“It’s not your fault,” I say, reaching out for her hand. Hoping it isn’t too much. “Love is complicated and messy, and rarely do we ever get it right the first time.”
She turns. Laughs bitterly. “We married in secrets and divorced in secrets. He had laid with Sanura before ever being with me, just as I had laid with Wistar before I was ever with him.” She looks at me out of the corner of her eye. “It was one night, the night before we left to recruit for the Coven after we became the Divine, when our veins were full of power. I knew the night I laid with Mourdyn that what I had with him wasn’t love, but a shared ambition to see this Coven and this city come to fruition. But how could I tell him this when he constantly reminded me that our Coven was nothing without unity, and we were the key to that unity?
“He changed when we created this city,” she says, her tone darkening. “He boarded himself up in this room and morphed into a man with crippled visions and high expectations. When Cecilia and Garrick had their second child, he applied the pressure for us to produce one of our own. But how could I bring a child into a loveless marriage? How could I create one with him, when all I wanted to do was be with Wistar?”
She moves to the window, crossing her arms, hugging herself. “But when Mourdyn wants something, he gets it. He raped me. From that rape, a child was created.”
My hand flies up to my mouth. “Alesteria,” I say, standing up but not knowing what to do.
She turns and look at me, her eyes broken and pained. “I had a miscarriage shortly after the first and last time he ever physically hurt me. He never knew I carried his child, and it was Wistar who helped me deal with the shameful mix of emotions that followed. Grief, fear, relief… I felt them all, and only by allowing myself to finally see the truth was I able to leave him, but only after I found myself in the arms of Wistar once again. Only after I became pregnant with Wistar’s child.
“It is my fault. It is all our faults this hardship has come to our Coven. In wanting to create the perfect world where hunters and witches could thrive alongside one another, we, in turn, destroyed it by not following those very same principles.”
I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything. I just wrap my arms around her and hug her. We stand there for a while, the world shattered at our feet, trying to repair itself.
Ultimately, it was love that broke him, whether he knew what love meant or not.
She lets go and takes to putting things away again. A flurry of questions and thoughts flutter around my mind as we finish and then make our way out of the quiet room. Maybe he was resentful of love. Maybe, because he never truly felt it, his anger grew out of control. It could never be tamed. I think about Jaxen when we first met. How he was moody and unreachable and how, with a little love in his life, he was able to open up in ways I never thought possible. How it could have been so different if we never met.
How the curse would have taken him, and he would have willingly let it.
She pauses after we leave the room, her eyes wandering over the door as if it were a real person she was watching for signs. “You, uh, go on ahead and meet with Wistar.” Her voice is distant, words floating on a memory. “I’ve got a few things I need to take care of first.”
I leave her there and head to the training grounds, which are caged in by a tall metal fence behind the Military Compound. The pavement is warm from the sun, the scent of sweat and metal kicked up by the scarce breeze worming through the tight fit of buildings surrounding the yard like industrial trees, shading the outskirts. I scan the area for Weldon, knowing he should at least be here, but I don’t find him among any of the unfamiliar faces.
Weldon? I push to his mind, trying to see where he is. There’s a mental wall up between us, preventing me from even feeling what he’s feeling. I push hard against it, trying to get his attention.
Mouse, I’m kind of busy, he shoves back to my mind, his words clipped, harsh, and so very unlike him. I get a quick glimpse of white walls and panes of glass, and a set of hands pressed up against them, as if clawing to break free.
You’re at the correctional facility? I ask without thinking.
The mental wall goes back up at the mention and doesn’t budge. Something odd stirs in my stomach, like a snake writhing up from the depths. What could he possibly be doing there?
I think I know the answer, and I wish I had never asked the question.
“Faye, you made it,” I hear Wistar say behind me. If I stay with my back to him, just listening to him speak, I could imagine myself being somewhere far from here, in another time when people traveled in carriages and electricity was a modern marvel.
I spin around, plastering a smile to my face. He sticks his hand out, offering it for a shake, and I take it.
“I see you came alone,” he says, looking past me. For Weldon, I assume.
“My partner should be on his way,” I lie, looking to the left to avoid his eyes. Hoping he doesn’t see right through it. When I look back at him, it’s like he’s staring right through me, and I know he read my eyes as if the truth were written clear across my forehead.
“Never mind,” he says, stepping away from me. I fall in step with him as he walks to the center of the yard where a witch stands waiting next to a dummy, hands pressed neatly against his sides. “Your hunters are currently in a classroom with Sergeant Middleton to go over all the modern weaponry and tactics the Elites have picked up since our long sleep.”
I try to imagine my father teaching in a classroom and smile at the thought, thinking about when I was younger. He would take me out to the backyard when my mother was busy with cooking or shopping and teach me different fighting techniques, even though he knew my mother would disapprove. Anything he ever explained was easy to register. He had a way with his words that made you want to listen and automatically understand.
“Then they’re in good hands,” I say with a little pride in my voice.
