Her eyes immediately light up as she looks over to her mother for permission.
“We’ll see,” Evangeline says, winking at her.
MY FATHER FOLLOWS ME OUT and walks me to the elevator. My mind is on overdrive, trying to process the revelations Evangeline just said. I barely register where I am and who’s around me. All I can think about is her.
“I have something for you,” he says, nearly startling me.
I turn to face him.
He holds out a folded-up piece of paper. I take it and open it, finding a picture of the three of us. My mother is lying in a hospital bed with me cradled in her arms and my father stands behind us, arms wrapped around us.
“This was the happiest day of our lives, Faye. Your mother told me before you were born that you were going to be special. That she could feel it. She put my hand on her belly and asked me if I could feel it too.”
Memories fill his eyes with a bitter happiness.
“I remember lying to her, telling her I could feel it, when all I could feel was your squirming. I was never good at that sort of thing… being emotionally expressive. And maybe she knew that. Your mother was always so perceptive but, if she did, she didn’t let on about it. But then, on this day,” he says, pointing to the photo, “you came into the world at four in the morning. Your mother was exhausted after nearly twenty-three hours of labor, but she never made one complaint. She never put you down.
“And right before this picture was taken, she asked me again. Put my hand over your tiny form and asked me if I could feel how special you were. I remember you looked up at me with these bright blue dazzling eyes, almost as if you knew what I was asked. Almost as if you waited just as patiently as she had for me to feel it. And I told her I did. Only, that time, I meant it. I saw it. I felt it.”
He closes his hand around the picture in my hand, and I think my heart might float right out of my chest. Might find my mother in heaven, or wherever it is she dwells.
“I love you, Faye. More than those three words can describe. And your mother… you were her everything. So I want you to have this. I want you to look at it whenever you need to be reminded how much you’re loved in this world. Whenever you’re scared, lonely, or need a small burst of strength. Know how much we love you, and how you have made our lives better.”
He hugs me so tight I fear my bones will break in his arms, but I don’t complain. I take every second of his hug and hold onto it as if it were the last I’d ever get.
And, when he lets go, I step into the elevator, my finger caressing my mother’s face.
BY THE TIME I MAKE it to the building where we all agreed to meet, I’m already feeling like a balloon set free. Though my mother has left our physical world, she isn’t gone. Not completely.
Seeing her face again was a gift I never expected to receive. I just hope whatever it is my mother wants me to know is an answer—not a curse.
I promised my dad when I left that I wouldn’t be a stranger. I don’t know why I waited so long for that release, but I’m glad he gave me the time I needed to come to him.
Jaxen’s waiting by the elevator, arms crossed against his chest. Even now, buried under all the stress and sadness, he still has the capability to leave me breathless when I least expect it.
Like when his face lights up when he sees me, and then he lifts me into a tight hug the moment I tell him I finally spoke to my dad. And how he kisses me so deeply, telling me he loves me in so many different movements. Telling me how proud he is of me for finally doing what needed to be done.
In his arms, in this moment, I feel like I’ve stepped back out into the sun. Like my heart is so open and so full that it might explode beneath my skin. I can’t help but wonder how I managed to get so lucky. To find someone as good and as loving as Jaxen Gramm. Someone who loves me through all my faults.
Who loves me because of my faults.
“And here I was worried about you,” he says, kissing my forehead, my nose, and my cheeks. “You really had me thinking for a minute there that I might lose you to all of this.”
I swallow thickly because, even though I found what I needed to deal with my mother’s death, this was far from over. There were still so many things left to do. So many inevitabilities that could drive a wedge between us whether we wanted it to or not.
“Me too,” I say, shoving the thought aside for now. If my time was limited, then I needed to stop wasting it on pushing him away and start living more in the moment. Minute to minute.
“And my mother? What did she have to say?”
I bite my lip, and then look up at him, heat filling my eyes. “She showed me my mother. She isn’t gone.”
His eyebrows furrow. “What do you mean?”
I grab his forearms as excitement rushes through my bloodstream. “I mean, she’s in the dwelling. You know… the story we heard as kids. It’s real, and she’s there. She has a message for me. Something that will help, I think, when the time comes to take Clara, the Darkyns, and Bael down.”
With every word, his eyes grow wider and wider, until he picks me up and spins me in circles. “That’s wonderful, Faye!” he says, holding me so close. “So you can…?”
“I don’t know,” I say as he sets me back down. “Your mom gave me what I need to invoke, but I won’t know if it will work for me until I try it.”
“Try what?” Weldon asks as he saunters his way across the abandoned lobby behind us, looking like he’s just fed with his glowing skin and illuminated golden eyes. But even with the glow of a fresh feed, it can’t hide the demons swimming in his gaze. The sadness at Claire’s situation that’s clearly eating him up from the inside out.
I quickly fill him in, trying to take his mind off Claire, and then the elevator dings.
“And here I thought I’ve heard and seen it all,” he says as we make our way into the elevator and ascend to the rooftop where Sterling used to train us. He leans in close, and my heart twists when I smell the alcohol on his breath. “You think you could invoke the great Divine for me and ask them to clean up this mess their brother started so we can go back to our lives?”
