“Mom!” I ran to her and wrapped her in a tight hug. “They let you out for the day?”
She patted my back. “Not exactly. It’s more of a permanent thing.”
I pulled away to look at her. “Are you serious? You’re home for good?”
A series of shrill whistles made my ears ache as a tiny blue figure sped toward us. Finch reached us and scampered up Mom’s body to cling to her neck. She placed a hand over his small back and smiled, looking the happiest I’d seen her since she woke up in the hospital.
“Welcome home, Mrs. J,” Violet called from behind me. “Looking good!”
Mom laughed softly. “It’s great to see you, Violet.” Her gaze shifted to Faris and Conlan. “I saw you at the hospital, but I’m sorry, I don’t remember your names.”
I made the introductions, and she clasped Faris’s hand and then Conlan’s. “I don’t know if I thanked you that night for saving Jesse’s life. We will be forever grateful for what you did.”
“We’re happy we could be there for her,” Faris said humbly.
Conlan ruffled my hair. “Life would be too boring without our Jesse.”
I stepped out of his reach and scowled at him, which only made him chuckle. Some things hadn’t changed.
Mom laughed as she unbuttoned her coat. Dad helped her remove it because Finch was still hugging her neck. Seeing the three of them together here for the first time in months made my heart swell until I thought it would burst from my chest. Our family had been through so much since that awful November night, and finally, we were all home. I couldn’t ask for a better birthday present.
Faris looked at me. “We’ll be going now and leave you to enjoy your celebration.”
“Please stay,” Mom said. “You can’t go until after we have cake.”
I looked between her and Dad. “There’s cake?”
“Of course.” Dad went across the hall and unlocked Maurice’s door. He disappeared inside and returned a minute later with a large, pink bakery box. Sneaky.
“Where’s Maurice?” I asked when he shut our apartment door.
Dad set the cake on the kitchen counter. “He’s on a job, and he’ll stop by later.”
While my parents went into the kitchen to get plates and forks, I hurriedly whispered to Conlan and Faris about the call from Ben Stewart and what I’d seen on TV. Neither of them was surprised by the news.
“We’ve been monitoring the hospital and the media. You have nothing to worry about,” Conlan said in a low voice.
I looked at my parents. “I’m not worried about me.”
Mom turned toward us, and I noticed the changes in her face since the last time she had stood in our kitchen. She looked tired, and her complexion was pale from so much time indoors. The doctors had deemed her well enough to come home, but she still had months of recovery ahead of her.
After we’d all enjoyed the triple layer chocolate cake, Violet declared it was time for me to open my gifts. I started with hers, which contained a crimson Harvard hoodie.
I held it against me. “It’s perfect.”
“I know.” She lifted one shoulder. “It’s scary how well I know you.”
“Mine next,” Conlan said eagerly. “I’ve never given a birthday present, so I hope you like it.”
“I’m sure I will.” I opened the small gift he handed me, and Violet gasped at the leaf-shaped pendant on a delicate chain. The pendant and chain were made of eyranth, a Fae metal that resembled platinum but with a faint bluish glow. Eyranth was rare and valuable in our realm because faeries didn’t part with it often.
“This is too much, Conlan,” I protested weakly.
“No, it’s not.” Violet reached out and wriggled her fingers at the pendant. “Can I touch it?”
I handed her the box and gave Conlan a quick hug. “Thank you.”
“If you’re going to reward me with hugs, I’ll be giving you more gifts,” he teased.
I opened Faris’s gift next and sucked in a breath when I saw the red and gold drakkan figurine. The detail in the tiny piece was so good I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had opened its snout and sent out a puff of smoke and sparks.
“It looks exactly like him,” I said quietly. “Thank you.”
Finch whistled, and I looked at him standing on the table with his eyes wide in recognition. He stretched out his arms, and I placed the figurine in them. Cradling it reverently, he jumped off the table and ran to the treehouse where Aisla was hiding from our visitors.
“He and Aisla miss Gus a lot,” I said to Faris, who was watching Finch scamper up the ladder to the treehouse.
Faris gave me a knowing smile. “I can tell he is missed.”
“Open the rest!” Violet picked up one of the other gifts and shoved it into my hands.
