by Scott Tracey
As if a world full of crimes and horrors hadn’t been enough, there was the story of Jenna and me. She’d been born first, only a few hours before me. Both of us the children of Sherrod Daggett, the leader of Moonset. But only I, the legitimate child, bore his name.
Jenna’s mother had been Sherrod’s mistress. He might have loved my mother—every account confirmed this as fact—but Diana Bellamont had been his dark soul mate. She matched him, sin for sin—the co-conspirator for all of Moonset’s darkest acts. In the end, I guess he couldn’t resist the temptation.
“How galling do you think it was,” Meghan followed up, “when Diana gave birth before his wife?”
Most people looked down on us because we were the children of Moonset. But some took special care to demean Jenna and me in particular. As if it mattered to any of them that my father had cheated on my mother. That we cared when they called us the “white trash twins” as if that was somehow worse than our bloodline.
We bore the worst of it. Jenna and I were cut from the same cloth—thick dark hair, eyes so brown they were nearly black, and each the spitting image of our parents. In my case, Sherrod, and in hers a mix of the two. When we stood side by side, the resemblance was too strong to deny. It was obvious we were related.
There’d been confusion back when we were first recovered. We looked too similar, and we were so close, that they assumed we really were twins. My mother had been tall and pale, blond-haired and green-eyed. I didn’t look a thing like her.
As we got older, the resemblances grew more pronounced. It wasn’t as though I was Sherrod’s mirror image, but the resemblance was so strong it made people nervous. Another thing about my past I couldn’t help.
“Is that everything?” Jenna said, emphasizing the boredom in her tone. “Everyone’s heard about Moonset’s dirty laundry.” But the words bothered her, I knew they did. They always bothered us.
It was hard, knowing what my parents had been capable of. What they’d done. The legacy that had been left for the others and me. But still, on some level, I wanted to separate them. To split the Moonset side from the side that would have been Mom and Dad. Monsters can’t love, and everyone was agreed that the members of Moonset were monsters.
At least that’s how I felt sometimes.
“And then my mom was a terrible person who did lots of terrible things,” Jenna continued, exhaling. “She was weak, and she got killed. Gosh, doesn’t it bother me to know my mom was a weakling?” She straightened, and her voice turned harsh. “You can’t push my buttons, you twit.”
Meghan raised an eyebrow. No matter what we did, or how we reacted, she always seemed pleased. Like we were giving her exactly what she wanted.
“How has no one shoved a stake through your heart by now?” Jenna wondered.
Quinn’s lips twitched, betraying his feelings on the matter. “Ask your questions. Then politely get back on your broom and get the hell out of my house.”
Meghan tsked. “Language, darling.” She looked down at her tablet, and her pen started tapping out a rhythm all over again. “The pair of you need to be debriefed about what happened in Kentucky.”
I exhaled. “You’re kidding, right? You waited like two weeks to find out what happened?”
“Be fair, Justin,” Jenna said, “she spent most of that afternoon flat on her back. She probably needed all the time she could get to recover.”
Jenna was just as good at baiting as Meghan seemed to be. Maybe even better. Meghan’s hand clenched into a fist and disappeared under the sleeve of her coat. “Was that the first time you’ve come across a wraith?”
“Have you read our files?” Mal countered calmly.
“I’m the one asking the questions.”
“A question you already know the answer to.” Mal’s eyebrow rose slightly in challenge. “Next.”
Surprisingly, she moved on. “Did the wraith tell you why he’d come after you? What he wanted? Where he was planning to take you?”
Mal looked pointedly at me. Oh, right. I should probably answer since he hadn’t been there. “He didn’t say a whole lot. Called us Moonset, said Bridger sent—”
“—We have no proof that Cullen Bridger is even still alive, let alone plotting kidnappings or assassinations,” Meghan broke in immediately, talking over me. “At best, it’s hearsay. At worst, suggesting it is dangerously close to treason.”