I stare sadly at him.
“What?” he asks with a tired shrug. “One can dream, right?”
Gavin and Cassie are standing with Jezi when we make it to the top, and I hate that I automatically notice how frail Cassie looks. The dullness to her strawberry hair. The pasty color of her skin. The way her clothes hang on her.
She does her best to outweigh it with a huge smile the still lights up her blue eyes. “Hey, guys!” she says, waving us over. Jaxen walks right to Gavin and hugs him as they slap each other on the back. Anyone can see the toll Cassie’s sickness has taken on him. His stubble looks like it hasn’t been groomed in weeks. Dark circles hang under his eyes.
“Been awhile, brother,” Jaxen says. He looks at Cassie. Tips his head to the side. “You look good, Cass. Did the medicine work?”
Her lips purse as he pulls her into a hug. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter,” she says, and then coughs, her voice hoarse. “I look like shit. Feel like shit.”
“And still cook like shit,” Gavin says, which warrants a good elbowing in his side by her.
Her comforting laughter follows the grunt that expels from his lips. “That may be true, but I can still kick your ass,” she says as he rubs at his side.
He pulls her into a hug and kisses the top of her head. “Which is exactly why I fell in love with you.”
Jaxen throws his arm around my shoulder, and then Weldon steps in the middle of us all, rubbing the back of his head. He looks more jittery and unkempt than I think I’ve ever seen before. Like one of those spindly toys that you pull the string, and then watch as it spins across the floor.
Claire is his string, and he’s spinning out of control.
“No one said this was going to be a couple’s meeting.” He strides over to Jezi, the movements somewhat off and seemingly forced. “Should we tell them?”
She l
ooks almost shocked that he’s addressing her. “Tell them what?”
He leans close to her ear, her face morphing into sadness when she registers the alcohol on his breath. “About the kiss?”
“What kiss?” Cassie demands, perking up, totally unaware. “You guys kissed again? You know what they say about kissing someone more than once.”
Weldon’s smirking as he turns back around, his movements uncoordinated and somewhat sloppy. “No, I don’t think we do, Cassie. Care to fill in the class?”
Jezi shoves at Weldon’s shoulder, looking annoyed. “It was nothing.”
Weldon turns around, hand on his chest as if he had just been shot. “Nothing? I don’t call the little tongue action you pull—”
She kicks him in the butt, which shuts him right up. “I swear to you, Weldon Jacobsen.” Her finger points at him, magic precariously zapping off the tip.
He blinks lazily. Licks his lips. “Ohh… don’t you just love how she says my name with that edge of French on her tongue?”
I look to Jaxen, asking him with my eyes to do something. To help his friend who’s so obviously coming apart at the seams. Everything about how he’s acting feels forced, down to the strained smile he wears on his face when looking at Jezi.
The mention of Claire has done nothing but unravel him.
Jaxen grabs Weldon’s shoulders and squeezes, forcing out a small bout of laughter to calm the situation. “All right, all right. Let’s get to it before Mack calls. We don’t want him suspecting anything.”
The laughter dies off, but Jezi’s cheeks are still blazing red as she glares at the back of Weldon’s head.
“So this Darkyn is Katie’s aunt?” Cassie asks, leaning against Gavin for support.
A dark cloud seems to settle over us all.
I nod. “Meredith, yes. I asked Katie about her, but she knows just as much as we do.”
“What was the whole lion sleeping thing?” Gavin asks, playing with his beard.
Weldon groans and rolls his eyes. “That’s my theater. The place I stayed at before all this happened.”
“That can’t be coincidence,” Cassie says, looking up at Gavin.
“Ding! Ding! Ding!” Weldon’s finger hoists into the air. “The only way she could have known about that place was through Claire, unless one of you said something to her, and we all know that isn’t the case.” His face creases in pain when he says her name, and it crushes my heart.
“I don’t know,” Jezi pipes in, “you keep annoying me like you do, and maybe I could do something as rational as telling the Darkyns where you lived.”
“Rational?” he asks, spinning around to look at her questioningly.
She lifts her eyebrows, taunting him. Begging him to give her some kind of reaction other than the lovesick pains he’s had ever since Claire was brought up.
Jaxen shoves his hands in his pockets and clears his throat. “You know Mack won’t want us going near the Darkyn.”
“Truth be told, I’m not so sure I want to either,” Weldon tosses in. “You?” He’s looking at Gavin.
Gavin runs his hands behind his head through his hair, his shirt stretching up past his stomach. “You know I’m always down for holding a knife to our own throats. I say we do it. Not much else to lose right now, and the clock isn’t exactly on our side.” He cuts a short look in Cassie’s direction, and then back at me. “If she knows what’s up with the Darkyns and can offer some tips, why not?”
Jezi says, “Because we don’t know if what she said is true. It could be a trap.”
“And the world could be struck by a meteor at any moment, but you don’t see me running and screaming bloody murder, now do you?” Gavin tosses in her direction.
Jezi stops in her tracks, as if she isn’t sure whether she wants to glare at him or frown.
Cassie clears her throat. “I agree with Gavin. If you want my vote, count us in.”