Grinning, I tore off the wrapping paper to reveal a rolled-up pouch of soft leather. I opened it to find six sharp double-ended spikes made from a charcoal gray metal.
“Ummm. Thanks?”
Conlan laughed. “These are from Iian. They’re throwing spikes for when you progress to weapons training.”
“Oh.” I looked at them with new interest. “I figured you’d start me with something less…pointy.”
“Open Kerr’s gift,” Faris said.
I did and found a cylinder sheath about a foot long. Uncapping the sheath, I tipped it, and a polished wooden object slid out. It had metal tips and looked like a piece of a staff I’d seen in their training room.
Faris took it and pressed one of the metal parts, and the piece extended until it was a full-length staff. He handed it back, and I marveled over how light it was.
“This is a combat staff,” he said when I balanced the staff on one finger. “The wood is very strong, and it is a lethal weapon in the hands of a trained fighter.”
Dad came to stand beside me, and I passed the staff to him. He gripped it in both hands and stared at it appreciatively. “I always wanted to learn to fight with a staff.”
“Why didn’t you?” I asked.
“Never got around to it. I focused on other training that was more practical for the job.”
Leaving him to admire the weapon, I turned back to the table where a flat box lay. One of the last people I would expect to receive a birthday gift from was Faolin, and I was intensely curious about what was inside.
I removed the plain blue paper to see a dark wooden box with a hinged cover. Lifting the lid, I gasped at the pair of knives nestled on a bed of silky material. They were about ten inches long with wooden handles and wickedly sharp blades made of the same dark metal as Iian’s throwing spikes.
“Wow,” I breathed. I looked up at Faris and Conlan, who appeared as surprised as I was.
“Those are glaefere blades,” Faris said after a moment of silence.
“The finest weapons a warrior owns after their sword,” Conlan explained. “It is said that the first glaefere blades were crafted by the Asrai.”
I stared at him. “Are you sure Faolin meant to give these to me?”
Conlan’s eyes sparkled with laughter. “Anyone who can land a strike against the Unseelie prince and his head of security is deserving of such a gift.”
“You hit the Unseelie prince?” Mom asked sharply. “And one of the royal guards?”
I winced because it sounded bad when she said it. “It’s kind of a long story. I’ll explain it all later.”
She fixed me with her no-nonsense look. “I see we have a lot of catching up to do.”
“You still have to open the big gift from Lukas,” Violet blurted.
I eyed the box with a mix of curiosity and resentment. For weeks, Lukas had acted like I didn’t exist, yet he’d taken the time to get me a birthday gift. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
I snagged the wrapping paper on the top end and tore it down the length of the gift that was over three feet long. Underneath was a plain cardboard box, and I lifted a flap to see the outline of a black guitar case inside.
Violet peered over my shoulder. “He got you a new guitar. I bet it’s a nice one.”
“Are you going to open it?” Dad asked, and I realized I’d been staring at the case a little too long.
I took the guitar case from the box and set it down on the table. Unhooking the latches, I lifted the cover and stared at the instrument inside. It took me a long moment to realize what I was looking at.
Tears blurred my vision as I reached out to touch the guitar my grandfather had taught me to play on, the guitar that had been one of my prized possessions until two men had broken in here and destroyed it. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to throw it out, so I’d shoved it under my bed where I didn’t have to see it.
“How?” I whispered.
“Lukas asked me for it, and I gave it to him,” Dad said. “I wasn’t sure it could be repaired, but he said he could do it.”
“Try it out,” Violet said, and Finch whistled in agreement.
I took the guitar from the case and sat. After a minute of tuning the strings, I played a few lines of Finch’s favorite song. It played and sounded exactly like it had before it was broken.
I pretended to adjust the strings some more so I didn’t have to look up at everyone watching me. I didn’t understand how Lukas cared enough to give me something that meant so much to me, when at the same time he didn’t want to see me or even pick up a phone to call me. It made no sense, and I was more confused than ever.
“Do you like it?” Conlan asked.
“It’s perfect,” I said honestly, and I played until the ache in my chest went away.