My jaw dropped. “You’re kidding me, right?”
Meghan’s mask of indifference said that no, she wasn’t kidding. “The Congress is investigating the wraith as an isolated incident. One most likely engineered, accidentally of course, by someone on the scene.”
“Someone on the scene?” I asked. “You mean one of us? You think one of us called the wraith there? But you were there. You heard it! Both of you did! It said that Bridger sent it.”
Meghan’s voice became sharp. “There is no conspiracy of Moonset sympathizers. There is no underground rebellion. Cullen Bridger has most likely been dead for twenty years.”
“’Most likely?’” I said.
“So you’re just going to pretend nothing happened?” Mal demanded.
Jenna summed it up perfectly. “Are you fucking insane?”
Quinn, on the far side of the room, hadn’t moved since Meghan arrived, but now he reached up and scrubbed at his face. Unlike the three of us, he hadn’t shown any reaction at the insanity Meghan was spouting.
“You knew about this, didn’t you?” I asked him. It wasn’t like I trusted him—we barely knew each other so far. But it grated at me, having proof that he couldn’t be trusted.
“Justin … ” Quinn had that tone that adults used, when Jenna was being exasperating, or Cole ridiculous.
“I much prefer children when they are barely seen and never heard,” a new voice interrupted, neatly slicing through the mood of the room. The woman appeared almost out of nowhere, as though she’d pulled herself out of a secret door in the shadows.
“Me too,” Meghan jumped in, suddenly eager and cheerful.
The woman was tall and bone thin, her dark hair swept away from a gaunt face. She was old, but it was hard to pinpoint her age. Her face was lined from years of living, but the sheer intensity of her eyes suggested a woman in the prime of her life.
Oh shit. Oh shit.
“Yes,” she drawled, nodding her head as she looked down at me. A moment of understanding passed between us, and then her thin lips twisted, almost in a smile. She was amused. I was amusing.
Because I knew this woman. A woman who shouldn’t—couldn’t—be here right now. I took a step back, and then sank weakly down onto a chair.
Quinn cleared his throat. “This is Mrs. Bryer.”
Illana Bryer. She was the leader of the Fallingbrook Coven, one of the few Great Covens that had survived the Moonset war. But it hadn’t been without a cost: she’d lost a husband, a child, and both of her siblings to the conflict. Before Moonset, she had been a powerful witch, but in their wake she had become one of the most famous and influential witches alive.
She’d executed most of our parents herself.
And this was not our first meeting.
“I’d say it’s nice to see you again, Mr. Daggett, but we mustn’t sugarcoat things,” she said, with faint traces of an accent nearly cut from her words. Something European, or maybe Russian. “I believe we had a deal, did we not?”
Jenna stiffened at the introduction. She knew who Illana Bryer was. We all did. The classroom lessons about Moonset we’d had growing up featured her in a starring role. But even worse was the look on her face at Illana’s greeting. I’d never told any of them about my encounter with Illana, nor the threats she’d laid out so casually. “Justin?” There were so many demands and questions laced in my name, but I didn’t know what to say. She whirled on the older woman. “How do you know my brother?” she demanded.
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br /> “You don’t speak to her like that,” Meghan snapped, moving to come between them.
“Oh good, dramatics,” Illana sighed. “Quinn, be so kind as to escort Miss Virago and the boy to the door. I’d like to speak to the twins in private.”
Quinn looked like he wanted to argue, but he nodded his head stiffly and gestured to the others. Meghan spun on her heel and went without protest, but Mal was gearing up for a fight.
“We’ll be fine,” I said, and he eventually nodded.
Illana waited until the room cleared out and the front door closed before she answered Jenna’s question. “Everyone knows your brother,” she said, as pleasantly as a woman was called a “battle ax” as a compliment, could. “Just as they know you.”
Not everyone has the pleasure of having their family threatened by Illana Bryer, though. It had been almost a year since I’d seen her. I’d come home from school one day, Jenna staying late for detention or vandalism or the usual sort of thing that kept her after school.
