The last twenty-four hours felt like a lifetime. I was almost lured to Kamon, my insane mother had read my mind, and my boyfriend was now gone. Even after all of that, the only thing on my mind as I lay in bed was that there was obviously more than one way to sedate a hunter. I hadn’t taken the potion, but I was about as powerful as a toenail.
And today, when all I wanted to do was run away and find Nate, I needed to be more powerful than a toenail.
Sophia gave me a torn out piece of notebook paper with six words scribbled on it.
I’m sorry. I love you. Goodbye.
“It’s from Nathan,” she said.
Problem was–besides the fact that Nathan would never say goodbye to me like that–it wasn’t his handwriting. It looked like hers but skinnier and smaller. Like she was trying to write like a boy. Nathan didn’t write like a boy. His handwriting was more circular than straight, and he always wrote in cursive. He had perfect penmanship.
“I’m not stupid,” I said. “This isn’t from him.”
“Ah, ha,” she said. “So you can talk?”
“Is that why you gave me this? So I’d talk to you?” She took that as an invitation to join me in bed. I hadn’t spoken a word all day. Mostly because my father thought the moment I woke up without Nathan in my life was the perfect opportunity to inform me that I wasn’t allowed to date him or talk about him or think about him ever again. So since we weren’t talking about Nate, I didn’t want to talk about anything.
Dad was calling it abuse. He’d said, to quote him, I was in a dangerous and abusive relationship. He didn’t understand that Nathan was stressed and what that meant for shifters. He didn’t understand anything but my broken wrist.
“You’re right,” she said. “He didn’t write it, but it is something he would say right now. He wouldn’t want you to be isolating yourself like this. Or making us sedate you. We, including Nathan, want you to get up and start healing from this, take the potion on your own again, and get back to normal.”
Normal? That was a hilarious word now. Until Nathan came back, nothing would be normal, or even mimic normal, ever again.
“Where is he?” I asked, since I was apparently talking to Sophia now.
“He’s fine. Your mother calmed down. Like I said before, he’ll need to be detained. That’s all I can tell-”
Dad walked through the door and Sophia clammed up. I, on the other hand, was tired of being silent.
“I want to know what detained means to her,” I said.
“And I want you to go to bed,” Dad said. “You haven’t slept in almost twenty-four hours, kid.”
“Is he in jail? Is he alone? Is he hurt?” I asked.
“Christine,” Dad said. “No more questions. You two are broken up. You don’t need to know where he is. I’ve had enough. You’ve spent the entire day staring at the wall, missing your abus-”
“Don’t!” I screamed. “Don’t call him that.”
“I will call him whatever I want,” he said. “I’m not going to sit back and let things happen to you anymore. I’m your dad. I don’t care if we just met. I don’t care if you’re thinking I don’t have the right to do this. I do! And I’m not going to back off until you’re safe from everything and everyone who can hurt you.”
He had tears in his eyes. I couldn’t let that soften me.
“I didn’t say you didn’t have the right, Dad. I’m saying that you’re wrong about Nate, and if I could just please talk to him, we can clear this up for you.”
“He doesn’t want to talk to you, love,” Sophia said.
I knew that couldn’t be true, so I ignored her.
“Maybe we could all sit down and discuss this,” I said. “We can have another meeting. I can be mature about this. I just really want to–need to–talk to him.”
“I’m not meeting with him,” Dad said. “You’re not either. You will have to talk to him over my dead body.”
And there it was again–the heartbreaking reality of my life. My parents and my happiness didn’t mix. They repelled like oil and water, making it impossible for me to have it all. There would always be a choice. There would always be a void. But I couldn’t let that void be Nathan.
I had to find him, and whatever would happen with my parents because of that would just have to happen. I loved them, I really did, but I’d already risked my relationship and felt what it was like to lose Nate, and that couldn’t be my life. It wouldn’t be my life.
Luckily, I had the power, buried deep inside of me, to do something about it.
Before now, every time I’d thought about using my powers, I’d felt like I was suffocating, drowning, or falling through the portal. The thought of what I did would eclipse everything else, but that was how big Nathan Reece was to me. He was bigger than portals and millions of people dying at my hands. He was big enough to make me see that my powers weren’t the enemy. They were the solution, and there was only one person I knew who would understand.
“I’m going to bed,” I said, just to get Sophia to leave and get my father off of my back. She kissed my cheek and apologized softly in my ear. She disappeared as my head hit the pillow and left me alone with my overprotective father.
“Honey,” he said. “I know I’m not your favorite person right now, but you know I love you.” I didn’t respond. I didn’t want to fight with him, but I couldn’t pretend everything was okay. Like he’d said, I knew he loved me, but currently that was the problem. I needed him to love me a little less and step away and see this situation for what it really was. An accident. A horrible, unfortunate, heartbreaking accident. “I’ll be right here in this chair all night. If you need me or want to talk or …”
He gave up on his statement and plopped down in the chair he’d set up next to my bed. He lived in that chair now.
So now we wait, I said to myself.
I fought with my eyelids to be the last one standing for the night. After a few minutes, he reclined the chair and put headphones over his ears. He hummed along to whatever song he was listening to. Evil man. I needed him to fall asleep, not lure me there.
He yawned and turned over to his side, balancing his phone on the arm of the chair.
That’s it. Go to sleep.
I watched his eyes close as mine closed too. My head was pounding. The second thing I needed most in life was sleep, but the first was Nathan.
When his arm fell over the side of the chair and just dangled there, I knew I had him. I crept out of bed and tiptoed to him. I’d seen him with my phone, answering calls from Em and Paul, and guarding it like it was my passport to Nathan. I hoped it would be. Gently, I patted his pockets, but didn’t feel it in there.
As quietly as I could, I searched every drawer and countertop in my room. Then I searched his jacket that was hanging on the back of the chair.
