Lizzie’s home.
Chapter Eight
Grace
We drove back to Hidden Cottage in complete silence. I stared out into the stormy night, grateful for the distraction of the howling winds and driving rain. The waves crashed against the coast with increasing ferocity as we neared the entrance to the house. Sam’s fingertips grazed the back of my hand and a swell of water burst over the coast wall and flooded the road, narrowly missing the back wheels of our four-wheel drive. Sam squeezed my fingers. “Grace?”
Sam’s touch dragged me from my turbulent musing. I raise my eyebrows, and he tipped his head toward the ocean. “Take it easy, okay? If you don’t calm down, you’ll draw the waves over every house in Clew Bay.”
“What?” I took a deep breath and made a concerted effort to disconnect myself from my magic. The gale force winds softened to a gentle breeze and a light drizzle of rain pattered against the windshield. I bit down on my lip. “Sorry, I didn’t realize.”
Sam stalled the engine just outside the cottage gates. He gripped the steering wheel tightly. “What are we going to say when we go inside?”
I dragged my fingernails across my forehead. “Nothing. Not yet.”
Sam frowned. “Grace, if Lizzie is working with the Elders—“
“I know, Sam. I know we do. But how can we decide who to trust in there now? What if all the Demons are in on it—Aza, Victor, Niamh.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Gabriel?”
“I still can’t believe it. I mean, Peter was always cagey, and Fergus was scum, but Lizzie?” Sam’s jaw tightened as he clenched his back teeth. “Niamh is her sister. That whole thing about hating each other—you think that was an act? To throw us off the scent?”
My brain felt as though it had swollen inside my skull. The desire to grab Sam’s hand and cast our golden net around the Shadow Children inside the cottage was overpowering. As if he could read my mind, Sam twisted to stare into my face. “We can’t just run, Grace. We have to figure this out.”
“I know.” I picked at my ragged fingernails. “I just don’t know how we’re supposed to do that, Sam. I feel like we’re always a step behind. I need some sort of a genius to tell me what the hell—”
My eyes scanned the front of the cottage and focused on the darkened window of the boys’ bedroom. Sam nodded at me in agreement, finishing my thought as he released the handbrake and eased the car up the driveway. “Brandon.”
Aza and her team were still buzzing around the control center when we slipped through the front door. I waved my bag at her before she could begin an interrogation. “Thanks, Aza, I got everything I needed. Just going to the bathroom now to freshen up. You know yourself, I am absolutely—”
Despite the tension, Sam could barely suppress his smirk as Aza cut me off and shooed me down the corridor. I said goodnight to Sam in my loudest voice as I closed the bathroom door, leaving it unlocked. Less than a minute later, Sam slid the door open a crack and crept into the room, dragging a dazed Brandon behind him.
Brandon ground his fists into his eyes and yawned. “Is there a reason we’re crowded into the restroom together in the middle of the night?”
“Sam and I went to Shadow Hall.” Brandon dropped his hands and stared into my face, suddenly wide-awake. His eyes sharpened as I continued to speak. “Emmanuel had one of the missing pages from the manuscript Jonah’s father made, he’d shown it to Sam before.”
“Emmanuel had a page of the monk’s book? One of the Irelands national treasures? And one that could reveal more about the Elder’s plans. That’s a coincidence.” Brandon dragged the last word out slowly.
Sam folded his arms across his body. “That’s not all—we felt a presence in the house, but when we tried to confront it, it disappeared.”
“It was in Peter’s old study,” I said. “All of his stuff had been emptied out of his desk drawers. There were letters—hundreds of them. We read through a few of them and they were about my family—Eve, Cat, Dawn, me—reporting on our where we were living, our movements, any signs of magical ability.”
Brandon straightened the waistband of his pajama bottoms. “So, Peter locating traces of Dawn’s energy at the Home-School group wasn’t a coincidence then? He already knew where you were?”
“Correct.” Sam’s eyes darkened.
Brandon shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “What are you holding back, guys?”
