Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
The crackling of the fireplace was my only company in the common room. I sat in an armchair with my legs pulled up to my chest, staring blankly into the flame, trying to figure out where the hell my common sense vanished to last night.
I spent most of my day today soaking in my own shame. If there was anything that last night taught me, it was that even if I wanted to, there was no moving on from Sebastian. If only I had realized that before I kissed Sawyer back.
I hated myself.
Ever since the battle in Caelestis, I’d lost myself. I didn’t recognize the woman dwelling in my bones, because she certainly wasn’t me. The real Maeve Willawood was impulsive, but she wasn’t stupid. And kissing Sawyer back last night was as stupid as decisions came.
The real Maeve also wouldn't have held a grudge over something as minuscule as a journal.
Maybe the real Maeve vanished with Blythe—the good pieces of her reabsorbing into the cosmos, leaving only fucked up characteristics in their place.
Or maybe I had just been through so much shit over the past year that I didn't even know who I was any more.
I pulled my knees closer to my chest, settling my chin upon them. I was a living, walking mistake. From the moment Lucan found my journal, to last night. Basically since the moment I was born.
Regret placed its hand around my throat, choking all the horrible, intruding thoughts out of me.
If I were never born, Delani and my mother would have had my father in their life.
If I was never born, my mother would still be alive.
Jocelyn would be alive. Sebastian never would have been beaten half to death in Draemor. The list went on and on.
“Maeve?”
Flames still bounced in my vision as Pia glided into the room. “You okay?”
I nodded, turning my head to the side when she sat down in the chair next to me. “I’m sorry that I ran off like that last night.”
“Hey, it was your party. You could have run off to Mealioria, and it would have been justified.”
She laughed, but my face didn’t budge.
“What’s wrong?” she consoled, laying a hand on my shoulder.
“I’ve been making a lot of mistakes lately, and I’m just sorry.” I put my gaze back to the flame.
“Is this about the ritual? I’m sorry if I was cold to you afterwards, I just—”
“It’s not about the ritual,” I cut her off while chewing on the tip of my finger.
“Well, then what’s wrong?”
“I did something bad.”
“What do you mean?”
I couldn’t tell her. Sebastian was her cousin, and she’d be livid if I told her. But then again, I needed to talk, and she was the only one who’d understand aside from Delani, who was busy today tending to the gardens with Archer.
Maybe this was a secret that was better off being kept inside, anyway. Aside from the one person I did feel the need to tell—Sebastian.
“Maeve?” Pia grabbed my wrist, yanking the fingernail from my lips and pulling my attention towards her. “What happened?”
I stared at her, and she stared back, deepening her gaze into a glare that almost broke me as my eyes began to water.
“I have to go,” I choked out. “I’m training with Kohen, and I don’t want to be late.” I left the room abruptly, leaving her stumped where she stood.
I sprinted down the hall so that she couldn’t follow me, only stopping when I reached the arena, thoroughly out of breath. Kohen sat on the mat, stretching his back before our session.
“You're early,” I said, meeting him in the middle of the mat.
“I was sparring with Seb before this. He needed to get back into the swing of things.” He jumped up to his feet, stretching his arms over his head.
My teeth sunk into my lip. It was like Sebastian followed me everywhere I went; there was no escape. There was a reminder of him in every person I knew. In everything I did.
Taking his position across from me, Kohen confided, “Not going to lie, Maeve, I’m a little worried that you're going to turn me to stardust.”
I huffed a laugh. A fake one, but a laugh all the same. “Turns out we're worried about the same thing.”
Kohen’s facial expression did a poor job at masking his fear.
We jumped right into our session. I ran through a few simple mind compulsions, keeping my strength in the process. If one good thing came from Blythe granting me the markings, it was my ability to wield without passing out.
I held down my anxiety as I prepared to give Kohen a taste of my new magic. He had yet to be on this end of it, and his hesitancy was obvious.
“I’m only going to try this once,” I said to reassure him and myself as I recalled the spark of starlight I had felt last night. “If it gets out of control, that's it. I’m done for the day.”
With his approval, I backed away from him, clearing some space in case this went horribly wrong. Which, with my record, was a likely outcome.
Outstretching my arms, I flattened my palms, calling upon the sunlight and drawing the star into my blood. My arms began to glow, and I felt the familiar ache in my gemstones before the power burst free.
Unlike the other times I’d harnessed the cosmos, this time I actually aimed.