“What did he do with it?” I whispered.
I rolled my eyes. If I hadn’t insisted on being powerless, I would’ve been able to answer that question and locate the phone and possibly Nathan with very little effort.
Just before I crawled in bed and gave up, I saw my laptop on the table next to Dad. Perfect. I didn’t need a phone. The person I needed to speak to had emailed me every day for the past two months.
I quietly kneeled next to the table and opened the laptop. The small movement rattled the ice in his glass. I paused, my breath trapped in my chest, and waited for him to wake up. He didn’t, so I proceeded to open my last email from Gregory. My heart pounded harder as I clicked REPLY.
I think I’m ready to talk about power now. Please email me back. Or come over. Please, Gregory. -Christine
I waited for a reply and watched my father sleep. After a few terrible minutes, with my head growing heavier with each passing second, I deleted the evidence of my email and got in bed.
I dreamed I was in a pool with Nathan. He kept pushing my head under. I knew it was playful, so I laughed, but my family and friends stood around the ledge of the pool with their arms crossed over their chests, judging him and calling him something he wasn’t. An abusive boyfriend.
I grabbed his hand, and we swam to the bottom of the pool to get away from them. We knew we couldn’t stay under there forever, but we held our breaths as long as we could.
“She doesn’t have to move,” Mom said. Her voice echoed down to where we were. Bubbles blasted out of both of our noses and floated to the surface. “Why are you fighting everything I say?”
Just as we ran out of air, I woke up. My parents were standing in the doorway, half in the hall, half in my room. I wished I were in the pool in real life with Nate. Even suffocating was better than being stuck here without my boyfriend and listening to them fight.
“I don’t know, Lydia, why am I fighting everything you say?” Dad said. “Could it be that you stole my kid? You know … that little thing you did.”
She raked her fingers through her hair and held her hands there like she was going to pull a few chunks out. “I told you that I’m sorry, but what am I supposed to do when my apology isn’t good enough?”
“You aren’t supposed to be in situations like this to begin with. I can’t believe you want me to feel sorry for you!”
“I don’t! I swear I don’t. I want to come and see my kid without having to clash with you. I don’t know how to deal with this. We never used to fight, so I have no clue how to do this with you.”
“We never used to fight because I never disagreed with you. I let you do whatever you wanted, and look where that got me.”
“Alive! Why can’t you see that? You’re so focused on being mad at me that you don’t even see what I did. And guess what, Gavin, I would do it again! Right now! Over and over. I’m sorry that hurts you.”
“I’m not hurt because you can’t hurt me!” He stepped closer to her with his jaw and fists clenched. I was two seconds from getting up and telling him that Nathan would never look at me like that. I guessed we could call Dad abusive now, since we were throwing the term around so loosely. “Like I said. She’s moving, and you don’t have a say in this.”
“She’s safe here,” Mom said. “She can’t move in with you. They know where your house is. Magic will only protect you two so much.”
“Then I’ll take her to my other home,” he said. It was quiet for so long, I’d thought they’d given up on the conversation altogether. Then he said, “In Puerto Rico.”
“You … still, you … still, um … have that place?” Mom struggled.
“I really hate how you ask questions about things you already know the answer to!” Dad said. “Like I don’t know you’re psychic. It annoys the hell out of me. So since you’re playing dumb, yes, I still have that place. And I’m moving her there whether you like it or not.”
Since they were arguing about me moving somewhere else, apparently to Puerto Rico, I assumed Trenton was over. Just two days too late.
“It’s not about what I like,” she said. “It’s about what makes her safe.”
Dad mumbled at first, then repeated himself louder. “Just say you don’t trust me with her.”
I was about to sit up and break up the fight until I remembered it wasn’t my job anymore. I’d let being their referee and their personal cheerleader distract me from Nate hurting himself, and now he was gone. They could fight all they wanted to now.
“I can’t do this with you,” she said. “I just want to lay with her. I have twenty minutes before my next meeting, and all I-”
“Just say you don’t trust me with her,” he repeated. “Say it to my face. Say you think I’m weak. Say you think, and that you’ve always thought, she isn’t safe with me. You’d rather send her to live with strangers than me. You would’ve probably left her with your old pal Julian before leaving her with me, right?”
Ouch. He’d hit way below the belt with that one.
“Wow,” she said. Her voice was low and sad. It almost made me want to hug her. “Is that really what you think?”
Dad groaned and walked away, then right back to her. “You’re doing it again. You know what I’m thinking. Stop pretending.”
“I’m not listening to your thoughts, Gavin. Christopher. Whatever. I have no idea what’s going on in your head. I don’t watch you. I don’t read you. I don’t use my powers with you at all, for all of these years. It kills me to even think about you. But … you don’t care, right? Because I’m the bad guy and everything is my fault. So I’m not allowed to have feelings. I’m not allowed to wonder how the hell you could stay away from me. I’m not allowed to say I still love you, and I’m crushed that you spent years-”
Dad kissed her. Really kissed her. It was this abrupt, forceful thing that I couldn’t look away from. Two planes crashing at the same time. I blinked a few times to make sure I was awake. I was.
It took her a few seconds to realize what was happening, and when she did, they kissed like the world depended on them kissing. It was the strangest thing I’d ever seen. I covered my mouth so I wouldn’t scream and ruin the moment. It was impossible to decipher if they were kissing from love or hate or some awful mix of the two. It was the complete opposite of every kiss I’d ever had with Nate. We had easy kisses, sweet and filled with uncomplicated love. Their kiss was more than complicated.
It didn’t get gross until Mom lost her balance and Dad pulled her closer while still attacking her face.
He pulled away first and pressed his forehead against hers.
“That was a mistake,” he said. “It won’t happen again.”
“Okay,” she breathed.
