Revelation (The Guardian Series Book 3)

by A. J. Messenger

  “What memories?” I ask warily, with a creeping feeling of alarm.

  “More feelings than actual memories … I don’t remember that time very clearly, to be honest. I hate hurting people and I stopped seeing him so abruptly when your father finally came around. I think I’ve tried to put it out of my mind, to be honest.” She sits down on one of the bar stools. “In fact, you know what? I’m not feeling so well now. I think I’ll go lay down for a minute … maybe I won’t go out tonight after all.”

  I send a text to Alexander as soon as I’ve finished making sure my mom is okay. I left her lying quietly with her eyes closed and a glass of water and a bottle of ibuprofen by her bedside. I don’t want her to hear me talking on the phone so I type out the words as a text and hit send.

  Alexander you have to come over

  His reply comes within seconds.

  What’s wrong?

  I tap out a quick response.

  It’s something about Malentus

  and my mom

  Within less than a second I hear a knock at the door downstairs that startles me and another text pops up.

  It’s me.

  At the door

  What? He must have traveled here by light. The fact that he was alarmed enough to do that worries me almost as much as finding out Malcolm and Malentus are one and the same. Alexander never travels by light unless we’re flying together. It makes him weaker and he says it’s reckless to do it in populated areas because people could see him suddenly appear and how would he explain it?

  I open the door to see Alexander looking almost as stricken as my mom was when she saw the sketch of Malentus. “What is it?” he asks as he steps inside.

  I motion for him to follow me through the kitchen and out the door into the garage. I close the door behind us so I can be sure my mom won’t overhear us.

  “Edwin drew me a sketch and my mom saw it and she said it was Malcolm,” I say, words tumbling out.

  “Wait, what happened?”

  I explain the whole story to him, about my mom and dad in college, and her dating Malcolm and how it ended badly and all the way up to Edwin drawing the sketch for me today of Malentus. Alexander’s face grows grimmer by the minute but in the end he doesn’t appear shocked, which is surprising.

  “Where is she now?” Alexander asks when I finish.

  “Upstairs,” I say. “Lying down. She said she wasn’t feeling well after she saw the sketch.”

  He nods soberly. “I understand why you asked Edwin to draw you that picture, but it wasn’t a good idea.”

  “Why?”

  “For one thing, because what you focus on you can draw to you.”

  “Just by drawing a sketch?”

  “Not just by drawing it but by looking at it, focusing on it—now you’ll be looking for Malentus everywhere. Seeking him out.”

  I feel a little sick to my stomach. He’s right, I did do that. Did I do the wrong thing by insisting Edwin show me a picture? I swallow hard. “What else?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You said, ‘for one thing.’ Why else was it a bad idea?”

  “Because of exactly what happened. Now your mum saw it.”

  My eyes narrow in confusion for a long beat as I absorb his words. “Did you know about this?” I ask, disbelieving.

  He meets my eyes but doesn’t answer.

  “Let’s go to my house to talk,” he says after a wretched stretch of silence.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “You knew?” I place my fingers on my temples with utter incredulity. I can’t wrap my head around what I think I’m realizing must be true. “You knew and you didn’t tell me?”

  “Declan, please,” Alexander says, “let’s go to my house to talk.”

  “And leave my mom here alone?” My head is spinning, I can’t believe he’s admitting it. He knew? He knew about a connection to my mom and Malentus? And he didn’t tell me?

  “Guardians are watching over her and the house.”

  “Why do we have to go someplace else?” I say, my voice rising with emotion. “Whatever you’re going to tell me, you can tell me right here, right now. Otherwise you can explain to me why we need to leave just so you can spell out exactly why you would keep secrets from me.”

  “Declan, I want to go to my house because I can see already that you’re getting, justifiably, upset about it.”

  “Upset?” I huff. “You better believe I’m upset. I’m six months pregnant and I just found out my fiancé has been keeping vital information from me about my mom and a monster!”