I shivered and pulled my cap down to shield my ears from the icy wind that sliced through the cemetery. This winter felt like it had been going on forever, and it wasn’t ready to release its grip on us yet.
Beside me, Mom seemed impervious to the cold as she crouched to replace the old flowers at the base of the white marble headstone with fresh ones. She arranged the flowers as she spoke softly to the son she still believed was buried here.
I met Dad’s eyes over her head and saw how hard this was for him. He and Mom had spent the last twenty years grieving for their lost son, and now he had to watch her continued suffering. He had asked their doctors how much to reveal to her about the things she didn’t remember, and the doctors said small things were okay. To avoid a relapse, we needed to let her regain her memories at her own pace.
Dad and I had decided that one of us would be with Mom at all times because we couldn’t risk her remembering something traumatic when she was alone. So far, it had been relatively easy to do because this was the first time she’d left the apartment since coming home three days ago.
My mother was not stupid. She knew we were keeping something from her, but Dad had asked her to trust him, and she did so without question. I think, for her, having us all together was enough for now.
I dropped my gaze to the name engraved into the small headstone. My whole life, this had been the only place I’d felt somewhat connected to my brother. Being here now, knowing it wasn’t Caleb’s body in the grave, I didn’t know what to feel other than a simmering anger at the person who had torn my family apart.
Mom stood and ran a gloved hand lovingly over the little angel atop the headstone. She straightened her shoulders and smiled at me, but I caught the sadness in her eyes before she could hide it like she always did.
“Your nose is so red it’s almost glowing,” she teased.
“Just the look I was going for.”
Laughing, she looped an arm through mine. “Let’s stop for Thai on the way home. I’ve been dying for something spicy, and that will heat us up.”
I forgot all about the cold. She had been eating like a bird since she’d come home, and this was the first time she’d shown interest in food. Thai was her favorite, not mine, but I’d have it seven days a week if that was what it took to get her to eat.
“I could go for some Pad Thai.” I looked over at Dad. “You can have that mango rice you love.”
He smiled at us. “What’s a meal without dessert?”
I started to ask what our trainer, Maren, would think of his love of desserts when an unpleasant tingle spread across my skin. My whole body tensed because I knew this sensation. My first instinct was to make sure I was wearing my dampening amulet. Then I lifted my head to look at the colored lights in the sky a few miles away.
There hadn’t been any Fae storms in New York since the big one a few weeks ago. This one had the light display and some electricity, but it was mild compared to the last storm. Thanks to my handy amulet, my feet stayed planted on the ground.
“It’s okay,” Dad called to a young couple standing by a grave a few rows over. “Looks like it’s already moving off.”
I shifted restlessly. He was right that the storm was dissipating, but why did I still feel the magic?
Mom tugged gently on my arm and whispered. “You alright?”
“I don’t know.” I rubbed my arms through my coat sleeves. “Something doesn’t feel right.”
The words had barely left my mouth when the tingling intensified into pins and needles. Mom sucked in a breath, and I followed her gaze to the lights that had appeared in the sky above us. Was this a second storm or the same one?
The light dimmed as if a cloud had blocked out the sun, and my scalp prickled with a new sensation. Dread.
“We need to go.” I grabbed Dad’s arm and started toward the car, pulling him and Mom with me. I would have run, but Mom wasn’t strong enough for that yet.
“Jesse, what is it?” Dad asked.
A loud crackling filled the air, which felt charged with static electricity and made my hair stand on end. The cemetery was suddenly bathed in a purple glow that caused memories of another storm to flash through my mind. Fear threatened to choke me, and all I could think of was getting my parents away from here.
Behind us, someone shouted. A second later, there was a snap followed by a small explosion. We turned to see pieces of black marble spraying out from where a headstone had stood a few dozen yards away.
“My God,” Mom uttered.
Magic surged around me again. Before I could move, a bolt of purple lightning obliterated a statue, sending stone shrapnel in every direction. I watched in horror as a jagged column of electricity scorched the grass and sped away from the destroyed statue.
Toward us.
I spun and grabbed Mom. Throwing her over my shoulder, I ran.
