Chapter 21
21
“CAROL’S FACE ! I swear it turned purple.” Rebekah is all but cackling, curled up on a small sofa in the Wilde House living room with Frost. Who almost looks like he’s enjoying himself—or her, anyway. Jacob and Emerson sit hip to hip on the hearth in front of a crackling fire. Georgie and her familiar, Octavius the big orange cat, are lounging in the oversized armchair.
I tell myself that I would be having a grand old time if Zander wasn’t invading my space. If he didn’t throw himself on this couch like I wasn’t already sitting here and throw his arm around me too. Like it belongs here. Like he belongs here.
I intend to set him right. Any second now.
We’re enjoying some posttrial downtime. The ghosts took off early on, and I am deliberately not imagining what they might be up to. Instead, I’m about the food. And a whole lot of dessert. Maybe it’s the sugar, but Emerson’s fist pumps make me far happier than I like to admit. We might be enjoying a premature victory here, but I like having some space to relax with my friends.
Even though I know I need to get out of here before Zander’s arm becomes more, before my friends start oh-so-casually poking into what we were doing last night as I can see they want to, and definitely before Emerson stops celebrating and starts drawing up battle plans for the next trial we can’t predict.
Any second now, right? Ruth asks in my head. Slyly.
I can’t allow a future bowl of stew to challenge me like that, so I decide any second is right now .
That’s really showing me , my unimpressed familiar responds.
I ignore her, but as I get up, something falls behind me as if it dropped from the ceiling. When I look around at the sound, I see that book again. Gleaming at me from right where I was sitting.
Zander picks it up, studying the bright illustrated cover. “You’re carrying this around with you now?”
I frown at him. And the book. Mostly at him. “I didn’t bring it over here.”
I’m trying to remember if Rebekah brought it with her to the trial when I know she didn’t. I distinctly remember her leaving it in the tea shop.
Zander starts flipping through it again. “It’s weird, you know,” he says, not to me but to the group. “This sweet little children’s book is the only known reference to Revelares. It has some eerie coincidences in there too.”
Emerson turns the full force of her attention his way. “What kind of eerie?”
“There’s a Guardian,” Zander says. “A princess who’s drawn to look a lot like Georgie. A Revelare who has one of her sights blocked.”
“It’s a fairy tale,” I return, a weird wave of panic sweeping up inside of me. I’m not a Revelare , I want to yell. But I don’t, because that would be alarming.
And wouldn’t prove anything one way or another.
“It was my favorite book when I was little,” Georgie says, stroking Octavius’s fur. “Possibly because the princess has red hair.”
“Sometimes fairy tales have their beginnings in fact,” Jacob offers. “Humans have tales of witches and familiars and all kinds of magic. To them it’s all a fairy tale.”
“Many facts become fairy tales,” Frost agrees. “Given enough time.”
“Let’s read it,” Emerson says. “Maybe it can tell us something that will help.”
“Like what?” I ask. Possibly too aggressively, given the way Zander’s eyes gleam at me. I clear my throat. “I know for a fact it doesn’t have the Undine’s secrets or a list of the trials in there.”
Emerson waves this away. “A book told me I was a Confluence Warrior. A book explained that Rebekah was a Chaos Diviner. Now this book has the only known mention of what a ghost that only you and Zander can see says you are.”
“Those were big, ancient texts, not fairy tales .” I feel like I’m having a panic attack, and I can’t allow that. I make myself laugh. “I’m a Summoner.”
Not a very good one either.
I don’t say that out loud, but Emerson isn’t the only one who shoots me a sharp look. “After everything we’ve been through over the past year, you can’t honestly think any of us are just one thing, can you?”
Emerson can’t understand because there’s a prophecy about her. Because she is special.
I look over at Georgie. She’s ridiculously smart, has been dedicated to her role and her job from the start, and is a full witch, but she’s the closest to my situation in that there isn’t anything extraordinary about her family or her place in this community.
She shrugs at me. “I think Em’s right.”
“Let’s sit down and listen.” Emerson, clearly no longer in discussion mode, says a spell that has the book floating above us. A disembodied voice begins to read, like we’re a kindergarten class being read to by a teacher.
One who’s invisible and doesn’t actually exist.
“Sit down, El,” Zander says in a low voice, and he doesn’t wait for me to ignore him. He wraps his fingers around my wrist and tugs me down to the sofa. Right back into the heat and strength of his arm around me and all of him beside me.