I held a tight rein on the power, maneuvering my fingertips back and forth to narrow and thicken the stream of glittering, white light.
I aimed it straight at the mannequin's face, and once its head turned to ash, I pulled my magic back.
“Holy shit. I did it. I actually did it!”
An actual pure smile tugged at my lips, though when I turned to Kohen, it faded with the sight of his completely slack jaw.
My cheeks sunk, my smile faltering. “What is it?”
He couldn’t find the words, so he tugged at his hair, then pointed to me.
I grabbed the ends of my hair, pulling it in front of my eyes. As if my markings didn’t out me enough, the fading glow of my skin and hair made me a damn clear outlier.
“I don’t understand,” Sebastian voiced, ogling at my now very normal colored hair. “It just started to glow?”
“Yeah. While she was using the cosmos, her whole body damn near glowed,” Kohen answered, using exaggerated hand gestures. “It was the craziest shit I’ve ever seen. Her eyes turned silver, and her hair turned white. It was like she was drenched in pure starlight.”
“She looks normal to me,” Kade debated, his monotonous tone making his boredom blatantly clear.
“It faded shortly after she retracted the starlight,” Kohen continued.
“Which, I should point out, I had full control over,” I added cockily, pointing my eyes directly at Kade.
“About time,” he muttered in response.
The four of us, along with Pia and Delani, sat in the common room, waiting for Sawyer to show up with the journal. Sebastian decided he wanted us all to look at it at the same time.
“So what changed from last time you harnessed it?” Pia spoke up. “Last time you tried, you took down half a forest and you didn’t glow. Did you?”
“I don’t know, maybe. No one was looking at me when I did it to notice.” I glanced at Delani. “Did you notice it when we were in the arena?”
She shook her head. “No, but I was too busy looking at the giant hole you blasted through the wall.”
“Maybe the meteor shower has something to do with it?” Kade suggested, crossing his feet on the table top and leaning back in his chair. “We have no confirmation that you were glowing before that, so maybe your birthday was like a second awakening for your magic.”
I shrugged, though that seemed like the only somewhat logical explanation. “Maybe.”
“Sorry I’m late.” Sawyer moseyed into the meeting, tossing the journal on the center coffee table before throwing himself in the seat next to me.
“No you're not,” I answered. “Being late is your new forte.”
He smiled at me, and I fought back my own stiff grin by dropping my eyes to my lap. I know we said we would pretend like nothing happened between us, but it was so fucking awkward.
I could feel Sebastian's gaze settle on me, and I knew that if I looked up, I would see his eyelids meeting his dark eyebrows.
Sawyer copied Kade’s position, putting his arms up and behind his head. “Alright, Seb, put your glasses on and start reading me my bedtime story.”
Sebastian scoffed, but pulled his glasses free from his pocket. My breath caught when he put them on. I’d always loved when he wore his glasses. They added an innocence factor to him in which I knew he was not.
Kohen slid the book across the tabletop so that Sebastian could reach. Once in his palms, he let out a harsh exhale, then flipped to the first page.
He stared for a moment, utterly motionless. Then he flipped to the next page. Then the next. He frantically skimmed through the entire journal with his forefinger.
I could see his heart shatter.
He slammed the journal shut, throwing it back down on the table. “It’s empty.”
“What?” My surprise was evident in my voice. I reached my hand out. “Let me see that.”
Sebastian tossed it to me, and my reaction matched his when I saw the blank parchment with my own two eyes. I shook my head, saying under my breath, “That’s impossible.”
Venay said that she knew there was vital information written in this journal, but there wasn’t a single smear of ink on any of the pages.
“Did you grab the right book?” Kade accused Sawyer.
Sebastian answered for him. “It’s the right book. It matches the one I have.”
Damnit.
Everyone else took their turn scanning the empty journal. Pia ended up with it last. “So this was all for nothing?”
Apparently so. Everything I’d put Kohen through trying to figure out where the damn book even was. Proving to Beaumont that I was still alive. Jensen dying. We hadn’t even needed the journal to save Sebastian, so yeah, all for frickin’ nothing.
Sebastian leaned forward on his knees, covering his face with his palms as he released a deep, gravelly groan. When he sat up, his face portrayed calmness, but I knew that inside he was on fire.
“Back to square one, I guess,” Kohen mumbled, his disappointment unable to be disguised.
“It doesn’t make sense,” I uttered to mostly myself.
