Chapter 30
Graysen
An old tome lay open before me, its ink smudged and faded over the centuries. I tapped a finger against the page, a dull thud-thud-thud, as I tried to smother the exhilaration burning through my blood.
My fingertip drifted up and down the center where the pages met, my thoughts flipping from my mother to Nelle and back again as I weighed what each needed. I dog-eared a corner, then smoothed it flat again—crease, then smooth, crease, then smooth.
Sweet smoke curled through the air from the blunt pinched between my fingers.
I took a drag, relishing the pungent haze.
Leaning back into the armchair’s headrest, I held the smoke, then released it in billowing plumes of white-gray clouds, watching with mild curiosity as it swirled upward toward the stained-glass mural with its colors deepening with the fall of evening.
As the drug spiked my blood, I sank further into the cushions and considered how I was going to make this work. Nelle and my mother were connected. Deep in the marrow of my bones, I knew it.
Warmth radiated from the fire as logs burned, crackling and popping.
My body soaked up the heat, turning my mind and limbs languid.
After giving Nelle space to collect herself, I’d taken a moment of my own.
A walk around the balcony, a breath of fresh air, enough time to steady the rush still humming through my veins.
Then I’d dressed in sweats and a t-shirt, finished rearranging the new furniture, and wandered into the library barefoot.
There was research I needed to do before meeting my brothers to get inked.
But this book reminded me of my mother.
And her memory had kept me company in the library.
I closed my eyes and let my mind drift…
…drift back to the fragmented dream I’d had last night.
Our library gave me a similar feeling to what I had experienced in the dream. Wherever I’d been, I was standing somewhere ancient, in a treasure trove of some sort.
Mom, with a hand on her hip, long hair twirled into a loose bun at the nape, stepped toward me. The light shifting and dancing on her sun-kissed skin came not from a lightbulb but from feeble candlelight.
Though she tried to remain stern, the twinkle in her eyes betrayed her as she leaned down and waved a finger in my face. “Graysen Crowther, you stand here with your hands in your pockets where I can see you.” She straightened and twisted away to speak to someone else. “He’s a natural-born thief.”
Her companion replied in a raspy voice, “As he should be. Wouldn’t be a child of the Houses if he wasn’t. Taking after someone else, is he, little thief?”
In the murky recesses of the room, I glimpsed blood-red eyes and heard a sound. Talons perhaps rapping on a wooden surface?
“He’s a better thief than I ever was,” my mother shot back with a wide grin, her cheek dimpled.
“You did well enough. You stole my friendship when you were only a little older than this one.”
“True.” Mom raised her hand, and in her grip was a brown paper bag.
“A friend who brought your favorite snack…” Her smile dimmed as she lowered the paper bag, and her voice became urgent and worried.
She fished something out of her handbag and held it aloft.
Pinched between her fingertips was a small, flat stone.
Simple and ordinary. But for the fact that it glowed bright crimson.
“But first, you need my help, Florin. I came as quickly as I could.”
My mother hurried away, and I was left alone. It took ten seconds before I disobeyed her.
The place felt cavernous and old. I had the faintest impression of stale air. And power, such vast unfathomable power, vibrated through the air and raked against my skin like needled fangs, making the blood in my veins thrum with excitement.
A Horned God?
The rugs were soft beneath my formal shoes as I strolled off. Pale candlelight from enormous candelabras wavered near polished surfaces and struck off in streams of weak yellow to scatter across… What? What did they illuminate?
There was something hanging high. A wooden placard with silver lettering. I saw the first letters P.U.R. before an object stole my attention and I wandered away.
A collection of haphazard shelves and bookcases filled the space, surrounded by rich, opulent colors and rows of glass jars, my distorted reflection staring back. I wore a black suit tailored for a five-year-old, with curly hair and gappy teeth.
Wherever this place was, it reminded me of the library. Not stored with information, and not the kind of trove that hoarded gems and gold but artifacts and strange oddities. Antiquities perhaps?
In my periphery, I caught something golden, like threads of magic quivering in the air.
Golden strands…
The strange memory split apart as a sudden loud thumping noise resounded within the library.