“The letters were from Lizzie, Brandon.” I winced as Brandon backed away from me. Of all the people who had supported us in the year since Peter revealed himself as our enemy, it had been Lizzie who had invested the most time helping Brandon to adjust to life on this side of the Veil. She had been his mentor, training him to use basic elemental magic and concealment charms with the aid of her home-made potions and encouraging him to appreciate is his own innate talents by providing him with a wealth of information about the hidden world to study. Pain and disbelief hardened on his face like a mask.
Brandon stared at the tiles on the opposite wall. “You’re certain the letters were written by Lizzie?”
Sam flinched. “We already knew Lizzie had been following Grace and her family—I’d seen her myself, plenty of times, before Grace knew anything about is the Shadow Children. It didn’t seem suspicious until now because Gabriel told us that Lizzie and some of the other Demons were looking over Eve’s family for him—”
“Show me the letters—you’re sure they’re addressed to Peter? Could it be correspondence intended for Gabriel that was intercepted and stolen by Peter or one of his minions?” Brandon thrust his hand forward, and Sam and I looked at each other and then down at the ground. Brandon gritted his teeth. “Tell me you brought the letters with you? You didn’t come back here with a heap of accusations and no evidence, right?”
“We brought the page of the manuscript.” I pulled the scroll from by bag and held it out. Brandon pursed his lips, and I dropped my hand limply against my side.
Sam took a step forward. “It’s not Grace’s fault. I wanted to leave immediately, I was afraid the Demon-Born intruder would come back with half the Elder Circle. We should have taken the letters. We’ll go back.”
I tilted my head to look at Sam. “It was an Angel.”
“What?” Sam twisted to face me.
The scroll made a crinkling noise as my finger tightened. I placed it gently on the windowsill. “The presence, Sam—it was an Angel. I told you that already.”
“Grace, I don’t want to fight with you.” Sam closed his mouth firmly but couldn’t hold his tongue. “It was a Demon-Born.”
Indignant rage sparked inside my chest, hot enough that I could almost smell it burning. “I’m the Seeker, Sam—that’s my gift. If I sensed and Angel, then there was an Angel.”
Brandon raised his two palms. “Maybe there was two people, guys.”
Sam and I both whipped our heads in his direction and growled in unison. “No!”
The fire of our disagreement was extinguished by an ice-cold voice calling my name from the other side of the bathroom door. My back stiffened. I grabbed the scroll and tucked it inside my jacket with clumsy fingers. Sam pushed Brandon toward the bathroom window. I flushed the toilet, for show, and closed the lid with force. “I’m coming, Aza.”
Brandon cracked the window open and slithered through the small opening with impressive ease. Sam caught my shoulders before he followed Brandon. His eyes stared down in into mine, and I felt my anger dissolving into a warm puddle of goo inside my stomach. Sam’s lips softened as they silently formed the word ‘sorry’. I bit my lip and nodded, melting against his chest as he leaned down to brush a kiss on my mouth.
Aza’s tapping had evolved into knocking. I shoved Sam toward the open window and ran the tap noisily while he slipped out into the night and snapped the window closed from outside. I dried my hands and unlocked the door, swinging it open with a flourish.
“Sorry, Aza, it was—” The words died on my tongue. Aza was flanked on eith
er side by a white-faced Eve and a sharp-eyed Cat. I opened my mouth, unsure what would emerge from my throat. Before I could give myself away with awkward lies, the sound of the backdoor opening slid through the cottage and Cain appeared at the end of the corridor holding Sam and Brandon by the shoulders.
Cat flicked her sky-blue glare from me to the boys as she folded her arms across her chest. “So, who wants to go first?”
“We can explain everything, Catherine. It’s not Grace’s fault, or Brandon’s. It’s mine.” Sam closed the distance between us as he spoke. Cat’s lips settled into a straight line, telling me she thought it was all Sam’s fault whether he took the blame or not.
Sam caught my jacket, glancing from my face to Brandon’s. “We need to tell them the truth guys.” He pulled my zipper all the way up to my neck, concealing the scroll from prying eyes. Brandon nodded slowly, and I tipped my head in agreement. We needed to tell the truth, just not all of it.
