Chapter 25
Logan was showered and dressed in dark jeans and a hoodie. Noah had arrived too, and they were about to head to Italy, where
the Kingston Enterprises head offices were located. “I’ll call you soon,” he promised as he pressed a kiss to my lips.
Noah gave me a quick hug and said, “I’ll keep him safe.”
Logan ignored his best friend, spending a few seconds opening the transport on the back deck. When they stepped through, my
heart slammed in my chest, and I clutched my phone, waiting for his call. Mom and Dad guided me into the dining room, and
we were soon joined by the rest of my siblings.
Everyone had put their life on hold to deal with my issue, and I couldn’t be more grateful.
“Rafael didn’t used to be a billionaire,” Dad said as he sipped his coffee; he’d been attempting to joke me out of my nerves
for fifteen minutes. “When I met him, he was a punk-ass kid building cars out of his garage, and computers out of his tiny
bedroom. Always was brilliant with anything electronic or that contained an engine.”
“He was brilliant,” Mom agreed. “Isabel used to rave about how she wasn’t good enough for him because he was so much smarter than her.
But she was an earth witch, you know. One who reveled in nature and in the energy of the moon.
She was never indoors, and yet she married this nerdy science warlock who would spend days tinkering with his computers. ”
“Yin and yang,” Trevor said with a shrug. “There’s a reason they say opposites attract. It’s that lovely balance that keeps
everything interesting.”
His eyes met mine, and my heart ached at his pain hovering in the flames. Trevor was hurting. He hadn’t mentioned Belle at
all since we came home, but I knew she was on his mind. She’d be on mine more too if I weren’t so stressed by my current malady—as
Logan would say.
“When Isabel died, he broke,” Dad said, his humor fading as the darker memories took over, “and I lost my oldest friend. It
felt as if a part of my family died. It took me a long time to move forward without him. The second he enacted the blood oath
against me, though, I put our past behind me and decided he was dead to me as well. A threat to me or mine was enough to cut
the cord.”
Mom toyed with her teacup, and I found myself asking one more time: “What actually happened that day in the forest, Mom? It’s
too late to worry about your theory disturbing our balance. We’re already deep in it.”
Dad lurched forward as if to intervene, but Mom answered before he could. “I truly don’t know, but this theory . . . it’s
one that I’ve thought on ever since I read Mom’s letters.” She had all our attention, but she didn’t lift her gaze from the
delicate porcelain of her cup. “I think I did call a monster that day in the forest.”
I tried to breathe through the tightness in my chest—Rafael hated our family because he believed Mom killed his wife, and . . .
he might be right. “You told me that you don’t have the same affinity as me,” I whispered as my heart broke. “How could you have called a monster?”
She pressed her lips together. “I don’t have your affinity, but I do think I might have tapped into it somehow. After you
were born, I noticed a foreign strain of energy in my system. I could feel it, this weird, icy magic that didn’t mesh with
my elemental magic. It wasn’t there before you were born.”
“How could my birth trigger a magical share?” I asked, trying to recall if I’d ever learned anything like that in school.
“Your birth was quite traumatic.” Mom tried to smile, but it didn’t entirely hit the mark. “The most traumatic I had in all
four pregnancies.”
“She almost died. They had to do an emergency C-section,” Dad added, his voice gruff.
Jensen looked between our parents. “You said Paisley’s huge head almost cut you in half, but we didn’t realize you nearly
died.”
This story wasn’t a secret, but they’d clearly kept the full extent of the situation from us.
“Your sister’s head was perfectly sized and shaped,” Mom admonished Jensen. “It was just one of those births where everything
went wrong. Mother and child in utero share blood and magic. A literal sharing of life. I can only assume that during either
your development or maybe in the trauma of your birth, I took on more of your magic than I should have. A strain of reaper
energy that could call a monster in the right circumstances.”
My world ground to a halt, and it wasn’t until Jensen wrapped an arm around me and said, “Breathe, Paisley. Breath, sis,”
that I felt the rattling of air in my lungs.
“My magic killed Logan’s mom?” My rasps grew louder. “He’s never going to forgive me.”
Mom was around to my side of the table in seconds, her hands on my face, a lick of her power caressing my skin.
“No! Paisley Hallistar, you will cease that line of thought immediately. Firstly, there’s no fault with you.
You were four years old, for goddess’s sake.
And secondly, magic is strange and volatile, and the elders should never have allowed an affinity as powerful as yours to be struck from our world.
The fault lies with the magical community.
Not those of us who were victims of their genocide centuries ago. ”
Dad stared at Mom and there was no mistaking the haze in his eyes. I’d never seen him cry, not that I could remember, but
he was fighting back tears. “You’re going to use your magic again, Beth.” It wasn’t a question.
