Jaxen lays a hand on Mack’s shoulder. He shakes him one time. “And just like every pawn in this game, we still have the ability to take out the queen… and the king,” he says, breathing his confidence, strength, and surety back into Mack’s broken soul.
Mack turns his head to Jaxen. His gaze lingers, searching for that small bit of happiness that rested in the past where he was their mentor, they were the pupil, and he knew his place. That moment is gone. It left him when Clara walked out the door. And he’s still searching for it.
“I sure hope so,” he says, though there’s no hope in his words. He turns to all of us. “I’m sure you’re all wondering why I’ve called you here tonight. I fear it’s not on as good of terms as I would’ve hoped to see you on again.”
His eyes drop for a moment. He sucks in air, and then looks back up at us with a new sense of purpose.
“I was summoned here by the Priesthood. They’ve asked me to step down as an Elder due to my involvement with the rebellion. Because of Clara, they offered me a deal rather than locking me away for attempting to go against them. I am to spend the rest of my days behind a desk somewhere inside this city.” The words exit his mouth like acid spewing from his stomach.
“What?” Gavin yells out.
“No,” Cassie says, her hand flying up to her mouth.
Jaxen doesn’t say a word. He shakes his head, the movement so scarily calm. His fists ball up at his sides, and I feel every bit of his anger as he takes my hand and together we form a fist strong enough to break down any who threaten the ones we love.
“We have proof. Enough to bring her down, brother,” Weldon says, his words slicing through the air that has grown too thick. Too suffocating. He moves closer to Mack, the movement so hesitant and unsure, like he’s scared Mack might flinch away. Withdraw himself from his brother, who only wants to be seen for who he is and not for who his past has made him into.
It cuts through my heart like a knife.
But Mack doesn’t move away. He just stands there, really seeing his brother, and suddenly, I feel like I’m intruding, as if I’m prying in on an overdue reunion that has the potential to heal wounds long thought incurable. Together, they look so unbelievably identical, yet so remarkably different. One fully built and finally reaching his potential, and the other a wasted shell of possibilities.
“And have you shown that proof to anyone?” Mack asks, searching Weldon’s golden eyes. The hope that lives in his voice breaks my heart a little further.
Weldon inhales, as if he knows what’s coming next. Like he knows he’s already lost before he even had the chance to begin. “Only Seamus. By the time we returned from the Holy Seal, Tillman, Sterling, and the rest of the Priesthood were holed up in the war room. They decided to keep her trial internal, rather than broadcasting it. No one was granted access. We won’t know what they decide to do with her until the morning.”
Cynicism pulls at the corners of Mack’s mouth. “It’s already too late, brother. Too late.”
“What do you mean?” Jaxen asks. I don’t like the tone of his voice. The fear that’s just waiting to pop out.
“I mean that if you think a cell will hold Clara’s reach back, then you thought wrong. She was gone long before she ever left the Academy.”
“She left when Claire left,” Weldon says so faintly that I find myself retracing his words just to be sure I heard correctly.
Mack looks up at Weldon. Demons dwell in his pupils, hiding secrets that sit on the edge of his lips. “Claire.” He speaks her name as if the mere word were the Holy Grail. His face is tortured. His body hunches over, as if a fist of reality has slammed into him, stealing the breath away from him.
“Brother?” Weldon says, resting a hand on Mack’s shoulder. He looks over at us, alarm ringing in his eyes.
“It’s all my fault,” Mack says. “All of this. Every bit. And I have to get it out. I have to get it out before there’s nothing left of me… and the truth is devoured by Clara’s wrath. Before the truth eats up what’s left of me and spits me out into a hell I deserve to burn in.”
“What are you talking about?” Weldon asks, his face screwed up in confusion. Chills run up my spine and linger in the back of my mind. My stomach clenches like it already knows what comes next, before my brain even has the chance to realize.
Mack hangs on Weldon’s shoulders. He looks so frail, so broken. “Claire. I made a deal, Weldon. I made a deal that I never should have made.”
“No,” Weldon says flatly, taking a step back from Mack. Shaking his head again and again as if it would shake away the words Mack continues to confess. Continues to spill from the dark holes nestled deep in his heart. “Mack, stop.”