“And you’re going to agree with me moving her to Puerto Rico and keeping that creep away from her.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t talk to her about him. Respect my wishes.”
“Okay.”
Mom looked drunk, and Dad was manipulating her into going along with his wishes. It looked like I didn’t have a chance in hell to win her over and beg her to bring me to Nate. God, I hoped Gregory had gotten my email. My powers were my only hope.
“Just,” Mom said, their lips still inches apart. “…give Sophia some time to protect the new place. Old place. Whatever you’re calling it. Can you give her a few days?”
“Okay,” he said.
He finally backed away, and they both rubbed their lips. Dad left the room, and she kicked her shoes off and climbed in bed. She lay there for the remaining minutes before her meeting, rubbing my hair, as I continued to pretend to sleep.
Later that day, after hours of sitting in bed and hoping Gregory would come or I’d get another chance to check my email, my bedroom door opened. For once, it wasn’t Sophia.
Emma walked in and tossed a huge purse on my bed. Without speaking to me, she walked to my dad and handed him her phone. “As promised,” she said.
“Thank you, Emma. I trust that you understand why I have to watch you two.”
“Of course. I brought my laptop. I’m hoping that’s okay. Nathan doesn’t have email or anything. I promise.”
He nodded, allowing the laptop, and Emma finally looked at me.
“Good lord, look at your eyebrows!” she said. “You’re in serious need of me, young lady.”
I laughed and tackled her as soon as she hopped on my bed. Emma would understand what I was going through better than anyone else. I finally had someone to talk to and scheme with.
But of course Sheriff Dad didn’t leave.
She opened her laptop and turned on music. It was the same song she used to blast in her room all the time. She’d called it a classic, something that was in when we were kids. But in my world, when I was young, hymns were in.
“Paul sends his love,” she said.
“Where is he?”
“At home. You know who and Paul were secretly dating. He’s not taking his disappearance well.”
“You know who and I are in love. I’m also not taking it well.”
Dad cleared his throat and said, “Change the subject.”
Emma winked and opened a blank document on her screen.
Why didn’t you tell us about Nathan? She typed.
I replied: Sorry. I was afraid.
She squeezed my hand. I thought we were going to continue our secret conversation about Nate, but she typed: Gregory sent me.
????
Sophia’s in Sydney with your mother. He’ll be here soon.
!!!!!!
First, I have to knock your father out.
!!!!!!!!!!
When I say your name, go sit on his lap.
She closed the laptop before I could react and pulled a vial of blue powder out of her pocket. She dumped the contents into her hand and traced a five-point star on her palm. Then, she blew it into my face. It made tears well in my eyes and quickly spill down my cheeks.
“Aww. Don’t cry, Christine!” she said. She bulged her eyes at me, and I remembered I was supposed to go sit on my dad’s lap for some reason.
“Honey?” Dad said. I walked to him with a face full of fake tears and curled into a ball on his lap. He squeezed me and tucked my head under his chin. “It’s okay. We’ll get through this. Heartache doesn’t last forever. You’ll get over him.”
I wanted to say that I was in no way broken up with Nathan so there was nothing to get over, but I decided against it. Emma was up to something.
She rubbed my back and pretended to console me. “Chris,” she said. “Here’s a tissue.” She held it to my nose and pinched it shut. I peeked up at her, and she winked. She brought her free hand to her lips and blew a gust of yellow powder into my dad’s face.
A second later, he started snoring.
“Hurry,” she said. “Get dressed. Gregory seemed to think meeting with you was urgent.”
I’d say it was a matter of life and death. I had to find my boyfriend. If anyone had told Nate what he’d done, he would be a mess. He needed me now more than ever.
I threw on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. When I came out of my closet, Dad was still asleep in the chair, Emma was gone, and Gregory Ewing was sitting on my bed with a plate in his hands.
“Hi, love,” he said. “I got your email.”
I smiled. “Thanks for coming.”
“Of course. Anytime Christine Gavin wants to talk about power, I will promptly clear my schedule. I’m hoping you were serious.” I nodded and sat next to him. The plate he was carrying had a slimy egg jiggling on top of toast on it. “Good. Shall I assume this has something to do with Nathan?”
“It does. I want to find him.”
“And you are aware that he is immune to psychic powers?” I nodded. “And you are also aware that he doesn’t want to speak with you?”
“Nathan will always want to speak with me.”
He frowned and gave me the plate in his hands. “Persistent,” he said. “I can’t say that I blame you. We’re all very torn up about this. If I knew where he was, I would tell you, but I don’t.”
I fought the sudden urge to cry. I missed Nate more than I ever thought was possible.
“I can help you with your powers,” he said. “But I’m afraid I must ask a favor for this favor.”
“What kind of favor?” I asked.
“I need your help with something. Today if possible. I’ve been waiting on the email you sent me for almost a month. At first, I was sending the quotes to help you, but then … I started sending them for another reason. I’m sorry that these were the circumstances of you answering me, but I’m afraid I have to use it to my advantage.”
“I will do anything for a chance to find him,” I said.
He smiled and gave me a fork.
I swallowed the nausea back. The poached egg looked disgusting. Only a few sprinkles of pepper would be between that slimy thing and my tongue.
“Go on, dear. Give it a try. Everyone loves my eggs.”
I jabbed the egg with the fork. My stomach twisted as yoke spilled over the bread and oozed to the plate. He tapped my hand, smiling, urging me to continue.
I regretted my dramatics after the first bite. Once I got over the weird texture, it was actually pretty good. On my third bite he said, “Allow me, dear.” He brushed my hair away from my ears and gently pushed in earplugs.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“The eggs contain the antidote to-”
A harsh mix of sounds interrupted him. He took the plate out of my hands, and I slammed them against my ears. I heard a train rushing down tracks, loud enough to be in my bathroom. Then a plane sending a mayday signal. Then hundreds of screams, people howling in pain.