Wistar smiles in my direction, and then stops once we’re in front of the witch. “I’ve asked Michael to meet us here today to help with your dilemma.” His smile is reassuring when he says this, and in no way judgmental. “I’m sure you’ve heard stories about us.” He poses this last statement almost as if he’s asking.
I nod.
“So then you know about the death of the Divine Owen, who was also my partner?”
I nod again, hoping he can’t see what Alesteria told me written on my face.
“Mourdyn took his life as a means to punish me for loving Alesteria.”
“And, in turn, it left you powerless because you lost your partner,” I say for him.
“No,” he says.
My face scrunches.
“That is what we wanted others to believe so they could identify with us. So they wouldn’t question the proclamation binding them to one another. But the truth is that a Divine’s power is singular. The same way it used to be before the Culling was started and the affinity bond was applied.” His smile fades a little, his eyes foggy with recollection. “My power… it left me because of the deep pain and responsibility I felt over losing Owen.” His words are hesitant as his head dips down, his eyes cast to the ground. “He died from my selfishness,” he says abruptly, the light in his tone buried under shadows I know all too well.
When he looks up at me, there are deep tunnels of pain in his eyes. I don’t ask him what happened. Don’t want him to relive it through words when he’s so clearly living it through memory.
“I couldn’t use volation after that,” he offers, almost shaking himself out of it. He stands taller. Takes in a long breath. “It took the birth of my daughter and the near loss of our Coven to the hands of Mourdyn and his Darkyns to awaken my magic once more.” He holds his palm out, blue energy crackling to life within its center, like an electric pulse beating to the rhythm of his heart. My hands itch with memory, blood racing with desire.
“We can find your powers once more, Faye,” he says as if it will be the easiest task in the world. H
e looks to Michael and tells him to turn the dummy into a Darkyn witch. When magic streams from Michael’s fingertips, breathing life into the dummy and changing its shape into that of a robed, hooded Darkyn, I’m instantly transported back to the academy in my mind. Back to when Jaxen and Gavin first trained me to become who I am today. When Jezi turned the dummy into a demon and tried to run me off the mat, teaching me in her own messed-up way that fear comes in all different packages—some angrier than others.
“Let’s start with something familiar to you,” Wistar says, pacing around me in a circle with his hands behind his back. The dummy stands in front of me, the masked beak on his face protruding like a claw ready to slice me. “Try to feel your magic within. Imagine the currents of electricity riding the storm of your thoughts.
I close my eyes and do as he says, recalling the phantom feeling of power coursing through my veins. The memory is so vivid that I half-expect volation to pulse within my outstretched palms when I open my eyes. But when I do, there’s nothing. Not a single drop of power.
My shoulders drop.
Wistar doesn’t seem bothered by it. He stops circling and adjusts his stance behind the witch. Whispers something into Michael’s ear. A second later, the dummy advances toward me, hands held out, fingers curled, ready to grab.
I jump back, trying to call my power to me, but still nothing. The dummy keeps heading toward me. This time, magic sparks off the tips of its fingers. I know if I don’t do something soon, Wistar will command the witch to kick it up a notch. But I also know the dummy isn’t real. I can stop this simulation at any time just by hitting the dummy at the right angle on the neck where the off switch is.
I smell the magic before I see it leaping off the tips of the dummy’s fingers. A spell hive drops at my feet and explodes, but I’ve already leapt to the side, rolling when my body hits the ground. I’m back on my feet, crouched and ready for whatever else Wistar tells the witch to throw at me.
Still, no magic.
This continues for ten minutes, every one ticking by, boxing me in until I can’t breathe. Ten minutes of me running and spells either zooming past me or clipping me in the side or the legs. Ten minutes of an unraveling of disappointment latching onto my emotions like a virus. Wistar shouts at me, each time a little more clipped, reserved. Pushing and prodding. Poking at every hole in my resolve that he can. The fiery center within me burns, stirring, until it erupts into frustration, spewing through my veins like lava.
“Enough!” I shout when the spell meant to sting me hits me in the side. I hunch over, trying to catch my breath as a bead of sweat rolls down the length of my nose. I watch it fall to the concrete, sizzling out.
“I don’t recall saying it was enough,” Wistar says, watching me closely.
“I… there’s nothing, Wistar. Not even a faintness of power,” I admit on an exhale.
He watches me for a moment, as if trying to form the right words to say. “It is there, Faye. You only have to want to find it.”
I know I shouldn’t take it out on him. I knew this wouldn’t be easy. But I can’t stop myself when I yell, “Don’t you get it? I do want to find it. I just don’t feel it, okay?”
My chest heaves up and down, flames licking through my blood as I wait, wishing I could backtrack and erase the words from his mind.
Wistar’s eyes narrow, shadows growing again as he stops in front of me. Every inch of me wants to back away, but I stand firm, waiting, refusing to cower.
“I’m only going to say this once,” he says, the light in his eyes edged with scolding. “You’re a weapon, Faye, and weapons don’t have feelings.”
“Did someone say something about feelings?” Weldon calls out behind me, laughter trailing on the edges of his words like always.