But he doesn’t stop. He looks up with the eyes of a killer, and I feel like ice has been poured into my chest. I feel sick… so very sick. I want to put tape over Mack’s mouth. I want to erase the words from Weldon’s mind. I want to prevent him from this awful truth that I know will be the end of him.
“Claire was the price, and I thought I was okay with it. I thought I could live with it so long as I knew you were alive and breathing. But ever since you were returned to us, I’ve felt this presence.” He’s pulling at his shirt, tugging to get out of it, like it’s on fire and burning his skin. “This darkness in my soul. I thought creating the rebellion against the wrongs of the Priesthood would fix it. I thought that finding the Everlasting might fix it, but she’s in the wrong hands now and I’m not sure I can stand back and let bad things happen to her just so Claire can come back and I can be eased of this guilt.”
Bad things?
Weldon keeps backing up, keeps moving away from Mack. He looks like he’s been taken by demons all over again. As if he’s been shoved into a tiny cell deep in the Underground where we’ll never find him again. And it kills me to see him this way.
Jaxen makes a move for Mack. “That’s enough. You’ve said enough,” he says, grabbing Mack by the shoulders. “You need to sleep this off. Talk to him when you’re fresh minded.”
“Why? It won’t make a difference. It won’t change what I’ve done,” Mack says loudly, sloppily. “It won’t change that every time I look at my brother, I see her. I see my grave mistake staring right back at me.”
Weldon storms right up to him. Brings his hands up as if he wants to choke the life out of Mack. “I should… I should kill you! How could you! How-you’re just like her! You’re just as awful as Clara!”
“I’m sorry, Weldon. I couldn’t find the answer. I couldn’t leave you down there,” Mack says, so low I can barely make out his words. Keeping his eyes on the ground.
Weldon’s fuming, pacing, tugging at his hair.
“Claire meant—“
Weldon’s in his face again, finger pointed. “Don’t ever say her name. Ever, or I swear I won’t hold back. I won’t keep myself from killing you.” Without another word, he turns from Mack and walks past us.
Jaxen looks at me, and then nods in Weldon’s direction. He’s already by the door, pulling it open.
I make a run for him. “Weldon!” I call out, chasing after him.
He doesn’t stop. I don’t expect him to. He doesn’t take the elevator, just keeps heading down the stairs, faster and faster until he’s running and my lungs are screaming at me to stop. But I don’t, I keep up with him, right behind him, swearing not to leave him alone in this.
His partner. His love. Traded by his brother. Bartered for a chance at a life that has been anything but perfect.
He shoves out of the side door of the building, barreling down the street and over the bridge. I keep in step with him, not sure of where he’s going. I know he knows I’m there, by his side, and slowly, we fall in line together, keeping a steady, jogging pace. It isn’t until we reach the city gates that he stops. Bends over. Gasps for air.
My heart beats out of sync. My lungs have completely forgotten how to function. I cross my arms behind my head, fighting for air as he squats, and then lies flat on
the ground.
My mind scrambles for words, searching for the syllables I could fasten together that could possibly fix this. Sweat pours down his face, blending with the small rivers carved out by the liquid in his eyes.
I think I’ve melted into the floor. Melted into a pool of sorrow.
“Weldon, I—”
His gaze alone cuts my words short. The pain marking his face is almost unbearable to look at… to digest, but I don’t look away. I force myself to swallow it with him, to take it in and let it make jelly of my insides. Let it twist me up so hard that I swear I’ll never be able to love again.
“He put her there. My brother. My twin.”
There it is. His words rip through me as if I’m nothing more than a cardboard cutout left to rot in a dumpster.
I can’t stand the pain I feel for him—the fist that’s lodged in my throat. I sit next to him, crossing my legs, and take his hand in mine. It’s all I can do because my tongue is broken.
“It’s why he couldn’t look at me. It’s why he wouldn’t talk to me. All this time, I thought it was because of the monster I became, but that isn’t even remotely close.” He looks up at me. Swallows. Tears form in his eyes. “It’s because of the monster he became. The monster he chose to become.”
I caress the side of his face the way a mother would when trying to ease the pain of their child. “He loves you,” I say, hating that my words wear what I’m feeling so blatantly.
“His love does nothing for Claire. He put her there. Put her there,” he repeats incredulously. “He fucking put her there.”