I screamed with them, and he met me on the floor. I hadn’t realized I was on my knees.
His mouth was moving, but the screaming drowned out his voice. He cupped my face in his hands and smiled. Eventually I heard him say, “Find my voice and nothing else. Nod when you can hear me.” I nodded. “I gave you the antidote to the potion.”
The noise was more menacing than I remembered, like nails against a chalkboard, nails inside my brain. “Please undo it,” I said. “I can’t handle it!”
“You can. I tell all of my kids that they can do anything they put their minds to, but for you, that’s literally true. Hear only what you desire.” I decided to only hear his voice. As soon as I thought it, the noise vanished. Silence rushed into the room and soothed my racing heart. “Control grows with your powers, love. Don’t be afraid of them. We need them today.”
So he needed a psychic favor, something magic couldn’t do or something he couldn’t get my mother to do. Interesting.
We stood from the floor slowly, and he made me finish the rest of the egg. “A train, a plane, and screaming,” I said.
He rubbed the back of my hand and frowned. “The world is full of danger, my dear.”
“Is someone going to help those people?”
“It won’t be you.” I started to protest, but he shushed me. “Everyone in your life has come to expect the worst of you where your powers are concerned. Would you say that is a fair assumption?”
I didn’t have to answer. There were too many moments to count that proved that very thing.
“Then why do you think I should have powers?” I asked.
“You want an honest answer?” I nodded. “Because you’re Lydia Shaw’s daughter. You can do things no one else can do in a time when we need someone who is both powerful and kind.”
He winked, and a blue velvet bag appeared in his hand. He emptied it, and shiny red rings tumbled onto my comforter. They sparkled in the natural light floating in through the curtains. Each had a symbol etched in the center of what had to be real rubies.
“Put those on. One on each finger. Not the thumbs.” I slipped them on. They bobbled on my bony fingers, a few sizes too big. “For the favor, I’m bringing you to the Magical Council’s headquarters.” He chuckled at the confused expression on my face. “You need special access, so you can’t be yourself.”
He turned each ring around so that they faced the wrong direction and sparkled inside of my palm. My hands ballooned as I stared at them. Soon, the rings squeezed against my new, manly fingers.
“I have hair on my knuckles!” I yelled, but it wasn’t my voice. I ran to the mirror in my bathroom and screamed. I was a dude, a pale one with ice-cold skin. Twenty-something and flawless. Too flawless. “Gregory!”
“I think I would like it better if you called me Pop like my other grandchildren.”
“Fine, Pop! What the hell?” I looked down at the tailored gray suit I was wearing all of a sudden. I touched my frigid cheek and gasped. “Am I a vampire?”
“Technically, you are a mirage of a vampire. The rings are only visible to you once you’ve changed. You will need to keep them all on for the rest of our time together today. Are we clear?”
I ran out of the bathroom and dramatically gestured around my fake body. “No. We are not clear!”
I checked the chair. My father was still knocked out even though I was screaming.
“Then let me explain, little one. Come sit.” He patted the space next to him on my bed, and I sat, still staring at the foreign arms and legs attached to me. “I took the rings from a box my wife found in the attic of your home in New Orleans. They are expensive toys for witches and wizards or the humans who know them.”
I stretched my hands in front of me and studied the symbols in the rubies. A star, a moon, a lion, a fox, a sword, a shield, a heart, and flames.
“I knew what they were as soon as I saw them,” he said. “And I knew who they belonged to. Your grandfather.” I lifted my strange and cold fingers to my lips and kissed the rare artifacts from my broken family. “He was an ally to magical kind in his later life. Those rings got him in and out of our meetings unnoticed for years. He revealed himself to a friend of mine when he wanted his memory erased.”
I remembered reading my mom’s diary, before I knew who she was, and learning the tragic story of Vincent and Cecilia Shaw. They’d died because of Julian’s obsession with their daughter. Before then, my grandfather had their memories erased of Mom to keep her safe.
“Vincent Shaw was an interesting man,” he said. “He was oddly caring, but deadly, and crazy as a loon … like your mother.” I laughed, rubbing the rings like they were extensions of him, shiny bits of my grandfather. “Before he quit, he was one of the most influential hunters of his time. Rich, powerful. He gave it up to have a family. Like your mother was going to do.”
“I know,” I said, still staring at the rings, at the symbols etched into them. There was something familiar about them. I couldn’t figure out what it was, even with my powers on.
He snapped, and a compass appeared in his left hand. It was made of rusted metal with a wooden face. A thin silver arrow pointed at a hand-painted M, opposite a hand-painted H. The typical coordinates were missing. This compass didn’t seem to measure direction. It measured whatever the letters H and M stood for.
“I made this when I was eighteen,” he said. “I’d met Sophia through a friend, and I’d heard she liked smart wizards. Inventors. So I made this to impress her.”
I was about to ask more questions about the younger Sophia and the ancient compass in his hand, but his face turned serious again, changing the mood.
“When I met Sophia, it was abundantly clear that she would do anything to keep the peace between magical kind and humans. The compass was meant to help her do that. It predicts large-scale disruptions of peace and warns us of which side will cause it.”
He slid the compass into my hand. The rusted metal felt heavier than it looked. “H and M,” I said. “Human and Magical?”
“Yes,” he said. I studied the compass and frowned. The needle was pointing closer to M, frighteningly away from the center that marked peace. “A few months before your grandfather quit, my compass moved for the first time in years. It swung to the Magical side, but we weren’t able to figure out what moved it in time to do anything about it. Vincent had a reputation for being stern and intolerant, and his disappearance made some of our people bolder and caused a wave of murders in quite a few countries.”
His disappearance caused more than that. Because he’d quit, he had a daughter. And that daughter had me. I owed my life to that disappearance.