  “Declan, please,” he says, his eyes pain-filled and pleading. “Come with me. If for no other reason than the fact that what I’m about to tell you, trust me, you won’t want your mum to overhear.”

  He lowers his voice on the latter half of the sentence and the way he says the words steals the wind from my furious sails in an instant. I look at him, unable to speak for a moment.

  What could be worse than what I already found out?

  “Let’s go in the kitchen,” Alexander says when we get to his house. “Edwin’s there.”

  “Edwin knows, too?” The fist of betrayal in my stomach clenches tighter.

  When we enter the kitchen Edwin has his back turned and he’s stirring a cup of tea. “We have to tell Declan about her father,” Alexander states firmly as he walks in. “Right now. No more delaying. It’s time.” The sound of the metal spoon swirling against the sides of the ceramic cup stops abruptly.

  “You mean about my mom,” I say.

  “No,” Edwin says grimly as he turns around and looks at Alexander, “he means about your father.”

  I glance at Alexander questioningly.

  “We’d better sit down,” Edwin says, gesturing to the kitchen table. “Can I get you anything first?”

  My stomach is in knots and I feel faint. I just want them to spit it out. “No, just tell me. Please. Whatever it is.”

  Alexander pulls out a chair for me and we all sit down in our usual spots with Alexander next to me and Edwin across the table.

  “Mrs. Jane saw the sketch you drew,” Alexander says to Edwin. “She recognized Malentus as Malcolm, a man she dated briefly in college.”

  Edwin nods, silent for a long minute as he stares down at his hands on the table in front of him. “That would make sense.”

  “That’s what I thought, too,” Alexander says.

  “How does that make sense?” I ask as I watch their faces with equal parts horror, fear and mounting anger. “How does any of this make any sense at all?”

  Alexander turns to me in his chair and takes my hands in his. “Declan, I’m sorry about the way you’re finding this out.”

  “Finding what out?” My stomach sinks with dread.

  “There’s a reason you’re a sprite,” Alexander says quietly. “It’s because your father was a guardian.”

  I blink, unsure I heard him correctly. “My father was a guardian?” I turn to look at Edwin. Surely he can’t believe this, too. “But how can that be?”

  “He fell in love with your mum, like I did with you,” Alexander says. “He wanted to be with her.”

  I think back to my mom’s story about my dad resisting at first, insisting they could only be friends. “But I thought it never happened before?” My mind is racing, trying to piece together disparate information into some form, anything, that makes sense.

  “Guardians don’t speak of it,” Edwin interjects, “because of what happened.”

  “But why? How?” I ask. “And why wouldn’t you tell me my dad was a guardian? That’s a good thing. Right? So why wouldn’t you tell me?”

  Edwin and Alexander look at each other but don’t answer.

  “No,” I say, shaking my head determinedly. “This can’t be true. You said if a guardian fell in love and kissed a mortal they would be a fallen guardian and have to start over. And the mortal would die.”

  I look from one to the other but they still don’t answer. �
�My mom is clearly still alive,” I say with a disbelieving harrumph, “and my dad didn’t start over. He was my dad for ten years! Until he was killed because of Malentus.”

  “Your dad became a mortal,” Alexander says quietly.

  “What?” I look from Alexander to Edwin and back again waiting for them to tell me that this is all a bad joke, but neither one of them answer. “How is that even possible?”

  “He struck a deal,” Edwin says, “with Malentus.”

  “What?” The word emerges from my throat as barely a whisper because all the air has been punched from my lungs. My dad made a deal? With a dark angel?

  My eyes flick from Alexander to Edwin and back again as the implications sink in. “Are you saying he was a fallen guardian?” My heart freefalls through my center as I say the words. Now I understand why Alexander didn’t want to tell me.

  “Yes,” Alexander says, “but he did it to save your mum’s life.”

  “He gave all his power to Malentus, in exchange for becoming a mortal,” Edwin explains. “He didn’t join the dark guardians.”

  “But isn’t that just as bad?” I ask. “Giving all his power to the other side?”