“What about you?” Gavin asks, looking at Jaxen.
“I think we should go.”
Five words I never expected to come from his mouth.
“Seriously?” Jezi asks, looking at him with her mouth slightly hung open.
He shrugs. “Why not? We’re just sitting ducks and, if we don’t, then we run the risk of Faye trying to go alone… something we all know by now will happen. So let’s just cut the middleman out and go.”
I think I’m offended. Maybe. I mean, sure, if they decided against it, then I probably would go to help Weldon… and maybe that’s why it bothers me that he would say that. In that tone. Because, yeah, I’ve screwed up. Plenty. By trying to do what I thought was right, and now they expect it out of me. They expect me to go behind them.
When it comes to someone admitting how they feel, you only feel angry in response if you’re guilty.
And I’m no stranger to guilt.
“What do you think?” Jaxen asks, and I realize they’re all looking at me.
I think about it for a moment. “I think we should go. We have nothing to lose. The seals are down, and she supposedly has information about Claire and the Darkyns. Maybe she can help. Maybe she wants to change. Based on everything else we’ve seen lately, it isn’t that farfetched.”
Weldon’s looking out over the city, his lips drawn tight.
“And Mack and Seamus? Are we telling them?” Gavin asks.
It’s quiet for a moment as we all toss around the idea.
“My brother’s a one-track minded asshole. We all know that,” Weldon finally says, sobering up a little. “They won’t be on board. They want Faye here, under their care, until they can position her just right. Mack’s smarter than most people think he is. He’s known this was going to happen for a while, probably knew from the moment he discovered just who Faye was. And he’s used her like a pawn up until this point.
“Now, it’s her turn. It’s time for Faye to do what her gut is telling her,” he says, looking to me with a little clarity in his eyes. “You’re the one who has to end this, mouse. It should be you deciding what you want to do with that power. But…”
“But?” I repeat.
In his eyes, turmoil has burrowed. Created a home deep in his soul. “But still, even with all that being said, I still think it’s too risky.”
I wasn’t prepared for him to say that. Not with his partner on the line. “Weldon,” I start to say, but he holds his hand up.
“I know. She’s my partner, and saving her from that hellhole has been my driving force ever since I returned. But if it were that easy, don’t you think I would have already gone and rescued her? Don’t you think I’ve already tried? No demon will come within a mile of me because they know I’ll try to make another deal to get her back. I’m damaged goods. I’m half demon for Goddess’ sake. I can weave in and out of the Underground… but not where they have Claire. Not in the heart of it where demons make lunch out of other demons. I’ve been there. Been so close I could feel my affinity mark burning, calling out for her.” He drops his chin to his chest, and my throat burns for him. “It isn’t possible to save her. Losing you as well isn’t worth the risk. Following after a Darkyn in hopes that she will save my partner is a pipe dream I’m not smoking out of.”
A cloud of sorrow pours over us all as we take in what Weldon’s words really mean. He doesn’t want to take this chance. Doesn’t want to try because it may not work.
I don’t know if I should hug him and thank him for being the partner he is to me, or try to talk him out of it, because not a single one of us standing here knows what this means to him. To be so close to seeing her again, only to decide it isn’t the right choice.
I grab his hand, squeeze it when his watery eyes land on mine, and then tell him, “I told you it was up to you. If this is what you want, then we will wait. And if you decide you’re ready, then we will be too.”
With a deep inhale and exhale, he says, “It’s what I want.”
I MAKE IT HALFWAY DOWN the stairs, following behind Jaxen and the rest, when I hea
r Jezi and Weldon floors above me in the stairwell. I feel his internal pain digging away at my bones with a shovel, and I can’t stop myself from listening in.
I don’t eavesdrop. Ever. But when one of my best friends is in pain over a decision I’m not so sure he stands behind, the need to ensure he’s making a rational decision becomes a priority for me, eavesdropping or not.
“This is your partner, Weldon. She needs you just as you need her. I wouldn’t stand in your way. I know what this is between us. We made it clear to each other from the beginning,” I hear Jezi say to him.
I peer up and catch him bracing her arms. “I know you wouldn’t. But this is more than the friends-with-benefits fun we have going. This is a decision I lived for. That’s tortured me for years. A decision that will now affect you all… and I’m not sure I’m willing to risk it. I’m not sure of anything at this moment.”
“But you love her,” Jezi says, the pain masked well in her voice.
He doesn’t say anything for a moment, and then, “She was my everything, and then she was ripped away from me before we ever got the chance to become what we could have been. I fought tooth and nail to make her love me, and, when she finally relented, I went and traded myself in for my brother.
“She was with me through every step. She saw the pain I went through as I searched for ways to save him. She even backed me when it all came down to making the deal I had to make to get him out. She was my ride or die. Is my ride or die, I should say.”
“Then why don’t you do what you know your heart wants you to do?” Jezi asks, sounding as put together as she can be given the circumstance.
“Because,” Weldon says, “I’m afraid if I do this… if I sign us up and believe one more time that it can happen, that I can actually have her again, then something will go wrong and not only will I lose her, but I could also lose all of you as well.” He takes a large inhale. “And I don’t think I can survive it.”