“When things were getting out of control, Sophia went to work for one of the most powerful agents at the time. Back then, like now, agents were more prestigious than hunters. They were powerful and held prominent positions in society. It was usually political. You’d be surprised at the people in your history books who were a little more than human.” He tapped my nose, and I chuckled. “At the time, there were only a handful of agents. My wife went to work for-”
“Mona,” I said.
“Yes. She was receptive of Sophia’s ideas and restored balance very quickly. Mona created rules for hunters regarding what they could and could not do to our people, and Sophia negotiated what our people wouldn’t do to humans. More than a decade passed with no major issues on either side, only a few disappearances and murders here and there. I remember telling Sophia I was worried the peace would end. I saw this arrow creeping dangerously towards the human side. A few months later, we found out why.”
He took the compass out of my cold hands and rubbed his thumb across the H.
“I’m sure Julian wasn’t the first hunter to breed copies,” he said. “But he popularized the idea. Suddenly, hunters were able to produce their kind as fast as we could. And they were stronger than our children. And violent. They disrupted the peace for years. Copies were all any hunter wanted, and everyone knew Julian trained the most lethal psychics. They expected his copies to be worse. Especially the copies of a female student he bragged about in particular.”
“Mom,” I said.
He chuckled softly.
“I remember when my wife met your mother. She came home and screamed that she’d met the devil. Vincent Shaw’s daughter, Julian’s rumored student, and a demon all wrapped up in one little girl.”
I laughed, mostly because Sophia had yet to rid herself of the devil she’d met. He clutched the compass in his hand and swept his index finger to the M, where the arrow was pointing now.
“Your mother turned out not to be so bad,” he said. “After a few months, she was rarely at Mona’s home, and then she disappeared altogether. During that time, the arrow changed again, to the magical side. Julian was doing more damage than ever, caging and killing so many of us, yet we knew something was coming.”
“Because of the compass,” I said.
“Exactly. Word eventually spread that Julian lost his huntress to Mona. And Mona had lost her to … a guy. Julian couldn’t make good on the promises he’d made to so many, perfect children from this perfect girl, and he fell from power. With the great Julian Polk out of the picture, the spirit of rebellion spread like wildfire across my people. First they wanted to live a free life out of hiding. Then … they wanted war.”
I sighed and shook my head. I would have never connected Mom to the cause of the war, not in this direct of a way, in a million years. I watched as he twirled the compass in his hand, my eyes catching the metal arrow on each revolution.
“The fire started with one person,” he said. “Dreco. Then he converted thousands to believe what he believed. In the space of three years, we went from a secret people to the most feared monsters of all time. He took out most of the agents and hunters, Mona included, forced Julian into hiding, and ravished the world.”
I knew the rest of the story. This was the part of history I was born into. Frederick Dreco and his followers killed millions of humans in an attempt to become the dominant species. My mother stopped them, and once again, Sophia aligned herself with someone in power to restore peace.
I tapped the compass and sighed, unable to take my eyes off of the M the arrow was pointing to. “It looks like it’s predicting another disruption,” I said. “From the magical side.”
“Yes. Kamon and Devin caused enough tension to start a war, but your mother made a deal with the Magical Council to keep the peace. She changed the treaty and promised to kill Kamon. To her, this will make everything okay. She thinks it will solve your problems and the world’s problems in one act. But if that were true, the arrow would be pointing to the middle, wouldn’t it?”
“I guess,” I said.
He rubbed his knees like they were aching, and I plucked the face of the compass, trying to make the arrow move on my own. It didn’t budge from the M.
“She plans to kill Kamon and his entire army at Temple night in eighteen days,” he said. “It’s a service where Kamon’s followers worship him and bring offerings. You attended one.” I shivered, remembering that terrifying place and how those people were treating him like a god. “Lydia plans to blow up his headquarters with him and his army inside.”
I frowned as I studied the compass again. According to the arrow, Mom’s plan wouldn’t work. Maybe it was too simple. Maybe it was impossible to blow up people who could predict the future.
“You’re going to show her this, right?” I said.
“I have. And I’ve told her why I think she will fail at restoring the peace. Lydia is great with fire. I’ve seen it. I don’t think she will have any issues incinerating Kamon’s headquarters. Actually, I believe her success will be the problem.”
“How could it be?” I asked. My powers stirred when the question left my lips. The screaming blasted in my ears again. I closed my eyes and saw fire. Chaos. I had the feeling of being trapped. I was suddenly suffocating as smoke filled my lungs.
I knew it wasn’t real. This wasn’t really happening, but it was as terrifying as being in a fire … or in a building after an explosion. Before it overwhelmed me, I chose not to hear or feel any of it. Amazingly, the chaos left my mind, and fresh air flowed into my lungs.
“Are you okay, dear?” he asked. I nodded, and he answered the question my powers had started to reach towards. “Kamon formed his army mostly from our lost children. Some went willingly, but many were captured and are too afraid to leave. Soon, they will all die with Kamon if your mother’s plan works. She will appear callous. She also does not plan to clear this with the Magical Council. I fear it will break down relations and be the tiny spark that causes a new fire. The thing that makes the direction of the compass true.”
I nodded slowly as I wrapped my head around the idea of my mother causing another war. And it seemed unavoidable. If Kamon’s army knew about me, I understood why she wanted them dead. But Sophia and her husband had spent their lives helping their people. I saw why those hunters and prisoners dying would bother them and the magical world, especially if they hadn’t asked to be there.
I’d seen it for myself that night in his chapel. Kamon gave his victims two choices: join him or die. They would finally get the second option because of me.
“We’ve asked your mother to be more discriminative and find a way to save some of his army,” he said. “But she thinks it will tip Kamon off and ruin her plan.”
“Prisoners disappearing might do that,” I said.