I crack my fingers at my sides, wanting to strangle him for being late.
“I see you’ve decided to join your partner,” Wistar says, his direct gaze enough to stop a man in his tracks.
“I’m sorry, mouse,” Weldon tosses in my direction. “I was caught up.”
“With?” Wistar asks, stealing the question right from me.
I watch Weldon as he stumbles over an answer, unsettling me with his hesitation. “I… uh… was helping a friend out with something personal. You know, the kind of thing you don’t go around telling everyone about.”
Wistar doesn’t move as he watches Weldon. “No. I don’t know what thing you’re referring to.”
Weldon rubs his hand up and down the back of his neck. “It’s just a thing. Not important.” He points to the deactivated dummy. “So, what do we have going on here? Because I can tell you now it isn’t going to work. Faye is a little on the learn-by-action side of things. She needs to be pushed. A dummy won’t cut it.”
Wistar folds his arms across his chest. “And just what will ‘cut it’?”
Weldon looks to me, and I purse my lips, all but yelling through my eyes at him to shut up. He doesn’t listen, of course. “A real hunt would probably do the trick. It’s worked every other time she stubbornly held onto her powers.”
I exhale loudly.
Wistar seems to stew on this for a moment, and then he turns and dismisses Michael. Once Michael is gone, he turns back to us. “There will be teams of Elites heading out tonight to help deal with some of the issues we’re facing with paranormal attacks. I want you both suited up and ready to head out with them.”
Color drains from my face. “And if my powers don’t come back?”
Wistar’s features are unforgiving. Hard like stone. “Don’t let that be the case. Besides, you’ll have your hunters with you.”
He turns and leaves us standing there. It takes me a second to breathe through my thoughts. To convince myself that strangling Weldon right here in the open wouldn’t be in my favor.
“You’re welcome,” Weldon says a moment later.
I spin so fast on him he takes a step back.
“Whoa, mouse. Whatever you’re thinking—”
“That you’re an idiot? Sorry, that ship sailed,” I say, my stomach clenching like a fist. “You’re like… you’re like an annoying big brother I want to punch.”
He opens his arms, a grin stretching from ear to ear. “Punch away, little sister.”
Heat builds behind my face, spreading down my neck in a wave. “I’m not kidding!”
“Neither am I,” he says, his smile dropping. “Look, I’m on your side, okay?”
I cross my arms. “Really? Is that why you shut me out during your little visit to the correctional facility?”
His eyes close off in an instant.
“Oh. I guess you’re not that much on my side then, right? Not enough to tell me what you were up to?”
His tongue presses against his cheek as he looks away from me.
“Is it Claire? Did you make up with her? Are you trying to faze me out of this partnership?” I ask, wishing my fears wouldn’t so easily pour out of me. “And who are you visiting? Charlie? Someone else I don’t know about?”
“No. I mean, yes, Claire wants a partner, but not me.” His eyes avoid mine.
“Who?”
“Meredith. They’ve asked if they could remain a team since they know each other so well.” He won’t look at me, and I feel like I’ve been kicked in the gut.
“Weldon—”
“It’s cool,” he says with a quick wave of his hand. “We should get going. I’m sure Jaxen will need some priming to accept you going out there without powers yet.”
I nod, seeing where we stand now. “Fine,” I say, walking away from him without another word. If he wants to shut me out, so be it.
LATER THAT NIGHT, WE PILE into the war room for briefing before the teams of Elites are broken up and sent out. Everyone from Jaxen, Jezi, and Gavin, to Evangeline and her crew of wolves are here, some in chairs circled around the table and others standing up against the wall, waiting for the Divine to arrive so our meeting can begin.
On the wall to my left, screens
are filled with faces I’ve never seen before. Faces of Elders from all over our nation called in on this meeting for the sake of this Coven. The tension is so thick you could almost reach out and touch it.
“Water, anyone?” Seamus asks, holding up a sweating pitcher brought in by a witch.
Everyone shakes their head.
Seamus pours himself a glass as I tap my fingernails against the table, refusing to look in Weldon’s direction. He’s been staring at me for the past ten minutes, trying to get me to look his way across the table, but I don’t budge. Jaxen’s hands are still in fists as he openly stares at Weldon. He wasn’t happy about me going out, but he didn’t fight me on it like he would have before.
We’re past that point in the game.
The doors slide open behind us. I turn to watch Wistar, Alesteria, Cecilia, and Garrick file into the room, taking their stand between Seamus and Mack in front.
“Good evening, everyone,” Wistar says, eyes scanning the room in welcome. “We’ve called you in under the recommendation of High Priest Maddock and Seamus. It seems you are highly qualified having been the closest with the Everlasting these past couple of years.” He angles to the wall of screens. “As for you, this outbreak of crisis affects all of us. Mourdyn’s appetite will spread from city to city until there are none of us left. It is imperative that you protect the Watchmen under your guard, for they are all we have left.”
Evermore (The Night Watchmen Series Book 5) Page 10