  Edwin glances over at Alexander.

  “Malentus had your mother trapped in Nusquam. Your father struck the deal to save her.” I can see the anguish in Alexander’s eyes as he continues. “Having been in a similar situation, I can imagine struggling with that decision myself.”

  Edwin looks at him sharply. “It was not a good decision,” he says.

  Alexander returns his look with pointed disapproval.

  “But we understand the forces at work that caused him to make the decision he did,” Edwin adds, relenting somewhat.

  I think back to my mom’s story and her confusion about the time with Malentus. “Does my mom know all this?”

  Edwin shakes his head. “I’m sure one of the conditions was that she not remember. Has she said anything?”

  “She said her memories of Malcolm and how it all ended are fuzzy. She said she wanted to put it behind her. She started feeling sick when she saw the sketch … maybe on some level she was remembering.”

  “If her memory of Nusquam was erased, that would make sense. The feelings, but not the clear memories may have come back to her,” Edwin says.

  I nod, feeling ill myself. The memories I have of being in Nusquam and the hopelessness and the despair—filling me like thick, black, choking smoke—still haunt me in my sleep.

  “If Malentus was dating your mother, it would explain how he got her to agree to go with him,” Edwin says, “willingly.”

  I’m barely listening anymore. Memories of my dad rush over me. How my mom said he ‘sparkled’ the first time she ever saw him. How she said he looked like hell when he came to her finally and kissed her for the first time. Because he’d just given all his power away and become a mortal? How happy they were together, and so in love …. Other memories flood back, too, with new layers of meaning attached: how my dad always used to tell me people to avoid when I was little. How he told me I was special and that my anxiety was actually my superpower and someday I’d learn how to use it. ‘What you think of as a weakness is actually your greatest strength.’ At the time I thought it was the hokum of positive parenting that all moms and dads tell their kids to make them feel better. Did he know I was a sprite?

  “How am I a sprite if my dad became a mortal, though?” I ask. “He wasn’t a guardian anymore when he became my dad.”

  “Your father must have retained some remnants,” Edwin says. “You can clip a guardian’s wings, but they’ll still find a way to soar. It may be why Malentus targeted your father later, by influencing Burt Fields. Or perhaps Malentus couldn’t abide your father’s happiness in spite of giving up all his power—”

  “Or it could have just been a matter of a dark guardian skirting his end of the deal,” adds Alexander with disdain, “as they always do.”

  “So this is the second connection Avestan was talking about?” I ask.

  Alexander nods. “We think so.”

  “It may also be the reason Avestan came to San Mar and targeted you so quickly,” Edwin says. “Malentus may have suspected that you were a sprite and sent him to find out.”

  I turn to Alexander. “And you weren’t going to tell me any of this?”

  “Declan,” he says, his eyes filled with tortured regret, “I didn’t want to cause you anymore pain. Especially not after you just found out your father was murdered—I saw how much it hurt you.”

  “I asked Alexander to wait,” Edwin says.

  I look at them both. “You knew all along?”

  “No,” Alexander says, his eyes insistent. “I never lied to you. I didn’t know about the connection when you asked me about it before.”

  “How long have you known then?” I ask.

  “Not long,” Alexander says.

  “How long?” I repeat firmly.

  “About a month,” Alexander says quietly as he meets my eyes.

  I release the breath I was holding in. “You’ve known for a month? Since before winter break?”

  “I didn’t want to bring it up over the holidays,” Alexander says. He looks pained, sick even.

  I stand up and take a step back from the table. “You both told me you would tell me if you found out anything. And yet you’ve known for a month? And neither of you said a word?”

  “Declan, I—”

  “I don’t want to hear anymore,” I say, cutting Alexander off. “I trusted you … and you didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth ….” I look in his eyes, trying to convey the pain I feel, but when Alexander starts to stand I hold out my hand rigidly between us. “I need to be away from you for a while,” I say with hurt and disbelief permeating every molecule of my body. “I don’t know for how long. Maybe forever. I never thought I’d say this, but you betrayed me, Alexander. You betrayed my trust.”