He nodded. “Yes. Unless we make it seem unrelated, done by magic, but she still refused. So Sophia and I are on our own, but none of our spells have worked. Mostly because we don’t even know who he has, and without Lydia, we don’t have a way to figure it out. I asked permission to ask for your help, but Sophia shut that down. She said you were happy at Trenton and to leave you out of it. Trust me. I wish I could.”
I wanted to apologize to him. I’d taken his emails for granted this whole time while he’d actually needed my help.
“So you want me to tell you who they are or get them out?”
He answered in a hurry. “Just their identities, dear. Nothing more. We don’t want to tip Kamon off. We just want to help, but my hands are tied without you.”
Fear rose in my stomach and quickly spread throughout my body. My family was right about me. This had all the makings of being a horrible day–with me flying off of the handle, getting wrapped up in my powers, and going after Kamon … dressed as a vampire. I couldn’t let that happen.
“What if I ask my mom? Maybe she’ll listen to me and come up with a better plan.”
“I don’t think so. Finding the identities will take time and a lot of psychic strength. Sophia believes Lydia has refused to help because she doesn’t have either to spare.”
My vampire hands shook on my lap. I wanted to get my powers back for Nate, but involving myself in this thing with Kamon was too much. I didn’t plan to save lives when I woke up this morning.
“I have more time than she has, but if she doesn’t have the strength, I don’t either,” I said. “I have her powers. So … I’m sorry.”
“You were born with the powers she had when she was nineteen,” he said. “Now, she’s thirty-seven and severely overworked. She barely rests. At times, her brain is as reliable as my knee.”
I ignored the terrifying feeling his words caused. Mom getting weaker was a worry I didn’t want to have. A world without the great and powerful Lydia Shaw was not a world I wanted to live in.
“We don’t have to do this, honey,” he said. “I would help you get your powers back without requiring a favor. You don’t have to help me.”
His tone and the frown on his adorable wrinkled face said that I had to help. Or at least try. If he was desperate enough to come to me–the loose cannon–for help, he must’ve been at the end of his rope. And I really needed him. Nate needed him. Trying was the least I could do.
“How do we do this?” I asked.
He took my hand and smiled.
“Follow my lead and trust your powers,” he said. “And yourself.”
I nodded, promising both of us not to get carried away, and he yanked us out of the room. His transporting light was identical to his wife’s. We soared through bright air for a minute as he held on to me.
I didn’t quite stick the landing. I stumbled back in a large marble room, and he steadied me before I fell.
A man rushed to us with long red hair blowing around him. He stopped, and it settled on his shoulders and chest. It looked even brighter against his white suit. “I wasn’t expecting you today,” he said.
“I should’ve called, Marcus,” Gregory said. “It slipped my mind. This is Boyd. He’s a friend of mine. He represents the Vamps’ interests in Council matters.” Gregory pointed to my mouth. It felt like he wanted me to flash my teeth, so I smiled and exposed my sharp fangs.
“Okay, I see. Put those away,” Marcus said. “You’re creeping me out.”
“Sorry,” I said, suppressing the urge to jump at my unfamiliar voice.
He reached for my hand and shook it. The touch revealed a lot about him. His name was Marcus Plummer. Wizard–a talented one, I sensed. He was wondering how I fed–the old-fashioned, illegal way or through the Council's blood bank method. I dropped his hand and pulled out of his mind.
“I need you to bring me to the archives, Marcus,” Gregory said.
“You don’t have clearance for those.” After a tense moment, Marcus cackled, a wheeze of a laugh that lingered just long enough to get awkward. “I’m kidding! You know, Pop, I miss living with you. Bills are hell on my own.”
I had a feeling he wasn’t actually family in the typical sense. But in the sense that the Ewings had taken care of so many.
“Son, if your bills are too heavy, you can always come back,” Gregory said. “Your bed is currently free.”
“You mean that very hard couch? My back will always ache from the year I spent on it.”
They laughed, and I joined them after an awkward moment of standing there like an intruder. He led us down the hall, the two of them huddled together like old friends.
We stopped in front of a silver vault. Marcus released Gregory and passed his hand in front of it. It shimmered like iridescent fabric and opened. Despite the magical opening, the door groaned on its hinges as we stepped inside.
Shelves of old books, folders, and dusty bottles that seemed to hold magical things lined the walls from the ceiling to the floor of the circular room. A winding staircase twined through the middle of it, leading to five open levels above my head. The room felt sacred, like whatever the books, folders, and bottles held were important to magical kind.
Marcus and Gregory lingered by the door, laughing and talking about Sophia’s famous pound cake. I stared at the stained-glass ceiling. Yellow five-point stars dotted the glass sky. The center point of each star curled slightly. Such detail didn’t strike me as purely ornamental. I felt like if I stared long enough they’d mean something eventually. I looked down at my hands, at the ring with the star. Its center point curled too.
“I have to do my rounds, Pop,” Marcus said. “Will you need me to come back?”
“No, thank you. We’ll leave from here.”
Marcus slammed us into the vault, and I held the star ring up to the light. “Gregory, these stars are the same.”
He sighed and ruffled his thinning hair. “I see this is going to be as hard as getting Emma to call me Pop. But she’s been in love with my grandson for a long time. I can see why it’s weird for her. You, on the other hand, have no excuse. My feelings are hurt.”
“I’m sorry, Pop.”
“That’s better,” he said. “And those rings contain very old magic, and this is a very old building. Are you ready to get started?”
I nodded, and he walked to the other side of the room. I followed him, my eyes on the interesting patterns etched into the tile. In the corner of each one, there was a fox, like the one on my middle finger.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d seen these symbols somewhere before.
