25. Raven #2
“We were once a vibrant population of magic wielders. Some say descendants of the fae. But no one truly knows. Not anymore. Much of our history has been lost to time.”
Winter wasn’t human. I had suspected as much.
How many in the citadel weren’t human? All of them?
Only some of them? Just because their ears weren’t pointed didn’t mean they were human.
I was one fine example. But…why hadn’t I felt the difference in them?
Was it the citadel’s curse affecting their magic that also dampened or hid what they were at their core?
Fae lived impossibly long lives. And if fae, or their descendants, were involved in this case, the task of the Citadel of Veritas should have gone to a different class of reaper. Not me and Chace. Only…
Secrets. So many secrets about this place and this reap. Things that likely involved my family. Chace’s too.
I bit my lip as Winter returned to the bedside, glass of water in hand.
Questions bloomed in my mind like wildfire. Questions not for him but other reapers. Aldine was the only reaper I presently had access to who might have a few of the answers I sought. Only he couldn’t tell me anything. Not presently.
Winter traced a line in the condensation coating the glass. “I was given the name that represented the nature of my magic and was told it presented itself clear and strong during my birthing.”
He handed me the glass and helped lift my head so that I could take a sip. I took several, the flow of liquid into my system streaming through me with unexpected freshness.
I used those moments of quenching my thirst as an opportunity to wrap my mind around everything he’d told me and allow the information to settle into place. The male before me had magic coursing through his veins. From the looks of him, high fae magic.
“If your magic is rooted in winter, like the season, did you come into this world on a bed of ice within a windstorm?” I licked the wetness from my lips.
He set the glass down on the side table, his eyes lighting up and humor touching his cheeks and mouth.
He was beautiful, I realized with a twist in my gut. An extraordinary example of the male species.
“Had it been so, what a tale that would have made.” He returned to the chair beside the bed. “But alas, no. I was not.”
I stared at him, letting nothing other than exhaustion and discomfort touch my gaze. “Then how did they know what the source of your magic was? What does it feel like, and what can you do?”
“Sadly, not much these days.” He rested his forearms on his thighs. “When the curse fell upon our population many years ago, magic changed. Whatever those things are that attacked you and your team a few weeks ago, they seem to feed off of magic. Draining it from the original host.”
I swallowed hard. “But my team and I… We don’t have magic.”
“Don’t you, though?” He drew a circle on top of my hand, then he folded his fingers against my skin and around my palm in a comforting, warm wrap. “Whatever you are, I suspect there is magic, known or unknown, in the creation of your kind. Magic, no matter how small, is energetic life.”
I huffed a laugh and turned my head away. Closed my eyes. I hadn’t failed to notice that he had avoided answering my question by presenting another one.
Was magic a part of what I was? I supposed so.
The magic of transformation. The supernatural ability to guide others through that transformation.
The magic wasn’t useful in other ways, but it was magic all the same.
Plus, the magic of the gods enabled the creation of my kind.
Magic that likely lingered in one form or another in our bloodlines.
I heaved a breath and pulled my hand free from his hold yet again. “I’m tired.”
And I was. A mere few minutes of conversation had depleted my energy.
At this rate, I could end up taking a month or longer to get back in proper reaping form. I didn’t have that kind of time. Didn’t want to spend that long trapped within the citadel walls. The few days Chace and I had attempted to reap were already too much.
A jolt seized my body, and I turned my head toward Winter, my eyes wide.
He stood to leave but paused at my movement.
“You said few?” I said.
He peered down at me, a look of confusion in his expression.
“You said it had been a few weeks since those things attacked me and my team.”
He nodded once. “Yes. Give or take a handful of days. Maybe two weeks.”
“How long have I been here? Been like this?” I lifted a weak hand, indicating my condition.
“A couple of days…roughly.”
A couple of days was far better than what his two-week comment had implied. Two days, added to my time spent attempting to work the task, put my presence in the citadel at less than a week and a half. Still…
“Roughly? What does roughly mean?” My voice sounded tight. How could I have let myself miss days? Days! “What about Chace or Aldine? Chace has to be wondering where I am.”
“Your concern should not be for others but for yourself. Self-care first, and all other things second.” His face lifted, and his eyes twinkled. “But you may be pleased to know that your associate Mr. Aldine appears to have recovered from his ailment. Or so I have heard.”
Aldine was better? The Killian had told me…
The Killian is real? I owe him a debt? A life debt?
My heart thumped a heavy beat and tripped over itself.
But Winter said he had heard Aldine was better, not that he’d seen him recovered.
“You haven’t visited with my team?”
“I’ve been a touch busy, seeing to you in your time of need.”
I hated that I needed anything from anyone. “Then how do you know he’s doing better?”
“I bumped into Aoes at the grocer today.” His shoulders lifted slightly. “He told me about Mr. Aldine. He also asked about you, as your absence has them worried, but I assured Aoes you were all right.”
“I’m far from all right. I’m a broken mess.”
Winter’s brow pinched. “Would you have preferred I told him the truth?”
No. No, I didn’t.
I sank deeper into the give of the bed and shook my head. The last thing I wanted was Chace leering over me, gloating about his superiority—the Badden family outperforming the Gunn family at the Citadel of Veritas.
But…what if he didn’t gloat? What if…
Winter sighed. “Then I gave them just enough that they shouldn’t need to worry about you lying dead in one of the citadel’s many streets.”
I flinched at the image he sparked across my imagination. “Chace is not going to take your word regarding my condition or whereabouts. He’s not likely to take your word for anything.”
His face hardened. I might not have known him well, but he clearly knew something he had yet to tell me.
“What?” I pushed.
“It’s about Chace.”
My chest tightened. “What about him?”
The door to the room creaked, swinging a foot or more open.
Standing in the hallway, a young afflicted girl peered through the opening, her hair dirty and limp, and her eyes glazed. I vaguely recognized her from when Winter first carried me into this home.
A tiny hand reached from behind her, shoving her over a fraction. A second girl stepped into place at the first girl’s side. She stared at me—not afflicted—with eyes wiser than her years.
My breath caught in my throat.
The second girl was the same girl I had seen in my dream…or nightmare. The girl upon which the woman in the catacombs energetically fed. Or syphoned for another.
“I saw you, and I came,” she said. “You need me.” She glanced at her sister. “Need us.”
The girls stepped into the room then dashed to the bedside and laid their hands upon me.
My mind responded with fuzzy thoughts and vision, and my head swayed.
What’s…happening?