  Alexander stands up but doesn’t move from the table. He looks torn, stricken. Edwin watches me turn to leave with deep sorrow in his eyes.

  “Don’t follow me,” I say over my shoulder with anger and sadness as I walk out the front door and slam it behind me, utterly heartsick.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I start to grasp the enormity of what I just learned when I get home and sink down into the couch. My dad was a guardian. A fallen guardian. He fell in love with my mom and struck a deal with the devil, basically, to save her. And save himself. He made sure he got something out of the deal, too—the chance to be a mortal with my mom.

  Can I blame him?

  If he had to give up his power, why shouldn’t he get something in return? And he only gave up his power to the dark side when his back was against the wall and he had no other choice. I remember the helplessness I felt when I saw Charlie suffering terribly in Nusquam. I would have done anything to save him. I imagine my dad must have felt the same way. He had to save my mom. And if he had to make a tortured decision, why not try to squeeze out as much of a happy outcome as possible? So he and my mom could at least be together, as mortals?

  The fact that I’m trying so hard to twist my thoughts into a pretzel to rationalize what my dad did tells me that something doesn’t feel quite right.

  I worshipped my dad. Envisioning him now in a less than one hundred percent positive light is disconcerting. It feels like a betrayal. My dad was a good man. He spent his life helping people at the law office with their cases. He did a lot of pro bono work, and he volunteered in the community.

  He loved my mom and he did what he had to do to save her. How can that be bad?

  The fact that he struck a deal with Malentus to be able to do it, and he gave his power to the dark side in the process, is something I can’t wrap my head around right now. Because I’m also feeling knocked off my axis from another betrayal: Alexander knew all this for over a month. And how much longer would he have kept it from me? If fate hadn’t intervened and my mom hadn’t seen the sketch that Ed
win drew? Was he going to wait until after I had the baby? Or maybe never?

  Where is my mom? The thought hits me like a brick suddenly and I feel a strong need to run upstairs and check on her. When I get to her room I breathe a heaving sigh of relief when I see her still lying on her bed with her eyes closed.

  “Mom?” I say softly.

  Her eyes flutter open. “Hi, honey,” she says, trying but failing to execute more than half a smile.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, just tired mostly. But don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

  “Can I bring you anything? Are you still going out with Mark tonight?”

  “No, I called him and told him I’m not feeling well. He offered to come over and bring me some soup but I told him I just need some rest.”

  I nod.

  “I’m fine, honey,” she adds, “but thanks for checking in on me.”

  “Oh, okay, I should let you sleep then,” I say, but I hesitate before closing the door.

  “Is there something on your mind, hon?” she asks.

  I don’t answer.

  She pats the empty side of the bed beside her. “Come over here and sit with your mom for a minute. I don’t have to sleep just yet. I’m just resting. Talk to me.”

  I swallow the lump in my throat and walk over to sit down on the bed next to her. There are so many things I want to tell her. So many things I want to ask her. It’s a very lonely feeling being with Alexander at times because I can’t ask for advice or talk about my worries in a normal way with the people I love. I can’t fully confide in Liz or Finn or my mom, and that means a big part of my life—an important part—is basically off limits to conversation. It’s a blessing and a curse, being with a guardian, because it means I can only hash things over with myself. And, unfortunately, endless rumination within the confines of my own brain isn’t the best way to gain perspective. Not to mention the fact that it can be maddening.

  If only my mom knew … maybe she does? Could my dad have told her the truth at some point during all the years they were together? Alexander once said that by revealing the guardians’ existence to me, he put me in added danger and that’s why he resisted. My heart tells me that my dad probably kept it to himself for that same reason … but what if he didn’t? The idea that my mom has been holding her secrets while I’ve been holding mine—each of us convinced that we could never reveal them to each other—would certainly be ironic, to say the least. I push aside my hurt and sadness over everything I learned tonight for a moment and decide to probe, tentatively.