourself, and most importantly, you failed me.”
My body glided through the shadows into the room. Moonlight shone through a window, lighting up the hunched figure on the floor.
Finn was a ghost of the man I knew. Gone was his handsomeness and boyish smile. He looked like he’d aged twenty years. He was too thin, and his face sagged, his eyes wrinkled around the corners.
“Failure is not an option,” Thaddeus continued to a kneeling Finn.
“I know, sir, but—”
“I don’t want to hear you grovel. Groveling is for weak, pathetic men. Is that you?”
“N-No, sir.”
“I trusted you to get the job done and you didn’t. I’m not in the habit of giving second chances—”
“Please, sir—”
“Shut up!” Thaddeus bellowed. “And listen to me. I’m giving you one more chance, but if you fail me you know what happens.” Thaddeus grazed his fingers over a sword hilt strapped to his side. “Prove to me you’re worth it.”
“I will, sir. I’ll do anything. Anything.”
Thaddeus grazed his fingers over Finn’s forehead. “I always wanted a son.”
“I’ll be your son. I’ll be—”
Thaddeus pulled his sword out in one swift movement and it arced through the air, right through Finn’s neck.
Finn’s face showed pure astonishment before his neck dropped from his body and rolled to the ground. Blood spurting from the stump left behind. The floor quickly turned scarlet.
“Are you watching, little one? I feel you there.”
He turned in a circle, surveying the room. His eyes landed on a spot on the wall and he spoke to it as if it was me. I breathed a sigh of relief that he didn’t actually know I was there.
“I thrive on the vulnerability, the begging, the pleading. It brings me joy to hold someone’s life in my hands, knowing I can sever their tie to Earth at any moment. Do you like it too?”
He clucked his tongue.
“Did you know you had a brother?”
I gasped softly and his gaze swiveled, settling close to where I stood.
Well, actually, I wasn’t standing. I wasn’t there. But I could see.
“He died before you were born. He was sick, and I wanted to save him. I wanted to do whatever it took to give my son his life, and it turned me into this.” He pounded a fist against his chest. “Monsters aren’t born, Mara. Monsters are made.”
He paced the length of the room, his boots tracking the bright red blood oozing from Finn’s body, but he didn’t seem to care.
“Then, when your mother discovered what I’d done to save your brother, she ran from me. From me. Her husband, her best friend, her partner. She abandoned me when I needed her most, but what I didn’t know at the time was she wasn’t running to save herself. She was running to save you.”
I gulped into the darkness, my heart pounding.
“She hid my child from me, because she was afraid I’d hurt you. I’d never hurt you, not my child. But you’ve got to stop running from me. We need to be a family again.”
I wanted to speak out, to ask him what happened to my brother. Whether he was dead or alive. What his name was. Something. But I was terrified if I spoke he’d find me and this would no longer be a dream.
I’d be trapped.
“Come to me, little one, because if you don’t …” he paused, clasping his hands behind his back as he stared out the window at the night sky. “You’ll lose everything you hold dear. I promise you that.”
***
I jolted awake with a scream, my body drenched in sweat.
Shoving my hair out of my eyes I looked beside me at Adelaide. She sat up, looking at me with questioning eyes. I could tell I’d frightened her, and she was probably still half asleep.
The door to our room burst open and on reflex I grabbed the dagger I kept hidden under my pillow, but it was only Winston and Theo.
No, not Theo.
Ethan.
I hated that for a split second my imagination had played tricks on me.
“What’s going on?” Ethan asked stiffly, surveying the room.
“Are you okay?” whispered Adelaide, touching her fingers softly to my arm.
I winced and she quickly retracted her hand. My skin was overly sensitive and her touch had felt like a thousand tiny needles searing me.
“I-It was a dream,” I stuttered. With a shake of my head I corrected, “A vision.”
“A vision?” Winston repeated. “Are you like Jee?”
“No, no, it’s not like that.” I shook my head. “It’s more like I see things as they’re happening, and it’s always with my … with Thaddeus. It’s like I’m connected to him in some way.”
“Connected?” Winston repeated. “How is that possible?” He looked at Ethan for answers.
Ethan shrugged. “She is his daughter. Anything is possible, I suppose. It could be a spell, or it could be because he’s chosen, her mother is, and so is she.”
“Do Chosen Ones not always have children who are chosen as well?”
“It’s very rare,” he admitted. “There hasn’t been one such as you, born of two, very powerful Chosen Ones, in hundreds of years.”
“So your parents aren’t chosen?” I asked Winston.
He shook his head. “No, they’re perfectly normal.”
“Chosen Ones are selected by … well, no one really knows, but something out there decides who is and why. That’s why it’s rare for Chosen Ones to also have chosen children. It’s not in your DNA it’s … given to you.”
I thought back to the manor and Jessamine who’d had chosen parents but was a perfectly normal enchanter, but yet because of her heritage the Iniquitous would still like to get their hands on her.
&
nbsp; “Do you think I’m in danger in these dreams? It’s like he can sense me. He knows I’m there but he can’t see me.”
Ethan worried his bottom lip between his teeth. “I don’t know,” he admitted.
That didn’t help me breathe any easier.
“What did you see in your dream?” he asked.
I swallowed thickly.
“It was Finn, he was talking to Finn. Finn said he did everything he asked, but Thaddeus said he didn’t. He didn’t get … me.” I squeaked, the thought terrifying if they got their hands on me like they wanted. “It sounded like Thaddeus was going to give him another chance, but then Finn said …” I paused, and decided to omit what I’d heard about a son and my possible brother. No one seemed to know about him and I thought it was better if I didn’t spill the beans. “He said something to make him mad, and he killed him. He’s dead.”
Ethan’s cheeks hollowed. “Blood hungry bastard,” he muttered. “And I can’t believe Finn, that back-stabbing asshole. He was my friend. I trusted him.”
“I think he’s how they got into the manor that night. Maybe even in New York too.”
Ethan scrubbed a hand over his face. “Try to get some sleep. I need to talk to Jee.”
“Hey, Ethan?” I hedged at the mention of Jee.
“Yeah?”
“Jee said he’s not completely enchanter. What else is he?”
Ethan raised a brow. “He told you that?”
I nodded.
Ethan sighed, fighting a smile. “I’ll let him tell you. Okay?” I nodded. “Night.”
He slipped out of the room, Winston following with one last look over his shoulder at us as he closed the door.
“Are you okay?” Adelaide asked again.
For once, I didn’t lie. “No.”
I began to cry. Seeing Finn murdered brought back the haunting memories of watching them kill Theo.
She wrapped her arms around me and we cried together.
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