Chapter Nine
Grace
“Shouldn’t we be having this discussion in the restroom?” Eve’s spoon clinked against her coffee cup, and I stared down at my machine-brewed tea. “Apparently, a toilet bowl is the ideal centerpiece for a conference these days.”
Sam and Brandon both shifted awkwardly in their chairs, unsure of how to take Eve’s black humor. I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes and kept my focus on the door separating the kitchen from the control center. It swung open, and Aza strode into the room, depositing a large stack of letters onto the table. Cat and Cain followed her and settled themselves around the table. Aza pushed an envelope in Eve’s direction with stiff fingers.
“Kids were right. Found them on the floor of that old creep’s study. There were more in his writing bureau too.” Aza’s gruff tone did little to disguise the concern in her eyes.
Cat tugged at the end of her hair as she watched Eve reach for the pile of letters. “There has to be some explanation—why would Lizzie do this? Why would she have betrayed us to Peter and the Elders?”
Eve’s eyes widened as she ripped letter after letter from their envelopes. She stared across the table at myself and Cat. “Our every move.” She shook her head and unfolded another piece of paper. “For years! Peter and the Elders, they’ve known where we were for years. They could have taken us at any time. What were they waiting for?”
“What if none of it was an accident.” Brandon spoke slowly, only daring to glance at Eve. “You guys describe this Peter guy as a scientist, right?”
My brow creased. “Kind of? He was always taking notes and collecting information in his little notebooks.”
“Right, he’s a data man. I get that. So, Peter knew your location, but he didn’t retrieve you and bring you back to the sanctuary to join the other Demon-Born—there must have been a reason. Something he feared? Or maybe, he was waiting for something to happen?”
I eyed the pile of letters under Eve’s hands. “You think this might be fodder for some sort of observation project?”
Sam crossed his arms. “That’s how they work—biding their time, trying to figure out what will break you.”
Cat was on her feet before Sam could finish his train of thought. Her Spirit Blade burned with blinding ferocity as she leveled it at Aza. “The Elders never lost track of us, did they? Of Dawn and me? Cain and Sam? Lizzie was taking the information she gleamed from her dealings with Emmanuel about them and feeding it straight into the Elders mouths, wasn’t she?” Her lips were so pale it was hard to distinguish them from the rest of her skin. She pushed the blade, inching it toward Aza’s unmoving neck. “Did Emmanuel know what he was doing? Did he know Lizzie was a traitor?”
I could feel Sam and Brandon’s eyes on my jacket, but I couldn’t tear my stare away from Cat and Aza. The Demon’s voice was heavy. “I cannot tell you what the man knew, I met him rarely and only for the purpose of business.”
Cat’s hand trembled as she thrust her blade even closer to Aza’s throat “And you, Aza? Did you know about this? And Gabriel? Did Niamh know her sister was in league with the Elders?”
“I did not.” I whirled around to face Niamh, cursing myself for ignoring the sensation that had been pricking the base of my skull. Gabriel stood behind Niamh and stared at the scene in front of him. The violet of his irises was dull, as if the color had been bleached from them or faded with age. Niamh watched as Eve gathered the letters against her chest. Her voice was paper-thin. “You accuse my sister of treachery?”
Eve looked past Niamh and searched Gabriel’s face with her eyes. The air in the room shivered with barely contained magical energy. I tucked my hands under my thighs and crushed my lips together as Eve began to speak. “Gabriel, did you ask Lizzie to follow us—the girls and me?”
“I contacted Lizzie a couple of years ago, maybe three, and asked her to keep an eye on you from time to time. Things were getting tense in London. I wasn’t sure who I could trust anymore…” Gabriel’s voice faded into silence.
Aza glared at him with narrowed eyes. “Because you thought Niamh and I were in league with your enemies? You didn’t trust us to watch over your girls anymore.” Gabriel opened his mouth to respond, but Aza cut across him with a swipe of her wrist. “Well, looks like you chose the wrong sister to protect your girls, friend. She sent all the dirty little details straight to Peter. You offered them to him on a plate.”
