Chapter 12
Twelve
Elodie
Other Elodie’s group chat has gone silent as an unexcavated tomb. I peer at the phone that’s now mine as if new messages might pop up that I somehow didn’t see before.
No one’s said anything since Friday morning. Since before I went off on three of my supposed besties during the supplementary training session.
Did my brief tirade accomplish anything other than offending them? Should I reach out to Stella and see if I can prod anything useful out of her while she’s off-balance?
Is she even off-balance or just pissed off? They’ve probably started a new chat excluding me to grumble about what a bitch I was.
Sighing, I flop back on the bed. I pushed myself through my usual workout, meditation, and shower, but I don’t feel at all ready to meet the day.
A tinkling bell from downstairs announces that the Devines’ Saturday brunch is ready. Even as I grimace, my stomach gurgles.
Starving myself won’t do me any favors with my glim either.
I pad downstairs in the leggings and fashionably oversized tee that feel way too luxurious for what should be a basic lounge outfit and find an equally opulent spread waiting in the dining room.
Pancakes are heaped next to a pitcher of maple syrup; sausages and bacon nestle on a porcelain platter.
Three types of eggs, five kinds of cut fruit.
The smells, sweet and savory, collide in my nose.
All this easy decadence. I half expect caviar to start raining from the ceiling.
Dad walks in behind me while I’m still standing there staring. He sets his arm lightly on my shoulder and gives me a little squeeze. “I hope you’re hungry.”
Hungry? The three of us would have to be children of Bhima to plow through the entire feast.
A flicker of anxiety passes through me. “Are we expecting company?”
I don’t have to perform for the grandparents Devine again, do I? Their last visit did not exactly go well.
Dad just chuckles, a warm sound that reverberates through my memories to the version of him I lost fourteen years ago in my own reality.
“No, I just wanted to make sure we could all have everything we might want. The staff can take the leftovers. Think of it as celebrating your first week back at school after everything you’ve been through. ”
He hugs me a little closer and brushes a kiss to the back of my head. “You’ve been so strong, Sunshine. I’m proud of you.”
My eyes well up in a way they really shouldn’t if I’m keeping up the ruse of being his actual daughter. It’s still hard to wrap my head around the fact that I have him back.
As I sit down, Aunt Daphne flits into the room with an exclamation of appreciation but no surprise at the spread.
Since I don’t want to make Dad worry more than he already has, I carefully pick out a single pancake with the slightest drizzle of syrup I think I can get away with, a scrap of bacon, and then load my plate with poached eggs and fruit.
As I pop a bite of syrupy pancake into my mouth and allow myself a moment of silent appreciation for the fluffy heaven, Dad turns to me. “I was glad to hear about this extra combat program the academy decided to offer. Your first seminar was yesterday, wasn’t it? How did you find it?”
He’s managed to avoid his usual business trips since my poisoning, but he had to stay at the office so late last night I didn’t see him.
My stomach clenches up at the reminder of the blaring ephemera and treacherous obstacle course. “It’s definitely challenging. Pushing us to expand our skills.”
I guess the necessary self-control could be useful for guarding against my glim… as long as it doesn’t kill anyone before I learn everything Captain Ross is trying to teach us.
Dad nods approvingly. “I spoke with the headmaster to confirm this military man he’s brought in will ensure all the students’ safety even when he’s putting you through the paces. I know even the regular classes at Luminary can be… intense. But you’ve always handled them well.”
I doubt he’d like to hear my real thoughts on how brutally the academy is run.
“The world is intense,” I say instead, keeping my tone light. “We’ve got to be prepared for it.”
To reassure my stomach that I’m eating mostly healthily, I intersperse nibbles of pancake and bacon with the eggs and fruit.
Thankfully, Dad switches from asking about my activities to answering Daphne’s questions about his latest meetings.
Void creatures are still popping up more often than usual.
There’s a new alliance he’s hoping to forge between our government and the lucent leaders in South America.
I think I’ve put on a good enough front as a happy daughter. After I’ve cleared all but a few tidbits off my plate, I make an excuse about an essay I need to get writing and slip away upstairs.
Daphne follows close behind me. At the second-floor landing, she taps my elbow and tilts her head toward her third-floor domain. “I’d like to have a quick chat. Maybe I can help you with that essay.”
The last bit is for Dad’s benefit if he happens to overhear. It’d sound strange if I argued about talking with my aunt.
Well, maybe I’ll be able to pump her for some useful information too.
Girding myself against the uncertainty of what she wants, I trudge after her up the next flight.
Daphne ushers me into her office with all its pale wood and laboratory-like neatness. I’d swear a trace of lemony tang lingers in the air as if she’s just wiped every surface down. She settles her delicate frame into one of the white leather armchairs in the reading area by the window.
Hard to believe this is the same woman who dragged a mangled corpse into the neighboring room.
I sink into the chair opposite hers and decide I might as well take charge of this conversation. “I’ve actually been wanting to talk to you too. It’s pretty unnerving that Kenneth Hearst up and vanished. Do you know anything about his family that might explain it?”
Now that his disappearance is common knowledge, the question shouldn’t seem suspicious. I still don’t know how she’d react if she found out I stabbed him to death and then watched one of my matches alchemize him into a stuffed toy dog.