“This room contains magical archives,” he said. “Birth records, death records, major events, restricted spells, you name it. For someone like you, this room gives your brain thousands of leads to go on. This wall in particular,” he said, gesturing to the shelves of brightly colored folders in front of us. “…is where we keep records of the missing. I’m hoping you can tell me who Kamon has, why they are staying, and if they can be saved.”
He wanted me to decide who should be in that explosion or not. He wanted me to play God. I sighed and leaned my head on his shoulder. “My mom and Sophia are right about me,” I said. “I’m a Gavin, but I have Shaw crazy running through my veins. I always do too much. What if I do more than look through those folders?”
He laughed and pressed his lips to my forehead, disregarding that it wasn’t technically my forehead. He’d kissed a vampire. “I’m right here with you. I won’t let anything happen. Trust yourself.”
He stepped away slowly as if to give me room to work. I didn’t know where to start. I sighed as I stared at the dusty shelves, feeling the fate of the world beating down on me.
“I think you’re overestimating me, Pop,” I said.
“It’s quite the opposite. I think everyone in your life besides me underestimates you.”
Fearing I would stand there like an idiot for hours if I didn’t make a move, I grabbed a green folder with October 2001 written on the tab. My mind floated back to the week of training I’d had with Mom before her schedule took her away from me. She’d taught me how to breathe, when to let go, and how to channel the energy ripping through my body.
My muscles jerked like a speeding car as my brain kicked into gear. I took a deep breath to settle myself.
I opened the folder and heard five names, all whispered slowly and clearly.
Yanis Nelson, Ana Benavidez, Timothy Fitzgerald, Gillian Hargrove, Petra Thompson.
They were also the names printed at the top of the first five pages in the folder, along with a brief description of their case. I didn’t need to read them.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Like these people are dead.” I felt cold and empty reading their names. With Timothy, my chest hurt like my lungs were collapsing. Something had plowed into him as he died. A force. A magical one.
I shook off the buzzing threatening to pull me in. I wasn’t here to solve murders.
I flipped through the pages, past more dead people, waiting for life to strike me. I assumed it would feel like the opposite of death, and I was right. On the tenth page, a feeling of warmth entered my chest. It made my heart beat faster.
“Pamela Carmichael,” I said. “She’s alive.” I wondered more about her–location, health–and shivered. I saw a blurry image of a small kitchen. She was sitting at a table with a man, a furry one who could almost be human if his facial hair wasn’t so out of control. She was laughing. “She ran away with a guy. She doesn’t want to be found.”
“Good, dear. You’re doing great.”
I sighed, fanning the thick pages in the folder back and forth. And this was just one month of one year. “This is going to take me all day, Pop.”
“Not necessarily,” he said. He took the folder from my hands, slipped it back in place, and pulled me away from the shelf. “You don’t have to touch each one. You’re psychic. You could call their names out to me at home if you wanted to. Being here should just make it easier and more accurate.”
I didn’t bother saying I couldn’t do it. I’d slammed Kamon Yates into a wall for crying out loud. This should be nothing. Well, it should be nothing, if I could manage not to lose myself in my powers.
I turned to the shelf and extended my palms in front of me, and the light from the stained-glass windows made the rings sparkle. I focused my thoughts on Kamon, his followers, and the colorful folders on the shelves. Names began to whisper into my ears.
The names of Kamon’s willing followers filled my chest with dread, a heavy evil I didn’t want to hold in my body for longer than a second. Other names made me feel trapped and afraid. With each one of those, I asked myself how they were captured, if they were afraid of Kamon, and if they’d grown to love his way of life. When a name passed all three questions without filling my chest with the murky feeling of evil, I beckoned their missing person report down from the wall and passed it to Pop. The stack grew quickly in his hands.
I cringed when I heard the name Remi Vaughn. She was last seen at her parents’ home in Deerfield, Michigan. “Remi,” I said. “I guess we don’t need her page.” It was the darkest feeling I’d felt yet. She was the worst of them so far.
“She is a very lost young lady,” Pop said. “I don’t see her allowing us to help her.”
I didn’t see myself wanting to. She’d told Kamon a secret my mother had given her life to protect. It was my fault, of course, for being there in the first place, but I was sure she’d run to him gladly, hoping he’d kill the girl she hated for no reason at all.
Because of her obsession with Kamon, in eighteen days, she would be in his headquarters when it went up in flames.
Almost all of the missing person reports from this year and last were because of Kamon’s hunters forcibly taking magical kind. As I’d seen in his chapel, he’d only given them two options: join or die. Many of them were already dead.
With more than a hundred reports in his hand, Pop waddled to a table in the corner. I felt the need to keep working, keep walking. There were more names here.
I inhaled deeply, keeping a firm hand on my powers, as I made my way around the vault. I wandered up the winding staircase with my ears open for names.
“Be careful, love,” Pop yelled from the bottom floor. “Those are death records.”
“I will.”
As I stood before the shelves, more names came to me. Carlos, Victor, Mira, Christina. It felt like they were trapped and hungry and small.
“Children,” I said. Thirty-four more names screamed for me to hear them in this section, and I guided their death records down from the wall. With the papers in my hand, I became very sure that Kamon had them somewhere in his prison. They were all under the age of ten and already being mourned by their families. I saw empty caskets. Their bodies were never found. “He’s Satan,” I said. “He is really the devil.”
My father would probably disagree as he thought my mother held that position, but I was sure Kamon’s dark spirit made him a better fit to be the man in red. Or, in his case, the man in a black tailored suit.
I strained against the urge to find those children and the churning in my stomach that ached to make Kamon pay. This impulse was the reason no one trusted me, not even myself.
I sent the thirty-eight death records down to Pop and walked away with my impulses in check.
“These are all from the attack in Mexico. They were reported dead,” he said. “Dear, are you sure they’re alive?”
