12. Eliza
Chapter twelve
Eliza
W e’ve only just walked out of the bar, feeling more hopeless now than we did before walking in, when a vaguely familiar face appears in front of me.
It takes a minute for me to place her, but when I do, I can’t stop my smile. I remember the energy she brought to the table that night when we’d all had dinner together. Fun, cheery, like we’d been friends forever.
Sylvie.
“Eliza! I’ve been hoping to catch you again.”
The words are out of me before I can stop them. “You have?” I shake my head, and add, “Sorry. That sounded mean.”
“No,” she laughs, “You’re good. But yeah, I’ve been hoping to see you.” Her eyes flicked to Corvan. “And Ryker has been wanting to see you , too,” she tells him. “He thinks you guys might have… a lot in common.”
Corvan’s brows shot up. “Like what?”
She shrugged and said, voice nonchalant, “Like your heritage, yeah?” The look in her eyes told me that she meant more than what she said .
It hit me as soon as it hit Corvan. “Yeah? What’s his bloodline?”
Sylvie glanced around the ship, then said, voice low, “Clever as a…”
Fox .
Ryker was a fox shifter?
“And what about you?” I asked her, unable to stop myself from voicing my curiosity. “Are you…”
“Different bloodline,” she says. “I’m not like them. But that’s actually kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Okay,” I say slowly. “Shoot, then.”
“Not here,” Sylvie says quickly. “It’s just… kind of private, okay? I’d really appreciate it if you and I could maybe go somewhere quiet?” She looks at Corvan again. “And Ryker is over on the east side of the pool. Maybe you guys could… talk? I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt to know another guy like you.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Corvan mutters. His knuckles brush the back of my hand, and I face him. There’s a question in his eyes.
He’s asking me if I’m okay with this. If this is what I want—and I know, just by that single glance, that he’ll respect my decision no matter what it is. At this moment, his choice is mine.
“Please,” Sylvie says after a moment.
I turn back to her slowly, taking in her pleading expression, before nodding. “Sure. I’d like that.”
“Great!” Sylvie chirps. “We’ll see you later, Corey. But for now, I’m taking your girlfriend for a little while.”
Girlfriend. That word again. Earlier, he could have just been saying it to really bring his point home, to strike a chord in Savannah, to make it clear to her that I wasn’t to be fucked with. Which was, admittedly, hot , but when Sylvie said it and he didn’t bother correcting her, and instead brushed a hand across my cheek before kissing my temple, I knew I was more than a cruise-long friend to him. We’d talked, and I understood that he liked me like I liked him.
But I didn’t realize he could have possibly liked me as much as I like him.
“Talk later?” he murmured.
I nodded slowly, caught up in everything about him .
Corvan stared at me for a long moment before reaching into his back pocket and sliding what he pulled out into my hand. A flat rectangle. His keycard . “That’s my spare. When you’re done, wait for me in my room, okay?”
I nodded and whispered back, “Okay.”
It took everything in me to turn away from his piercing, concerned gaze when Sylvie wound her arm with mine and led me away.
When we were finally alone, tucked in a cozy corner of the ship with our legs crossed beneath us and our faces turned toward the expansive ocean, Sylvie said, “I’m glad he told you about the shifter thing. It’ll make everything else I have to say a hell of a lot easier.”
I couldn’t hide my confusion or my worry. “I’m sorry?”
“What, exactly, is he, by the way? Ryker can always tell if someone’s a shifter or not, but he can’t always seem to make out what kind of shifter they are.”
“Oh,” I say, my voice falling flat. “Um, a raven.”
“Hm,” she says thoughtfully. “He’s the first with wings we’ve met.” She laughs. “Ryker is going to ask so many questions that your mate will inevitably lose his shit.”
My brow furrows. “Mate?”
“Is that not what ravens call it?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The mating bond, obviously,” she says, laughing. “It’s written all over you two! Just the way you two move around each other is—wait. Oh, shit. Did you not know? Has he not mentioned it?”
“Sylvie, I have no idea what a mating bond is.”
Except maybe I do. I’m a doctor. I took a ton of biology classes—I know about some birds and their life partners. But I also used to read for fun, before I was studying to get my doctorate. I used to read stories about women and animal shifters and finding out that they're fated for each other—that they're mates .
If shifters are real, does that mean those bonds are, too ?
“Well,” she clears her throat awkwardly. “I’ll let you talk to him about that. But you and I have something more pressing, anyway.”
“We do?”
“Yes,” she says, nodding, “About your ancestry. I’ve never met a goddess’ descendant before? Tell me all about it. What’s the magic like? I only know what it’s like to be a witch, of course.”
My heart was racing, my head flying light years with every minute that passed. “ What ?”