We’d barely gone ten feet when another explosion rocked the air. I pushed Dad to the ground and dropped Mom beside him. Throwing myself on top of them, I tried to shield them with my body as pieces of stone and debris pelted me.
It took a minute for me to register the silence. Rolling off my parents, I lay on the grass and blinked up at the puffy white clouds in the blue sky. My breath came out in ragged pants that had more to do with the adrenaline coursing through me than exertion.
“Jesse!” Dad scrambled over to kneel beside me. “Are you hurt?”
“No.” I gave him a reassuring smile and sat up.
His eyes went to the side of my head, and he frowned. “You’re bleeding. Let me look at it.”
I reached up to gingerly touch my head and realized I’d lost my cap. The area was tender, but there was only a small cut. “It’s nothing. You know head wounds bleed a lot.” I lowered my voice. “And I heal fast.”
“I don’t care. I still want to check it.” He pushed my hand away and examined the cut. “You’ll live.”
I shot him a sideways look. “Told you.”
“Caleb,” Mom said in a choked voice that had the two of us jerking our heads in her direction. She was on her knees, her face a mask of anguish as she stared at what remained of his grave.
I jumped up and ran to the edge of the crater where the tiny grave had been. Shock rippled through me when I saw the fragments of white marble littering the hole. Only a piece of angel wing identified it as the headstone that had stood there minutes ago.
My stomach knotted as I scanned the hole, praying I would not see pieces of the coffin or its contents in the debris. The last thing my mother needed in her fragile state was to see the skeletal remains of the baby she’d buried.
I let out a breath when I couldn’t find any coffin remnants. The crater looked to be about five feet deep. Maybe the lightning hadn’t reached the coffin at all. It was hard to tell with the loose dirt at the bottom.
Something glittered at the far edge of the hole, partially buried beneath a small chunk of marble. I leaned forward for a closer look and frowned when the object refracted the sunlight like a prism. A crystal of some kind?
“Help! Someone, please help!” called a woman’s voice.
I swung my gaze in the direction of the young couple Dad had spoken to. The man lay on the ground, and the woman knelt beside him. Less than ten feet away from them was the remains of a shattered headstone.
Looking behind me, I saw Dad with his arms around Mom. Neither of them appeared injured, and she needed him more than she did me.
I skirted the hole and ran to the couple. The man’s eyes were closed, and a shard of stone protruded from his chest. The woman had her bloody fingers wrapped around the piece of shrapnel, about to pull it out.
I placed my hand over hers to stop her. “No. We can’t move it.” I racked my brain for everything I knew about first aid and looked around for something to staunch the bleeding. Of course, there was nothing because we were in the middle of a cemetery.
Unzipping my coat, I yanked it off. Thankfully, I’d dressed in layers. I pulled my hoodie over my head and used it for padding around the stone shard. I instructed the woman, who told me her name was Julie, to hold the padding in place while I reached for my phone in my coat pocket.
A fortysomething woman hurried toward us. She dropped to her knees beside me, and the first words out of her mouth sent relief washing over me. “I’m a doctor. The paramedics are on the way.”
I stood to give her room to work. Shivering, I pulled on my coat and zipped it up to my chin as I got my first good look at the carnage around me. A statue and three graves, including Caleb’s, had been destroyed. A zigzagging trail of gouges and scorched grass showed the lightning’s path of destruction.
The dozen or so other people in the cemetery had recovered from their own shock and were making their way toward us. We were lucky there hadn’t been more casualties.
The doctor had control of the situation, so I went back to my parents, who now stood at the edge of the hole where Caleb’s grave had been. Mom’s face was ashen, and Dad’s arm was around her shoulders, supporting her.
“He’s… he’s gone.” Her body looked ready to crumple in on itself. I’d seen and endured a lot in the last few months, but nothing gutted me more than seeing my formidable mother so vulnerable.
“We don’t know that,” Dad said softly, his helpless gaze meeting mine. “I don’t think the lightning went that deep.”
I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “He’s right. All I see is bits of headstone.”
She straightened a little. “How could lightning do this? I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I have.” As bad as this had been, the storm wasn’t half as strong as the one I’d been in on the ferry. I kept that to myself. I seemed to have the extraordinarily bad luck to always be around when a storm occurred. If not for the fact that they were happening in other cities around the world, I’d be a little paranoid.