“Yep,” I said, too afraid to ask myself what conditions the children were living in. I knew seeing more would make me do something. I took a deep breath and let the beating feeling of life among the dead drain from me. It wasn’t my job to save them. I was just here to help make that happen. I had to trust that it would happen in its own timing.
A memory came to me of sitting in a circle around Sister Constantine at St. Catalina. I was nine. She was telling us a story about planting flowers in the courtyard and waiting for them to bloom.
Everything has a season, she’d said. Not just flowers. You have a season. Your wishes have seasons. And your dreams. Anything you can think of.
The girls shouted out more things to her, asking if those things had seasons since she’d claimed everything did–like toys and candy. Sienna, a little ahead of her time, asked if boys had a season.
Yes, Sister Constantine had answered. And the season for boys will come when you get your mingling privileges at sixteen and not a moment before.
I told myself that the children in Kamon’s prison had a season, and that Pop or Sophia or my mother would rescue them at the right time. It hurt to let it go, but I knew it was for the best.
My shoes thudded against the floor in the silent room as I passed a section of the dead who were actually sleeping peacefully. An unnatural breeze floated from the shelves. It sounded like distant and calm waves, an endless ocean of peace.
“You seem happy,” Pop said, suddenly at my side. “Someone might find that odd, given where you are.”
“It’s just this part. Back there, with the kids, I was very upset.”
He chuckled. “Upset? Most people would be terrified. They would be crying. They would want to leave and get back to their happy lives as soon as possible. You’re still walking, and you seem to be enjoying yourself.”
“And you seem very smug right now.”
He laughed harder. “Oh, honey, just admit it. I was right about you. You’re not happy wasting your powers. Are you? You like this.”
I tried to fight my smile, but I failed miserably. He was right. I loved being in this room, hearing the names, and feeling what I was feeling. Even in my anger, even with wanting to run off and fight Kamon.
“Okay, I admit it, but it’s not like anything will come of it. So what if I like using my powers? I’m not going to grow up and be an agent. My mom would never let that happen.”
“Who says you have to be? You’re not one right now, are you?” I shook my head. “You don’t need a title to help people.”
Help people? I hadn’t even thought about that. I usually thought of myself as reckless, not helpful. Maybe that was what I liked to do. Maybe that was why being here felt so natural.
“I don’t think I’m ready to tell my mom,” I said. “She’d flip. Can we keep this between us?”
He nodded. “No one will know we talked at all. You are in your father’s lap right now. Remember?”
We laughed, and he walked with me to view the rest of the shelves. After finding a few more not so dead people, we took the stairs down to the ground floor. I followed the curving wall deeper into the vault. It felt like something was tugging me forward. Dusty shelves of dustier books squeezed closer and closer to me as I walked through the narrowing hallway.
“Dear, what do you sense?” Pop asked.
I opened my mouth to answer him, but nothing came out. The overwhelming need to reach my hand to the shelf swept over me. Before my fingers reached a burgundy book that I didn’t know I was aiming for, Pop said, “Be careful. Those are-”
“Sacred texts,” I finished.
Whatever this book and the others surrounding it contained was definitely sacred information. Ancient secrets. The burgundy book seemed to glow in the dark corner of the vault. I had to touch it. I had to read it. It felt like I’d wanted to do those things for years. I touched the spine and shivered. A triumphant feeling filled my chest like I’d reached the end of a really long journey. I’d made it. I was here. I’d found what I was looking for–this book I didn’t even know I wanted.
Printed in gold on the burgundy canvas book cover was an oddly familiar crest. The symbols on my grandfather’s rings formed an arch between two torches. I stared at the same curled star, moon, lion, fox, sword, shield, heart, and flames and shook my head.
“Where have I seen this before?” I said. The crest had a nagging familiarity, like something I’d seen a million times but couldn’t place or like a song I used to know but could only hum the melody now. “Where have I seen this?” The question brought nothing into my mind, not even a clue.
I yanked at my powers, trying to pull closer to the answer, but my body rebelled and shook fiercely. Pop pressed his hands against my cheeks and forced me to look into is calming gray eyes.
“You are in control,” he said. “Don’t forget that.”
I felt blood pooling in my nose, ready to leak at any second. My teeth chattered like I was in the middle of a blizzard. I held on to his words. I was in control. Of my powers. My body. My life. I didn’t have to drink potions. I didn’t have to fear myself.
“I’m in control,” I said, pushing the buzzing away. The book, while annoyingly familiar, was not worth having a seizure and complicating our covert outing. Today was about getting my powers back and finding Nate. Nothing was more important than him, so I let the curiosity over the crest and those symbols flow out of my mind.
“That’s it,” Pop said, dabbing the tiny drop of blood that had escaped my nose with a handkerchief.
He clutched me in a tight hug and rocked the life out of me. “That sure beats going to the hospital,” I said. His chest shook as his raspy laugh poured out of it.
“I’m proud of you,” he said. “You managed to control yourself and find the names my wife and I have been trying to uncover for weeks. I’ll take it from here. I should get you home before your father wakes up.”
Pop squeezed my hand, and I glanced at the burgundy book with the gold crest. For a fraction of a moment, just before Pop yanked us out of the room, I thought I saw the symbols glimmer.
At home, I gave my grandfather’s rings to Pop and said goodbye to my vampire mirage.
“There is now a jar in your closet,” he said. “As promised, it contains the antidote to the potion. It looks like pepper. Continue to drink the potion when they give it to you, but sprinkle that powder on anything you eat, just a pinch, and the effects of it will wear off in seconds.”
He winked, and I threw my arms around him. After I thanked him a million times, he waved at me and left. I changed into my pajamas, and Emma appeared on my bed.
“Daddy dearest will be awake soon,” she said.
I took my position on his lap, and waited for her spell to wear off. A few minutes later, he yawned in my ear. I covered my face and pretended to cry over Nate.