“I just thought of something.” Pia sat up straighter. “Why have we not even begun to question why this journal was in Draemor in the first place?”
“You said that King Hawthorne donated all of Cicily’s books,” I reminded her.
“Yeah. To archives in Caelestis, not Draemor,” she clarified.
“I mean, I questioned it, but no one else seemed that concerned about it, so I never brought it up,” Kohen said.
Kade's gaze darted to me. “Are you going to get pissed off at him, too? He should have told you that,” he mocked with a muffled laugh, referring to the argument he had overheard between Sebastian and I on our way back from Draemor the first time.
I sucked in the deepest breath of my entire existence, holding it in my chest to avoid blowing up at the comment. “You’re an ass, Kade.”
“If the journal ended up in Craterra, that’s pretty close to the borders of Draemor,” Sawyer supplied.
“So you think someone brought it across the borders?” Kohen asked, sliding his legs off the table. “Who, and why?”
Sawyer shrugged. “Who? I have no idea. But as to why, maybe they knew what it was.”
“But there's nothing even written in it,” I added. “And if that's the case, then they had to know Cicily personally to even know what the journal was.”
“And for it to end up in Beaumont’s study, they also had to know him.” Sebastian’s epiphany was soft spoken, but blew all of our minds.
“Lucan?” Pia asked.
Sebastian shook his head. “No. He would have worked to give Beaumont the other journal, too.”
“Unless he thought it was destroyed. Or he didn't know there was another one,” she responded.
Sebastian’s head shook again, his dark hair flowing into his eyes. “No. The journals weren’t something she ever spoke about. I don’t think my father even knew she was a seer. There's no way Lucan knew.”
We sat in silence for a while, racking our brains.
We ruled out Lucan and Aldous after a bit more discussion. Pia was ticked off about it, but we even considered the possibility of her mother, Ottilie, but ultimately ended up ruling her out as well.
We were at a crossroads. Then it struck me.
“Venay,” I whispered.
“What?” Kade answered.
I raised my voice. “Venay. She was probably one of the only people who knew about the journal.” I looked at Seb. “She was friends with your mother. She enchanted the journal. She must have known what it was.”
“There is no possible way that Venay would do something like that.” Kade's demeanor darkened, a scowl forming from ear to ear. “I have known Venay since Archer brought her here. She has never shown me an evil bone in her body.”
“And why would she help us find it if she gave it to Beaumont?” Pia questioned.
“I don't know,” I answered honestly, briefly considering Kade’s words.
“And why would she offer to undo the enchantment if she didn’t want us to read it?” Sawyer added.
I slumped back in my seat. “I also don’t know.”
“Maybe she didn’t just undo the enchantment,” Kohen supplied and all our attention refocused to him, “maybe she erased the pages. Maybe she doesn’t want anyone to read it.”
“Oh, fuck.” Sebastian sounded like he was going to be sick.
He stood up and closed the door to the common room, leaning back against it before he spoke again.
“When Beaumont had me in the dungeon, he told me that Lucan wasn’t the only one he had working for him across the continent.
He said he had assistants wandering the halls of the castle and our cities. He said they were aids to his plans.”
“Oh, fuck, is right.” The knowledge made Sawyer shoot up to his feet. “Well, there's only one way to be sure. Let’s go question this bitch.”
Sawyer started for the door, but Sebastian pushed him back. “Not yet. We should find out how long Venay has even been in Lumosia first. This is an awfully big claim to make, and if we’re wrong…”
“If Venay is working with Beaumont, then wouldn’t he know about Lumosia?” Pia raised the question. “He wouldn't have bothered taking Seb, and the Draemornian army would be here by now for Maeve.”
Valid points. Both of which no one had an answer to, though I had an idea. “My father told me when I first arrived here that only he could bring people into Lumosia—until I arrived, and the wards fell. Now anyone could stumble into the land.”
“Okay. But still, with the wards dropped wouldn't she have led Beaumont here by now?” Kade pitched, his skepticism still plain as day.
“I’ll ask my father how much he really knows about Venay,” I suggested, holding my palms up in innocence. How I would start that conversation beats me, but I'd figure it out.
“Do you really think he would give her up if he knew anything?” Kade scoffed in my direction.
I grimaced at him. “Why wouldn’t he? I’m his daughter.”
“Yeah, and Venay is his wife. Who he has known longer than you, I should add.”
My jaw fell to the fucking floor. “Wife?”