A fate worse than death , Ruth comments dramatically.
I ignore her.
But that means I have nothing to do but concentrate on this story I’ve already read. More than once.
A princess and a dragon are trying to save a community of fairies from a dark curse. A Revelare is trying to unblock her hidden past with the help of a Guardian she keeps trying to escape. In the end, the Revelare finds a sorceress to unblock her and is saved by the Guardian, who then takes her to the princess and dragon so they can all save the fairy world together.
I can feel our baby fluttering around inside me. Zander places his hand over my stomach, like he can feel it too. Like we’re a unit .
As if I need something else to really amp up my panic.
The story concludes, and we’re all silent for a few minutes. As if brooding over what we’ve just heard.
It’s ridiculous. Are there similarities? Sure, but then, all stories have some similarities. Are there odd coincidences? Yes, again—but it’s not what’s actually happening here in St. Cyprian. There’s no Emerson and Rebekah and their prophecy in the story. There’s no grumpy immortal. There’s an army of crows on each side—one fighting for the fairies, led by a crow who could maybe be construed as Emerson-like. Meanwhile another group fights for the dark magic curse.
“She does look like Georgie,” Emerson says, pointing at the picture of the princess on the cover that is now blown up on a screen hovering midair.
“I’m hoping to avoid getting eaten and spit out by a dragon,” Georgie replies, a bit primly.
I can’t help but think that would be interesting, at least. Especially since once the princess is spit out by said dragon, they work together to save the fairies. That has to be more exciting than whatever Sage does for fun around here. In his three-piece suits and bow ties.
I order myself to stop being mean. It’s not like I have to date the guy.
“I don’t understand the good crow leader character,” Emerson says, clearly frustrated that the story doesn’t line up perfectly with us or what we’re doing.
Zander smirks. “Maybe it’s Frost.”
I snort out a laugh, and so does Rebekah. Frost sighs, but I’m beginning to wonder if that’s his version of laughter.
“We must be exhausted if we’re prepared to start reaching like this,” I tell everyone when they all continue to stare at the book like if they do it long enough, it will mean something. Because this is a pointless exercise.
“I don’t know. This Revelare character is a lot like you, El,” Zander says, and he hasn’t drawn his hand back from my belly, like he can’t keep his hands to himself.
I refuse to acknowledge the warmth inside of me at that thought.
I roll my eyes at him instead. “She doesn’t appear to have human blood, a curse, or a pregnancy. So.”
“She’s kind of cursed though,” Rebekah argues, which feels like betrayal. She shrugs when I glare at her. “Her past is blocked, and the dark magic did that. Plus, she’s got herself a Guardian, whether she wants one or not—usually not. I have to say, that sounds a little on point.”
“Her past is blocked. That’s not the same as me.” I don’t know why I’m so insistent. Or why I suddenly wish Elizabeth was here to back me up, when she’d likely be as contrary as anyone.
I’m not a Revelare.
My unique characteristics that have helped us out are all because of Bill. There’s no way I also have some mystical designation no one’s ever heard of. Besides, wouldn’t I feel it if I had access to the future that way? I have enough trouble envisioning the future I can already feel as a solid, growing weight inside my belly.
“Maybe your future is blocked.” Emerson considers. “Elizabeth thinks you should see the future as well as the past, and she seems right about most things.”
“It could be that the story’s not so much a direct representation but a reflection,” Georgie offers. “A little symbolism.”
“Well, when Jacob and his family are doing the ritual with my blood to help the Summoners, he can dig around in there and unblock me. Problem solved.” I get up again, because I don’t know what to do with this. Any of this. Zander’s arm. Revelares. It’s too much. I look over at Jacob. “When’s that going to be?”
I don’t get the outburst from Zander I’m hoping for, and Jacob takes his time answering, with that deep patience of his that makes me want to scream.
“The best and safest time would be as close to Samhain as we can get,” he says in his measured way. “Problem is we’ll have the actual ascension to work around. We’re still trying to determine how to manage that, but it will be very close to Samhain before we can do it safely.”
“Great. Okay. Well. I’m tired, so—”
“Something like what the sorceress does in this story, however, could be done at any time,” he continues. Somewhat pointedly. “At the next full moon, for example.”
It never occurred to me that anyone would take a children’s book this seriously.
I’m not a Revelare. If they still existed, there would be more of them, but there aren’t. And if there were , they wouldn’t be half human.