Mom hugged me one last time, then straightened, stumbling until she fell into her husband’s lap. He wrapped her up tightly,
and I knew I wasn’t the only uncomfortable one. If they got any closer . . . we’d all need a shit ton of therapy.
“I’m going to use my magic again,” she confirmed, voice stronger than I’d heard in a long time. “I can’t ask Paisley to be
brave and strong if I don’t show her the same in kind. I thought I was protecting everyone, but I understand now, I left us
all at a disadvantage. One Hallistar short in our combined magical strength.”
“Do you still contain a streak of my magic?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “No. I’ve never felt that magic again after that day I released it, but in the fear that it would return,
I cut off all magic. That day in the forest we were spooked by a huge bear, that part wasn’t a lie, and I reacted without
thought. The power popped out of me, as if it were just waiting for the trigger to release. The shadowy creature was there
for only a split second, long enough to slash through Isabel, who jumped between us, and then it was gone.”
“When I first started seeing the creatures,” I said, needing to explain even as my guilt weighed me down, “they flickered in and out of our plane before returning to Purgatory. My magic wasn’t strong enough to keep them here. That would be what happened that day in the forest.”
Mom straightened on Dad’s lap. “This is not your fault, Paisley.” It was the firmest tone I’d heard her use in a long time.
“And Logan will not blame you.”
My phone rang before I could have the breakdown hovering on the edge of my consciousness—Logan’s name flashed across the screen.
“Hey,” I croaked as I answered it.
“Precious?” His voice held a note of concern. “You okay?”
“Yes—yes.” I managed to sound almost normal. “Are you at his offices?”
There was a pause and it sounded as if he was walking. “Approaching now. I’m going to put you in my pocket for a second. Let
me know if you can hear us okay.”
Static sounded through the speaker, but it settled just as fast. Logan and Noah chatted quickly, as if in conversation, and
while it was muffled, most of what they said was clear. Logan’s voice came back stronger when he lifted the phone again. “All
good?”
“All good,” I confirmed. “Be careful.”
“Always,” he assured me, before he slid the phone back into his pocket. I hit the mute button on my phone, to ensure Rafael
never picked up on our presence. It took a while for them to make it through the building, moving past multiple security checks,
until I heard Logan say, “Hey, Lucille, is Dad ready for us?”
Lucille, who I could only assume was a receptionist or secretary, replied in what I would guess was Italian.
Logan answered her in the same language, and I tried not to swoon at how sexy it was that he spoke multiple languages.
Thank the goddess we weren’t measuring the survivability of this relationship based on the skills we each brought to the table.
Because I was woefully behind in that regard.
Logan and Noah remained quiet as they waited for Rafael, and it wasn’t long before the voice I remembered from parents’ weekend
crackled over the line. “Son,” he said, sounding thrilled to see Logan. “What brings you over here when you’re supposed to
be at school? Is your little band performing again?”
Little band. Condescending bastard.
“No gigs booked at the moment,” Logan said, sounding bored and annoyed. It was a familiar tone I’d heard more than once last
year, and as much as I hated it now, he was doing what was needed to play his part. “I’m here about Paisley.”
Rafael scoffed. “What did that little traitor do? I told you not to trust her, son. Your job was to get close to her and report
back on the family. I’ve been worried that your loyalty to a child would cloud your judgment of the adult.”
Logan’s laughter was hard and cynical. “You know my judgment is never clouded, Dad. You taught me that the hard way. To never lose sight of the end goal. To always play the fucking game. But the game has
changed, and I need more answers if you want me to continue.”
All of us leaned closer to the phone, not wanting to miss anything. “What changed with the game?” Rafael asked, and he wasn’t
as good at hiding his interest.
“Paisley is sick. She’s collapsing at school, and when I’m close to her, her energy wanes. I didn’t do anything to make her
sick, so why is she exhausted with low magic? If you expect me to keep up with the plan, I need more information.”
There was a terrifying moment of silence as I waited to hear my fate, and then Rafael laughed. That bastard actually laughed.
“Ah, son. It appears that you were the one who changed the game, and we’re finally closing in on the check and mate.”
I exchanged a glance with Trevor, who wore the grimmest face I’d ever seen. “What are you talking about?” Logan growled. I
heard Noah murmur, but his words were too low to make out through the muffled connection.
“You should take a seat,” Rafael said. “This is going to be a bit of a story.” The scraping of chairs sounded as Rafael continued.
“It all started when Paisley was born. That was when I felt the change in Beth Hallistar’s power. I mentioned it to her idiot
of a husband, mostly in concern, but he dismissed me.”
Mom’s theory of what happened wasn’t as big of a secret as we thought—Rafael believed the same truth. Which meant Logan was
going to know.
He was going to know that it was my affinity that killed his mom, and despite my family’s reassurances, I had no idea how
he’d react.