I dug my fingertips into the underside of my thighs and tried to breathe evenly, but the intensity of emotion emanating from Niamh was overpowering. Eve ignored Aza’s comments and continued to stare at Gabriel. “Did you ask Lizzie to write to you about our movements? To pass the information on to Shadow Hall?”
“No!” Gabriel’s eyes flashed. “I would never have exposed you to the Shadow Children without your consent—I respected your right to choose to live independently. I only asked her to keep an eye on you from a distance. She never sent me letters. I wouldn’t have taken the risk, Eve. I wouldn’t.”
Eve’s shoulders dropped, and she massaged her forehead with her fingertips. “I believe you, Gabriel.”
Gabriel’s features softened a little. He lowered his gaze from Eve’s face onto the pile of letters clasped against her chest and his lips compressed into a thin line. Niamh shook her head as she watched him. “You’re wrong. It’s a mistake. Lizzie wouldn’t do that—she’s the good sister.”
I gasped and clenched my teeth together tightly. Despite her words, Niamh’s magic had come undone, and the air crackled wildly around my head. Sam reached out to grasped my arm, his face creased with concern, but I shook him off and tried to seal myself from the storm of emotions rolling through the kitchen.
Aza’s palms were pressed flat against the table top as she leaned forward. “Niamh, it’s been decades since you’d talked, you can’t say for sure—”
“Stop, Aza!” Niamh’s whisper cut the air like an icy breeze.
Aza set her jaw. “The timing was always strange, Niamh. Jonah’s library was ransacked less than a week after Lizzie kicked you out. If she was the one who stole his research, she could have known about the Elders—”
“Lizzie destroyed Jonah’s work?” Gabriel stared from Aza to Niamh. His face was white. “Why did you keep that from me? I trusted her. I trusted her with Clara’s daughter.”
Niamh looked even younger than usual she glanced in Eve’s direction. Clara’s daughter—it was hard for me to imagine Eve as anyone’s daughter, let alone Gabriel’s stepchild. Niamh’s lips trembled, and the shock of barely restrained magic snapped against my skin. “No. It was just a coincidence. The library. And these letters. Lizzie wouldn’t—she couldn’t…”
The sob that escaped Niamh’s mouth ruptured the last vestige of control she had over her magic. Sam threw his arm over my shoulder and I clung to him as we were ripped into her vision. Before my eyes could focus, the smell of fresh herbs and wildflowers told me the vision had transported us to the courtyard garden on Lizzie’s Castletown estate. The sun was warm on my face, and
the only sound that broke the silence was birdsong overhead.
The blow to my cheek came with such speed and force that it knocked me to the ground, and my head cracked against the base of the stone sundial. Warm blood trickled down my neck as Lizzie’s hands dragged me over the gravel and smashed my back against the wall. I tried to lift my hands to protect my face, but they hung limply by my side, too frail and slender to be my own limbs.
Lizzie wrapped her fingers around my throat and lifted me off the ground. “You ruined my life, Niamh. You selfish, spoiled, little bitch—you took everything from me. Everything. Because you wanted to impress some delusional kid you had a crush on. You robbed me of everything I loved—for nothing.”
“Please, Elizabeth, I didn’t know we would be trapped here—the darkness.” Lizzie’s fingers crushed my windpipe and strangled Niamh’s voice as it escaped my lips. I gasped for breath, but none came.
Lizzie pushed her face into mine. “Darkness? There is no darkness black enough for what you deserve. If you burn for the next two thousand years, you still won’t know the agony that I face every morning, knowing I have to endure another day without my baby boy.” Lizzie's voice cracked, and she spat on the ground at my feet. “There is no pain or suffering bad enough for what you deserve. You’re not my sister—you’re nothing.”
“Beth, let her go. This isn’t who you are.” Mathas appeared at Lizzie’s shoulder, a dark shadow behind her platinum waves. He stroked the back of her hand, and she released her grip on my neck. I sank to the ground against the blood-stained wall and watched her disappear into the house. As the vision faded, the courtyard fell silent again—save for the singing of birds on the wing.
The Demon-Born Trilogy: (Complete Paranormal Fantasy Series) Page 52