Illana had been there waiting, alone. Waiting for me. I made it easy for her, once I realized who she was. One didn’t spend time in her presence without ending up drenched in sweat, brain sufficiently poked and prodded, and completely vulnerable and off balance. The woman was terrifying. And she had no problem telling me, in detail, about many of the warlocks she’d put to death.
She didn’t do small talk. She never stopped by for a quick chat over tea. Illana Bryer only interrogated. Only threatened and promised and brought all the horrifying parts of her legend to life.
I’d never told any of the others about her visit. I wasn’t sure why—fear? Shame? Maybe something else entirely. All I knew was that I showered as soon as she was gone and left the house rather than face any of the others. I’d ended up at the school, where I preceded to run the track around the football field until I literally dropped. Being so tired I could barely walk home had made it easier to push down, to repress.
But never fully forgotten. Illana’s return was proof of that.
“What’s going on, Justin?” Jenna demanded.
I could see her wheels spinning. I knew the places Jenna’s thoughts would take her, all the stories and lies that would spring up like seedlings in the garden of insecurities. I shook my head, finally mustering up a response. “No,” I said. No, I hadn’t betrayed the rest of them. No, I wasn’t secretly working for the leader of Fallingbrook. No, I hadn’t turned on her.
“Then what?” she snapped.
Illana smiled at me indulgently. For a woman of rages, she could do graceful as well as any politician. “Go on. Tell her.”
Was this fun for her? Coming in and tormenting people just to watch their reactions? I wouldn’t be surprised. “Remember how Mal was talking about the detention center thing?” Jenna nodded, and I continued. “It’s real. Illana said that if I can’t set some boundaries, and you keep … well, doing what you do, then they’re going to send us there.”
“So she’s had you spying on me?” Jenna spat.
“I’m not spying on you, you idiot!” How was it that Jenna could take a perfectly simple math problem like 2+2 and wind up with an answer equalling the square root of paranoid?
“Why you?” she continued, expression darkening in a way it only ever did when she fought with Mal. “I can’t believe you’d do this to me.”
“It’s not about you!”I’d almost forgotten my voice could get that loud. Red hazed in at the edges of my vision, and all the anger I’d bottled up over the year—whole shelves full of bottles—started to spill out. Too much had already happened today. “It’s about all of us, and what’s going to happen to us if you keep doing what you’re doing. So maybe stop being so damned self-absorbed for five minutes and think for once!”
Jenna took a step back like she’d been slapped. “Who do you think you are?” she asked. I wasn’t sure if the hurt look and tone were real, or a show for Illana. “No one elected you the boss of us all.”
“Someone has to be, Jenna. Didn’t you hear what I said? They want to ship us off to the middle of nowhere!”
“You should have told me. You should have told all of us.”
“All right, enough,” Illana said, hand pressed against her temple. “No one’s going to the Priory today. We realize that what happened in Kentucky wasn’t your fault.”
“Do you? Maybe you should have gotten here five minutes earlier, because Meghan never got that memo,” Jenna said. She stalked to the far side of the kitchen, putting as much room between the two of us as she could.
“There are different factions in the Congress,” Illana said carefully as Quinn walked back into the room, “and they rarely agree on what to order for lunch, let alone something as critical as a wraith attack.”
“So you believe in us and want to help protect us and everything is wonderful?” Jenna rolled her eyes. “I’ve heard all this before. Just because you’re famous for Diana and the others doesn’t impress me.”
“My world shall never recover,” Illana replied blithely, as if Jenna’s moods were something she dealt with every day.
I cleared my throat. “So if you’re not here to ship us off to juvenile detention, then why are you here?”
“I thought it was time we all met.” Illana took a seat at the table, carefully arranging the skirt of her dress.
The tightness in my chest was still unraveling, but Jenna looked unaffected. Stay, go, it made no difference to her. “What’s really going on here? And why are you here?” The leader of one of the Great Covens didn’t just pop in for a social call.
