Chapter 18
“Relax, Mom,” I said. “Before you give yourself a stroke.” I knew these were the wrong words to use as soon as they slipped from my lips.
Too late. The second they escaped, I wanted to grab them out of the air and shove them back into my mouth.
Unfortunately, life did not come with an undo button.
Especially not when dealing with Davenport women.
Amelia Davenport’s eyes rounded. “Relax? Relax! Don’t tell me to relax.
How can I relax when my grandson went from a little child to this!
” she gestured to Darian who looked a bit confused as to why his grandma was having a fit.
He glanced between us like he was trying to figure out whether he should be concerned or just continue existing.
Smart kid. If I’d suddenly aged ten years overnight, I’d probably be more upset than he was.
Meanwhile Darian was treating the whole thing like an inconvenient growth spurt.
Ronin chuckled. “Fuck, I love this family.” He stretched out his long legs and leaned back into the couch cushions, beer balanced loosely in one hand. “Every time I come over, it’s either a magical crisis or a public execution. Sometimes both.”
Iris whacked him on the arm. “Don’t talk.”
“Ow.” He laughed.
I took a deep breath to try to rein in my irritation. “Darian, can you go up to your room so Mommy can have a talk with Grandma?” Because there was absolutely no version of this conversation that was going to improve with an audience. Especially an audience directly involved in the crisis.
Darian shrugged. “Okay.” He sounded completely unconcerned, which was either reassuring or deeply alarming. I hadn’t decided which.
I watched as my gangly kid leaped up the stairs two at a time like he’d been doing that all his life.
I smiled despite the situation because he was happy, not traumatized.
Happy. He wasn’t hiding. He wasn’t crying.
He wasn’t scared. He was excited about being bigger, stronger, and apparently capable of consuming enough food to bankrupt a small bakery.
There were worse outcomes. Many worse outcomes.
Unlike my dearest mama.
“You’ve got some explaining to do, Tessa,” snapped my mother, her finger pointing at my face. Not near my face. At my face. The woman could weaponize a finger point better than most people could wield a wand.
“You’re overreacting,” said Beverly as she put the shopping bags on the kitchen island. “The boy’s fine.”
My mother’s face was two shades too dark. “Fine? Fine! How can you even say that? I barely recognized him.” She threw both hands into the air. “Yesterday he was reaching my waist. Today he’s borrowing Marcus’s clothes. Do you understand how unsettling that is?”
Beverly sighed. “Amelia, darling, you’re focusing on the wrong thing.”
“Oh, am I?”
“Yes.” Beverly nodded firmly. “The important thing is that he looks adorable in dark blue. The boy has excellent bone structure. He’s going to be devastatingly handsome in a few years.”
My mother fixed her with a look sharp enough to qualify as a deadly weapon.
And I suddenly understood exactly why Beverly had volunteered to accompany my mother over here. She wasn’t helping. She was enjoying herself. Way too much.
My mother planted her feet in front of me. “Start talking.” She crossed her arms across her chest and gave me the exact look she used to give me when I was sixteen and trying to explain why technically sneaking out wasn’t sneaking out if I intended to come back.
Right. We all knew how I liked to be given orders.
Part of me just wanted to tell her to go home.
But the other part, the one that saw the fear and uncertainty in her eyes, made me want to tell her.
I knew she loved my son. She was scared, which was completely understandable, considering what was happening.
The woman had seen her grandson yesterday, only to find today someone who looked old enough to start middle school. That would rattle anybody.
“Do you remember that wereape Allison?” I began. I moved toward the kitchen island and leaned against it, mostly because standing still felt easier than pacing. Barely.
My mother narrowed her eyes. “Vaguely. You told me she was in prison. What does she have to do with this?”
“Everything.” I sighed, rubbing at the bridge of my nose like that might somehow organize the complete disaster currently masquerading as my life.
“She has a twin called Addison. And I think her sister… no, I know, her sister did something to Darian. I’m not sure what it is.
Dad says it’s not a curse but something else, something that triggered his biology and made him skip a few years.
” Even saying the words out loud sounded insane, like I'd wandered into a science-fiction convention and accidentally volunteered to give the keynote speech.