She snapped her mouth shut, then shook her head. “Oh, fucking toadstools. Please tell me I’m not breaking that news to you, too.”
“ What do you mean, descended from a goddess? ”
She gives me a look of sympathy. “I guess since you come from Lethe, it’s perfectly natural that you might not have known before. Though it’s still somewhat of a surprise… especially considering it means you’ve never run into a witch before? We’re everywhere, I swear to God. Why did I have to be the one who sensed it on you first? At least my gran taught me how to, otherwise I’d have spent this whole cruise trying to figure out why your aura is all—” she made a vague gesture with her hands in lieu of an adjective. “If only I could do what you can right now,” she says, laughing without humor. “I’d take back everything I just said. Actually, is it too late for that? Can I run away and pretend I never saw you?”
“No,” I answer, my voice strangely calm. “You’re going to tell me.”
“Tell you what? Because the mate thing really isn’t my—”
“ —No,” I interrupt. “The goddess thing. The Lethe thing.”
“Okay,” she mumbles, nodded. “Sure, I can do that. What do you know of mythology, Eliza? Did you ever learn about gods and goddesses?”
I nod slowly. “Not for school or anything, but I used to obsess over it when I was in middle school. I wanted to know every single one by name.”
“So you know Lethe, then? From your studies?”
Another nod from me.
“And I’m guessing that means you know what she’s the goddess of.”
“Forgetfulness,” I say.
“And her power?”
“ Making people forget.” I shook my head. “Sylvie, what are you getting at?”
“Bear with me a little longer, okay? I’m leading you to it gently and praying that it stops you from having a cataclysmic breakdown and throwing yourself overboard.” She gave me a joking smile and smoothed her hands down her tan legs. “Alright, so she has the power to make people forget things. Has there ever been an instance in your life, Eliza, where someone suddenly somehow couldn’t remember something you were hoping they wouldn't? And you couldn’t figure out how, or why?”
“Just fucking say it, Sylvie,” I whisper, closing my eyes against the memories. Against the papers I’d forget to write that the teacher would forget to ask for. Against the reminder of the boy who I asked to prom my Junior year of high school, who rejected me and thought I was joking about it when I brought it up to him another time, acting as if he was unable to recall me embarrassing the shit out of myself on his doorstep.
“ You can make people forget things, too. It’s… a manifesting kind of power. Nothing physical, just the kind of thing you have to summon with pure intention. Which explains how you never thought much of things that might have happened, besides the fact that you didn’t even know it was possible.” She shrugs, then adds, “It also explains why you had an obsession with gods and goddesses. My gran says most descendants find themselves going through a phase about it all at some point or another.”
“You’re saying I have magic.”
“I’m saying you have power . It’s not the same, exactly. Witches like me have magic. We can do a lot of shit with just a few different ingredients and being who we are. But you have power—an ability, a thing you’re capable of, one thing that is a completely different thing than what I do.”
With everything else she flung at me, like a slap across the face, it takes a second for that to process that it's the second time she's mentioned that. “ You’re a witch ?”
She balks at me, eyes wide. “Fucking hell, do you know nothing ?”
“I didn’t before I got on this goddamn ship,” I snap back, but instantly regret the words, the tone. “I’m sorry,” I add quickly. “I’m just…”
“Lost.” Sylvie scoots closer and wraps an arm around me. “Look,” she says, “Feel free to tell me to fuck off. But I’m going to give you my number, and when all this is through, you’re welcome to call me whenever you’d like. I feel like maybe you need a friend who can help you, Eliza. And has at least some idea of what you’re going through. I can be that for you.”
I stare at her for a long moment, fighting tears, before nodding. “Okay,” I whisper. “I’d like that.”
She smiles. “Me, too.”
“But Sylvie?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m going to need you to tell me everything about who I am, right the fuck now.”
And so she did.
She explained about my inherent power. About how it passed through the ages, and about how it typically served its bearer a true purpose in life and would skip generations who would never require it (explaining why my mother or father might not have known of their heritage) until it found someone who would, once again, need it. I realized that I knew that I did need it. I knew what its purpose was in my life.
If I could figure out how to purposefully use my magic, I could help Corvan. If I could just make Savannah and Jade forget…
Then Corvan and I would have nothing to worry about.
“Can you teach me?” I ask Sylvie after she finally gets through all the basics. “How to wield it?”
She stares at me for a while. “It’s going to be different from mine. But… from what I have been reading, I think I know enough to try to help you, at least. Just don’t get mad if it doesn’t work, okay?”
I throw my arms around her and laugh with relief, with happiness, with every pent-up emotion I’d felt since she stopped me earlier. And, meaning it more than I ever have in my entire life, I whisper, “ Thank you .”