“Curiosity. Concern. Take your pick.”
I turned to Quinn. “She was the one on the phone, wasn’t she?”
Illana laughed, responding before Quinn could. “Of course. I expect my grandchildren to check in with me regularly.”
That bomb took awhile to clear. I kept looking between the two of them, Quinn and Illana, trying to find some similarity. Jenna just shook her head and smirked. Whatever she was thinking, it wasn’t good. She was probably already plotting her next expulsion-worthy event. It made me wonder, could you get expelled even before you were enrolled?
“Really?” Quinn asked. “Did you come here just to keep poking them with sticks? Because irritating or not, Meghan had that covered before you arrived.”
“She’s your grandmother. Illana Bryer. You’re related to her.” I was trying to put it into reference. If Quinn was her grandson, then that meant he was almost as infamous as the rest of us. Illana Bryer, the head of Fallingbrook, had married Robert Cooper, the head of Eventide, joining their two families twenty years ago. It was like the Kennedys marrying into the Vanderbilts.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I wanted to see them for myself. Remind the younger Daggett that I meant what I said, all those months ago.”
“And to terrorize them,” Quinn supplied.
Illana didn’t dignify that with a response. But the corner of her mouth definitely moved.
She was the only one who was amused though. Jenna crossed her arms in front of her. “I asked you a question. Either of you ready to stop lying and tell us what we’re doing here?”
The adults shared a look. The family. It was weird to think of Quinn being related to her. Was that why he was here? Not just to keep an eye on us, but to watch us for her?
“One of the more recent developments,” Illana began, “has suggested that we need to pay more attention to the lives you children are living.”
“ ‘We’ meaning the Congress, right?” Jenna questioned. “Have they decided to stop being cowards and start teaching us something useful?”
“Jenna!” There was a time and a place for airing your grievances, but in front of the world’s deadliest grandma wasn’t it.
Illana, however, didn’t look particularly offended, except by the decor in the kitchen. She turned up her nose at so
me of the “family”-themed wall hangings that had been put up before we arrived. “Quinn told me you’ve been … unhappy.”
“I was unhappy getting stuck in the middle of nowhere.” Jenna’s words were sharp, and her expression as dark as I’d ever seen it. “I’m pissed that we almost died, no thanks to any of you.”
Quinn cleared his throat.
“Not you, Quinn,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You’re perfection.”
His chest puffed out and he smirked a little. Clearly he was ignoring the sarcastic drip of Jenna’s words.
“When you can prove that you deserve to learn more, I’ll happily teach you myself,” Illana said. It was clear she thought that day would never come. None of us were under any illusions about that.
“So you’ll risk our lives in the meantime? Just to prove some stupid point about responsibility?” Jenna demanded. “You’re insane.”
“So you’ll risk their lives just to prove you don’t care to be responsible?” Illana fired back.
“So what does that mean?” I interrupted, hoping to stave off the Jenna rant that would eliminate any hope of good will on Illana’s part. “You said something about paying more attention to us?”
“It means exactly what I said. We need to pay more attention. So we will. I’ll be staying on in Carrow Mill, as will a few others.”
“You’re leaving D.C.?” Quinn asked, clearly surprised by this news. So maybe the family didn’t tell each other everything.
“Oh, great. More babysitters,” Jenna snapped.
“Just hear her out,” I tried.
“Are you kidding me, Justin? She’s one of them. We can’t trust her. We can’t trust either of them.” She brushed the hair out of her eyes, regarding me with something like genuine emotion. “You used to know whose side you were on.”
“I’m on the same side I’ve always been on,” I said.
“Yeah,” she said, dropping her eyes from mine. “I’m just starting to realize it’s not mine.” She stormed out of the room.
Illana waited, then rose to her feet. “Justin will see me out. Quinn, start looking into those theories for me. I want to know how many other surprises have been buried in the soil here.”