I jolted. My gaze sliced to Penn wobbling on a ladder, an enormous book at the base of its feet. Kenton was there in a heartbeat, steadying her with one hand on her arm, the other at the dip in her spine.
My thoughts remained briefly with my mother as the strange memory dissolved.
The leather seat groaned beneath my shifting weight as I straightened. My brows nudged together as I rubbed my curled fingers across my chin, staring into the fire burning bright in the hearth. Had my mother been stealing someone’s pain?
Who the hells had she visited in Ascendria the day she’d been stolen?
And why didn’t I remember visiting this place?
I needed to ask my brothers about that day, in particular Jett. Luckily, and somewhat un-fucking-luckily, he was here.
My siblings had descended upon the library an hour after I’d arrived. It was then I told them what I’d learned from my little bird earlier. Silas Boon was connected to the creepy warriors of the Children of Harbinger. And Silas knew Nelle was a wyrm.
The knowledge stirred up a fuck-ton more questions between my siblings before they finally settled down to dig through the vast shelves of books, trying to find any information on wyrm taming.
They’d find nothing, just like I had when I learned I was a tamer at a young age.
Throughout the following years, I scoured this room and turned up very little.
There was barely anything on the subject among our ancestors’ books that was worth noting.
Jett tossed his book down on the other end of the table with an irritated slap near the stack Kenton and Penn were adding to while he and Caidan went through them and then discarded those they couldn’t find any information within.
I could have helped them out and told them which books would yield knowledge, but I was a prick and didn’t give a shit.
Ferne was busy with her cellphone. Her forehead creased in concentration as she typed rapidly. She was to organize the upcoming family reunion. A morbid celebration, for sure, since the timing of it was to coincide with Nelle’s twentieth birthday.
A flush of pink stained Penn’s cheeks as she descended the ladder with a gilded book hooked into the crook of her elbow.
Kenton bent down and scooped up the one she’d accidentally dropped. His deep voice rumbled, “You don’t need to help us.”
“It’s no bother,” she replied, heading with silent footsteps to the long table we were all gathered around.
Her dark brown hair, brushed until it shone like metal, hung down her back.
The denim of her skinny jeans whispered with her movement.
When not in her uniform, she was always neat and tidy, with clothing pressed to perfection.
I’d never seen her in anything with short sleeves, not even a t-shirt.
Her shirts were always long-sleeved and buttoned right to the collar.
I ignored the pointed glances between Caidan and Jett, and their sharp murmurings as they looked at Penn with faint frowns tightening their features.
They felt uncomfortable with Penn’s help, since it was related to the Witches Ball. And she was a constant reminder of Nelle’s situation.
But maybe, as I considered Penn, who fidgeted with the cuff of her long-sleeved shirt, this was what she intended.
I’d watched her interactions with Nelle over the past week.
There was a sense of camaraderie she shared with my little bird.
Yet, Penn beheld my family with both a quiet challenge and absolute faith.
She shouldn’t have faith in us. What had happened to my mother, to my family, was too deeply rooted, especially with the way my aunt had nurtured our only hope and twisted us for the past five years. Aunt Valarie couldn’t risk us failing like we’d faltered the last time with the Witches Ball.
That was what I’d suggested to Nelle in my mother’s gardens—to look deeper.
She needed to unearth why my brothers needed to dislike her so intensely.
You couldn’t falter if you believed in what you were doing.
Which was why my brothers were more than uncomfortable with Nelle being up in my rooms. Why Kenton didn’t want her wandering the Keep. He wanted her locked up below. Out of sight, out of mind. So he didn’t have to face up to what he was part of.
What he’d done seven years ago.
He’d faltered back then. As we all had.
We couldn’t hesitate this time and not follow through. Aunt Valarie wouldn’t allow it. She’d manipulated us for many years to ensure we wouldn’t.
Penn’s soft voice stole my attention as she placed the book on the table beside Caidan and addressed me. “New shoes will arrive tomorrow.”
I gave her my thanks and ignored the smarmy laughter from Jett, instead blowing out a thick cloud of smoke right in his face, making him cough and disperse it with a frantic wave of his hand. “Fuck you,” he scowled.
Penn fixed the tall stack of books, so it sat in a neat tower, and then she stood still, awaiting instructions.
Deathly still.