Daphne’s gaze trails over me with the shadow of sadness that crosses her face whenever she remembers I’m not the niece she helped raise.
“The Hearsts have always struck me as very dignified and reserved. And very traditional in their expectations… I’d imagine there was a lot of pressure on both of their sons.
I don’t know more than that, but it’s possible it was too much for Kenneth. ”
Which could be interpreted as maybe he ran away or maybe he offed himself. My aunt’s tone doesn’t differentiate between the two.
It’s a similar story to the picture I’ve gotten of Kenneth’s home life in general. Could that pressure have made him an easy target for manipulation?
Daphne moves on to her main concern before I can decide if there’s anything else I should ask. “It’s been almost a week. Have you determined what your glim is?”
Of course that’d be her first priority. Everything in the upper tiers of lucent society comes down to how powerful you are.
I shake my head. “I guess I haven’t ended up in any situations that would provoke it.”
Her brow knits. “There are techniques for getting in touch with your innate magic. We could work through it together, see what we can—”
With a twist of my gut, I give my head a sharper shake to cut her off. “I don’t think that’s a good idea right now. Not—not while I don’t want anyone else knowing I’ve even sparked with my matches.”
Not ever, but I leave that part unspoken.
Something in Daphne’s expression softens.
Her gaze falls to the hand I’ve wrapped in a thin layer of ephemera to disguise my bond mark.
“Are you sure you can tolerate hiding it for much longer? Forcing yourself apart from them… It’s putting a strain on you, isn’t it?
I get a sense of it now and then in the energy around you. ”
My pulse stutters. “You can tell I’ve sparked with them?”
Has anyone else noticed?
Daphne puts my worry to rest with a dismissive flick of her hand. “No, no. It’s just a general impression that you’re out of sorts, and only brief when it comes. I don’t think I’d attribute it to that cause if I didn’t already know.”
She waits for my explanation, pensive but patient. All the stress I’ve been bottling up starts to roil inside me.
She’s the only one in this world who knows where I came from. The only one I can reveal any of this anguish to who won’t think I’m crazy.
My voice still balks before I can propel the words from my throat. “It’s better if people don’t know. All the curiosity and the questions that’ll come up, when we still don’t know who might have it in for me… And I don’t know if I’ll stay with my matches anyway.”
Daphne frowns. “Why wouldn’t you? I can see you might have some qualms about some of the families involved—”
My teeth grit instinctively hearing her go there first, exactly the way a Devine would. “It’s not that. It’s just… You know I already found my matches in my own reality. Even if I can’t go back…”
I look down at my hands, running my thumb over the starburst-like mark. “How can I really be a mate to my matches here? It doesn’t matter that they’re almost the same as the men back home—I’d still be betraying that first bond.”
“Oh, honey.” Daphne scoots forward and reaches toward me, but stops when I tense up. Her voice stays gentle. “I don’t think that’s how fate would see it.”
I grimace. “Well, fate is kind of fucked up, if you ask me. How else can I see it? I bonded with my original matches, gave them my love and my loyalty, and now I’m going to throw that away?”
“Do you dislike who they are in this reality?”
I have to pause before I can answer. “No. Not any more than I did before I matched with them in mine. We had a long way to go, both times… It’s not about that. If I didn’t want them, it wouldn’t be a problem.”
One corner of Daphne’s mouth crooks upward to form a slanted smile. “This is the life you have now, as sorry as I am for how I disrupted the one you had. My Ellie isn’t here to be with them. You can’t go back, Butterfly. This is where you fit.”
“It still doesn’t seem right.”
“Doesn’t it?” She cocks her head. “Do you really think that if you could lay out this situation for your original matches, if they knew you couldn’t return to them no matter how much you obviously wish you could, that they’d tell you they’d prefer for you to cut yourself off from love and affection for the rest of your life?
For their counterparts here to have no true mate for the rest of theirs? ”
When she puts it like that, it’s hard to say yes.
A lump rises in my throat. “It isn’t fair to them, though.”
Daphne’s smile tightens. “It isn’t fair to any of you, and that’s my fault. I’m so sorry.”
She appears to gather herself with a breath.
“I can’t tell you how to feel or what your conscience will accept, but I do know this: You spent a lot of time with your original matches.
You must be carrying currents of their ephemera inside you.
Maybe you can’t talk to them directly, but you can reach out to them that way.
It might lead you to a better understanding of how they’d want you to live now. ”
I curl my fingers toward my legs. She’s right—I know she is.
Days ago, I tried to reach across the universes to my original matches with all my memories to guide me. I don’t know if they heard me.
But maybe I can hear them, in a way that still counts, if I listen to more than my fears.
I open my mouth, not sure exactly what to say or whether I should thank her, and a ping resonates up the stairs from my bedroom where I left my phone. My heart jumps with the thought that it’s probably my friends looping me back into whatever they’re talking about in the wake of my outburst.
Daphne stands before I need to excuse myself. “Go on. Like I said, you do still have a life you can live here—and it is yours.”
I bob my head and hurry down the stairs to my bedroom.
When I grab my phone and flick on the screen, it isn’t the group chat that pops up. Instead, there’s a single text from an unknown number but an easily identifiable source.
Call me when you can, mia amata. I found her.