The sound of sirens reached us and quickly grew louder. Within minutes, the cemetery was overrun by emergency vehicles and police cars. Mom, Dad, and I talked to a police officer as the injured man was tended to by paramedics and loaded onto a stretcher. I found my cap and covered the blood in my hair so the paramedic who came to check on us wouldn’t see that my head wound was healing already.
We were still talking to the police when half a dozen agents arrived to take command of the situation. Two of them started in our direction, and I scowled when I recognized Agent Daniel Curry. There had to be a hundred agents in this city, yet somehow, I always ended up with this one.
“Agent Curry, good to see you,” said my father, who had no clue about my dealings with the man. As far as my parents knew, Curry had merely been the agent who’d rescued us from Rogin Havas’s basement. I saw no reason to tarnish their good opinion of the agent because I didn’t like him.
“I’m glad to see you both recovered.” Curry smiled and shook their hands, and then he introduced Agent Will Ryan. I’d met Ryan before and liked him despite his partner.
Agent Curry sent the police officer away to question someone else, and then he turned to me. “You seem to have adapted well to your new circumstances.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “It’s not as if I have a choice.”
“I’ve heard it takes months for new faeries to adapt to the iron in a city.” He eyed me shrewdly. “You don’t appear to be bothered by it at all.”
I shrugged. The Agency knew nothing of my goddess stone, and I intended to keep it that way. “We Jameses are very resilient. Look at my parents. They finished their treatment months faster than the doctors said they would.”
Dad smiled at me. “Jesse excels at everything she does.”
“So it would seem.” Agent Curry looked around. “You were all here when the storm hit?”
Mom nodded. “We were visiting our son’s grave, and…” Her voice trailed off as tears filled her eyes.
“Your son?” For the first time since I’d met him, Agent Curry’s businesslike mask slipped, revealing his surprise. My guess was his investigation into my parents hadn’t gone that far into their background. When he’d followed me to the cemetery in December, I’d assumed he knew I was visiting my brother’s grave.
“Caleb,” Mom said, recovering her composure. She pointed to the hole a few feet away. “That was his grave.”
Both agents turned to look at what was left of the grave, and Agent Ryan walked over to peer into the hole. “The lightning ended here. Where did it strike first?”
I pointed out the first headstone that had exploded. “The statue was next. After that, we ran and hit the ground.”
“Then we’ll start over there,” Agent Curry said. “I’m glad you’re all okay.”
Dad nodded. “We’re very lucky.”
The agents said their goodbyes and walked off. I watched them go for a moment before I faced my parents. “I’m ready to go home. How about you?”
Mom shook her head. “We have to take care of Caleb’s grave. We can’t leave it like this.”
“The cemetery has people who will do that,” Dad said. “We should get out of their way so they can get to work.”
“You’re right.” She gave the hole one more look and smiled wanly at me. “I don’t feel like going for Thai anymore. How about I make my meatloaf and mashed potatoes for dinner?”
“Even better.” My stomach let out a loud growl, and Dad laughed. I felt lighter when some of the old spark replaced the sadness in Mom’s eyes.
We headed for our car, which was parked on the now crowded road that cut through the cemetery. There were no less than two ambulances, three fire engines, and half a dozen police cars with their lights flashing. I spotted three shiny black SUVs that must belong to the agents and two news vans.
The police were blocking the media and a small crowd of spectators from entering the scene, so the reporters and their cameramen were forced to record from the road. One of the reporters saw us and started our way, prompting us to pick up our pace. Even Mom was laughing when we reached the car and jumped in.
Dad started the car and maneuvered around the other vehicles, but he had to stop for the people who were in no hurry to move out of the way. We had to wait until a police officer came over to herd them off the road.
A lone figure standing in the shadows beside a tall headstone on the other side of the road caught my eye. At first, I dismissed him as another one of the curious onlookers until I realized his attention was not on the area where the storm had hit. His head was turned slightly, and he was watching us instead.
The sun came out from behind a cloud, bathing the mysterious man in light. My stomach lurched.
It was one of Queen Anwyn’s personal guards.