Skip a few years. Like my son had accidentally fast-forwarded through childhood.
One minute preschool-sized, the next practically asking for the car keys.
At this rate I was going to blink and he'd be complaining about property taxes before I'd figured out what had happened.
Some of the color left my mother’s face. “I don’t understand. Why would this Addison do this?” Her voice cracked slightly on the name with fear, anger, and confusion. Probably all three. Honestly, I couldn't blame her. I was cycling through those emotions so fast I was practically getting dizzy.
Good question. “I don’t know. But she’s up to something.
When I portaled over to her lab, I mean, it was like something she’d been working on for years.
” The memory of that place still made my skin crawl in a way that had nothing to do with magic.
Too clean. Too organized. Too planned. Nothing about it felt spontaneous.
It had the unsettling perfection of a place where every tool had a purpose, every surface had been measured twice, and every terrifying breakthrough had probably been documented in color-coded binders.
People who labeled things that neatly were rarely experimenting with harmless hobbies.
“Wait.” My mother frowned. “Did you say portaled? You mean those ley lines you use?” Her brow furrowed harder. I could practically see her trying to follow the conversation and failing somewhere around supernatural laboratory.
Right. My mother was a dud when it came to magic.
She was basically human. She wouldn’t understand these new Nexari portal abilities I’d developed.
I would explain it to her one day. Just not today.
What happened to Darian was enough for her.
I didn’t think she could handle more right now.
One family crisis at a time seemed like a reasonable policy.
“Sure,” I answered, seeing Iris’s expression change to curious.
“Anyway. All I know so far is that she killed her sister Allison and then she showed up here, blaming me for her sister’s death and talking about how special Darian is.
” Every time I repeated it, the whole thing sounded more unhinged. Yet somehow it kept getting worse.
“Wait,” my mother rubbed her temples. “Is she a doctor?” The hopeful tone in her voice suggested she was desperately searching for a logical explanation.
“More like a mad scientist,” snickered Ronin as he raised his beer slightly. “The evil kind. Not the fun kind with giant robots.”
“I wouldn’t say she’s a doctor,” I told my mother. “But she seems skilled in working on experiments.” Creepy and absolutely illegal ones. But I kept that to myself. No sense adding fuel to an already raging inferno.
“She’s a nut with a stunning body and an ass I’d kill for,” said Beverly as she pulled out a chair and sat. “If she wasn’t completely insane, she’d be infuriating.”
“Beverly!” snapped my mother.
“What?” said Beverly, as she crossed her legs and examined her manicure. “Two things can be true.”
“But…” began my mother, her eyes were wet and I could see she was on the verge of tears. “You will make him or turn him back to what he was before. You will do that?” Her voice dropped lower on the last words. Smaller. Not demanding anymore, just hopeful.
My chest squeezed because part of me absolutely wanted to do just that.
Addison had robbed me of years with my kid.
And I hated her more than anyone I’d ever hated at the moment.
I wanted his little voice back. His tiny sneakers by the door.
The way he’d launch himself into my arms without thinking.
“I don’t think that’s possible.” The words tasted awful coming out.
“Dad doesn’t think this is a curse. He thinks whatever happened accelerated something that was already inside Darian.
” Saying it out loud didn’t make it easier to accept.
If anything, it made it worse. Because if Obiryn was right, there might not be anything to reverse.
And that meant those missing years were simply... gone.
My mother shook her head. “That can’t be true.
No. I can’t accept that. I won’t.” She pointed a finger at me again.
“You change my grandson back this minute.” Her voice rose with every word until the windows were probably considering filing a noise complaint.
If determination alone could reverse magical aging, Darian would have been back in diapers by now.
I shrugged. “I can’t. I wish I could… but I can’t.” The words felt helpless even coming out of my mouth. Believe me, if there was a spell, potion, ritual, magical coupon, or suspiciously glowing artifact capable of fixing this, I would already be using it.
“I don’t believe you,” hissed my mother.
“What about Dolores? She’s always going on about how she’s above every witch with her magic.
How she’s the best. Yes. She can change him back.
” She nodded firmly, clearly pleased she’d solved the problem.
Unfortunately, reality remained stubbornly uncooperative.