Still, I can understand why my friends want this. They’re desperate to believe that another one of us is something special the way Rebekah and Emerson are because that might give us an edge in this ascension.
Maybe I should push for this ritual too. Because if Jacob tries to unblock me, they’re all going to finally get it through their heads: I am not special.
Elizabeth is not right about that.
“I’m going to bed,” I tell my fairy tale–addled coven. Then I pop myself upstairs to my room because I’m done. A pregnant woman deserves a good night’s sleep. I definitely need—
My door opens. No knock. There’s just Zander.
I try to slam the door on him with my magic.
This, of course, doesn’t work.
“Why are you so edgy?” he asks, but not in any sort of accusatory way.
Though I could certainly twist myself into believing he was accusing me of something. If I tried.
“I’m n—” I narrowly resist kicking the wall. “I’m almost always edgy.”
“Almost,” he agrees, with that gleaming thing in his gray eyes.
As much as I should put a stop to this, sex would be better than dealing with why I feel so churned up about a silly book.
When he crosses to me, he doesn’t take off his shirt, or mine. He doesn’t pull me into his arms or get his mouth on my lips, my neck.
Instead he says words I don’t want to hear.
“Baby, I know you’re afraid.” I want to swing at him, but he smooths his hand over my hair in a way I do not find soothing. I do not . “You have it in your head that you crumble under pressure, but look at what you did today. You were amazing.”
“With Elizabeth’s help,” I say.
“So what if you had help? That was still all you today, standing up in front of the Joywood and the town and the whole world, saying those words and asking those questions.” He tips my head back so I have no choice but to look at him. He stopped caring if I look mutinous long before we turned sixteen. “If you’re so big on giving Elizabeth credit, she thinks you’re a Revelare. Why not listen to her on that too?”
Because I already know, I want to tell him, and for the same reasons as always. The whispers that have always followed me around.
I don’t want these friends who have always been so sure that I was special, like they are, to finally have indisputable proof they’re wrong.
The only thing I want right now is the man in front of me, but not like this.
I don’t want him trying to comfort me, or getting through to me, or whatever complicated thing he’s doing tonight. I don’t want his belief in me or his concern for me .
I just want him.
That simple. That direct.
Even that is covered in warped thorns, though, because to give in to this, to him, is to believe it all might be okay.
That I might be okay and worthy and...good. Special , even.
I can’t do it.
So instead, I fall back on the tried-and-true method I’ve used in the past. I pretend it’s Beltane. I jerk him to me, devouring his mouth with teeth and anger and frustration.
Maybe last night was different, deep and meaningful. Maybe I let him inside me in all those ways I shouldn’t have, but that doesn’t mean it has to change things. It doesn’t have to shift the way we usually are with each other—the way we have always been with each other.
He kisses me back with all that old heat, and I feel a surge of desperation that I decide to call elation—
Then something...gentles.
I pull back at the same time he does. I don’t want gentle . I don’t want last night. I want something familiar, something rooted in a world I understand. The versions of him and me and reality that I already know.
And control , Ruth says from somewhere outside. I don’t have time to say something pithy in return.
Zander’s thunderstorm eyes look into mine. “We can go down that road again. It’s a good road. We both like where it ends.”
His hand smooths down my spine as if he’s proving it. But I’m still going to be right here in the morning. You’re not building those walls back up on me, El.
“Because you get to decide?” An accusation that probably doesn’t have quite the force I want it to when my fingers are curled in his hair and my mouth is on his.
He lifts me, easy as you please, and I shouldn’t wrap my legs around him, shouldn’t sink into the wild universe of his kiss. Because he doesn’t answer. Because he’s not letting me pick a fight.
When I’m positive a fight is exactly what I need.
Zander —I start.
Let me talk for a minute , he replies.
He doesn’t mean with words. He means with this. All of this sensation and pleasure, heat and wild need.
Instead of the fight I want, the anger I know, I’m drowning. In him. In light.
In love and hope and his body over mine, inside mine.
Drowning.
I know what happens when I let myself drown. When I allow myself to believe. When I give in to hope.
But I keep doing it.
Pleasure arrows straight down, and I find I don’t care about anything right now but him.
But this.
But us .
I dive right in and stay there, as long as I can.
Because the real truth is, I like it. This new version of us. It burns bright inside me like happiness, the kind of light even I can’t dim.
So maybe, I think then, wrapped around him and as lost in him as I’ve ever been, I’ll just give in.
Because if I know one thing about Zander and me, it’s that we’re as doomed as everything else.