CHAPTER NINETEEN ISI
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ISI
Ishut the door behind us and retrieved Velacross’s journal I’d discovered behind the wall in the Syllavar library. We sat on the bed together, leaning against pillows. Pherin flew in through the cracked-open window and perched on the headboard.
I laid the journal on my lap and flipped open the cover.
New words immediately shimmered into view. My hands stilled on the page, and I sucked in a breath.
“What is it?” Kerralyn leaned closer.
“New text. Appearing right now.”
Kerralyn reached for it. “May I?”
The instant the journal left my hands, the fresh ink vanished.
“What…?” Kerralyn turned the book over. “Where did it go?”
The moment I took it back again, the writing reappeared.
“It knows me,” I whispered.
My throat tightened as I read the first passage silently, my friends crowding close, reading over my shoulder.
I’d traveled through the veil to this world one prior time. I’d remained for years. Made friends. Fell in love, though she died much too soon. I’d even thought of staying, but my family would’ve worried, so I passed back into my own realm. But I missed her very much. Worried about her.
Her.
I turned the page. More words appeared.
My vision blurred as I read. I shared my secrets with my beloved daughter, watching her joy as she learned to bridge realms. Her laughter was light in the darkness, her wonder a gift I treasured.
I traveled between worlds as easily as one crosses a threshold, and I doubt she was ever aware I was gone.
I enjoyed traveling. How could I have known the cost it would take from my soul?
I flipped to the sketch in the back, the young girl with dark hair and bright eyes.
My mother’s face stared back at me.
“I saw her portrait in the gallery,” Lexie said. “It does look a lot like a young version of her.”
I pinched my eyes shut, then opened them. “He could be my grandfather.”
My words hung in the air. The man who’d torn open reality. Who’d captured Skathes and studied them like specimens. Whose blood might be running through my veins right now, carrying power I’d spent my life hiding.
I’d thought I was broken, but what if I’d never been broken at all? The faint scent of Mother’s favorite perfume ghosted through my memory, a whisper from childhood mornings when she’d brush my hair and hum songs.
Lexie’s hand found mine and squeezed.
“Velacross Blyte,” I said again, testing how it felt. “My grandfather.”
Pherin landed on my shoulder, nuzzling my neck. Strong. Brave. Like me.
The next passages came faster, each one a knife between my ribs.
Velacross had hidden my mother. Sent protection.
Thorne? The timeline fit. He would’ve been young when Velacross assigned him, maybe only in his early twenties, but he’d done what he could to protect all of us for so long that it must be him.
My hands trembled as I turned the page.
The breach drew dark eyes. I saw the peril I’d placed on her innocent shoulders. Forces beyond my control were drawn by the power she and I carried.
Someone had known what she could do.
I read faster, the words blurring. I concealed my daughter where others could not reach, entrusting her to the one who swore to guard her with their life. A shadow to watch over my light. I sent protection, knowing that, as sick as I was, I could not stand beside her myself.
Veil-travel extracts a toll. The body weakens. The mind fractures. Too many crossings and one loses themselves entirely to veil-sickness.
“Addie,” I breathed. “They said she stumbled. In his hidden message, Thorne said she was sick.”
If someone had forced her to travel, had pushed her to use power, it could be destroying her just like Velacross.
White-hot rage surged through me.
“He used her,” I said. “My father used her until she broke.” I leaned over the book, reading.
I realize now that the rift cannot be mended by a single hand, no matter how much blood is offered. I have the will, but I walk this path alone, and a bridge cannot stand on a single bank. I am a flickering candle in a gale.
A soft scuff echoed from the hall, like a shoe shifting on tile.
We stilled, and Lexie got up and went to the sitting room, returning quickly with a jerk of her head.
“It’s nothing. The guards are talking in the hall,” she said.
We hunched together, keeping our voices low, and turned back to the book.
More words appeared. Marlane understands. She’ll finish what I so unfortunately started.
Tears blurred my vision. My mother had known. She’d understood what needed to be done. Had someone pushed her down the stairs before she could do it?
I read the final passage. Blood calls to blood across the boundary between worlds. My daughter carries this gift in her veins, as may any children she might have. The power to see what others cannot, to touch what should remain untouchable.
“I inherited my abilities from her,” I said, my throat closing off.
“Someone may have killed her to keep her from using them,” Kerralyn said.
Lexie growled. “That would explain why they’re trying to kill you.”
I hid the book in a delicately created room in Syllavar’s library.
If the fates allow, my bloodline will be drawn to that area and find these words.
Only they can pass through my wards. Everything lies south of Syllavar, where the veil stretches much too wide and the worlds press too close.
There, in the place where I first crossed into this realm, my descendants will need to take on the final battle.
“South of Syllavar.” My voice came out hollow. “Where Thorne took Addie.”
I stared at the journal for a long time, sorting through the pages, but nothing new appeared. With a sigh, I closed it.
Everything I’d believed about my mother, myself, and the magic I’d hidden all my life had shifted into a new pattern, one that made terrible, perfect sense.
“We need to find the place Thorne mentioned south of Syllavar,” I said. “If we can find it, we’ll find Addie. Then we can try to seal the breach.”
“And help your sister,” Lexie said. “If veil-sickness is killing her, we need to act fast.”
“I bet your father knew,” Kerralyn said. “Maybe not everything, but enough to fear your mother and use Addie. Enough to want you married off and powerless before you discover the truth.”
A creak from the bathing chamber cut through the silence.
We all turned in that direction.
Mae stepped from the room, her face pale but composed. Her hands twisted in her skirts, and her eyes, usually warm and kind, held something harder now.
“Mae?” My voice came out steady, though my heart floundered in my chest. “How long have you been listening?”
“Long enough.” She closed the door behind her.
Her gaze swept over the three of us, the journal in my lap, and Pherin bristling on my shoulder.
“I hid when we were tidying the room. I shouldn’t have.
I know that. But after last night and the questions your father asked, and after seeing you so shaken, I had to know what you were hiding. ”
Rising, Lexie stepped in front of me while Kerralyn drew a small blade from the sheath on her side.
I got off the bed, gripping the journal against my chest. “What do you plan to do with what you heard? Report to my father?”
Mae looked directly at me, and tears shone in her eyes. “I knew your mother, Isi.” Her voice didn’t waver. “I was young back then, but we were friends. There's no way I would've ever betrayed her. No way I’d ever betray you.”
She swallowed hard. “But you’re right with your suspicion. Someone pushed your mother down the stairs.”