He looks off to the left, biting his lip to keep from crying.
“I have to get her out.”
“But how?”
He turns back to me. Inhales his courage. His strength. “You. Your parents. Claire. The Exanimator. It all rests in this mission. It all rests in your hands.”
I’m shaking my head without meaning to. “Weldon, I can’t—”
He sits up, a new demeanor replacing his sadness. “You can,” he says, almost a little too forcefully. “You can and you will.”
I flinch back. “Weldon,” I say firmly, scared the partner I was beginning to love has now reverted into something more hideous, more demanding.
He curses to himself and looks away. “Shit. I’m sorry,” he says, and in his words, I hear the truth. “Look, I-we… we’ll figure this out. I just need time to digest. Time alone.”
“I don’t want you to think you’re alone,” I say as we both stand. “Because you’re not. I’ll do anything to help you. I swear.”
He looks at me with so much tender affection, so much appreciation. “I know you will,” he says. His gaze shifts past my shoulder. I sense Jaxen behind me without having to look.
“He’s back in his room,” Jaxen says. He sounds pissed. Beyond pissed. “Shit, man. What he did… I can’t-I can’t even wrap my mind around it.”
“People do crazy things for the ones they love,” Weldon says, as if he’s trying to make sense of the situation. “I have to tell myself this or I swear, Jaxen. I swear I’ll kill him.”
Without words, Jaxen pulls Weldon into a hug, gripping the back of his head. Weldon breaks a little. I have to look away or I swear I will die, right here, right for everyone to see. The sound of his quiet cry cripples my soul, rips it into a million pieces scattered by the wind with no chance of ever being found again.
“I miss her,” he says through his tear-stained voice. “I just… I have to get her out.”
“We will,” Jaxen says, hugging him tighter. “I swear to you.”
And I know in his words that he means it.
He means war.
FOR THE REST OF THE night, I have trouble sleeping. I toss and turn, coated in sweat, wishing I could remove the images burned behind my lids. Shriveled bodies that were once people, left to rot by my own hands. Weldon’s tears, my parents hugging me, Katie’s bright eyes and cheery gaze… I don’t know why, but I feel myself slipping. The images shift, and suddenly, I’m standing in a field. Alone. I look down, and blood is on my hands. A sick feeling settles in my stomach. When I look up again, the field has disappeared, burned away by the eternal fire kept in the Underground.
But that’s not what steals my breath. Crushes my lungs. Punches me in the heart.
It’s Jaxen and my parents and everyone that I’ve ever loved lying dead on the floor in front of the very machine that is said to be the end of the Proclamation. And out steps the very man who has the power to destroy everything.
Mourdyn.
I scream.
“What is it?” Jaxen asks, startled, as he shakes me awake.
I look around the room. My heart wants out. It wants a safer body to occupy. It wants Jaxen’s comfort.
He’s rubbing my hair, cupping my face, asking me repeatedly if I’m all right. All I can do is nod. Nod and pray that what I just dreamed wasn’t a premonition.
“Faye, tell me. What is it? What did you see?”
I look up at him.
“You had a premonition. I feel the tendrils of magic,” he says, still holding me, still supporting me.
But I can’t look at him any longer. I can’t stop the fear that’s wrapped its fist around my heart. I search his eyes, trying to find the right words to describe what I saw, but they won’t dislodge themselves from the chains of fear holding them down. I can’t tell him. I can’t. Too much has happened. Too much still has to happen, and there’s no way what I saw was real.
There’s just no way.
“Faye?”
“It was just a nightmare,” I say, my voice cracking a little. I cough to clear my throat, anchoring my resolve. “That’s it. I’ve already had one recently. It’s impossible to have another so soon.”
“You’re different,” he says, as if I didn’t already know. As if I didn’t already realize that my powers differ from the entire world, therefore, the rules we know don’t apply to me. He sees right to my soul. “You can tell me, Faye. Together, remember?”
I nod and bite my lip to hold back the sob that’s stuck in my throat. “Blood. The Underground.” I find his eyes. “Mourdyn.”
His eyebrows dip. His green eyes harden. “Everything will work out. I swear,” he says, pulling me against his chest.
“Yeah,” I say, knowing the feeling I felt in my dream was too real to believe it wasn’t. Because I still taste death in my mouth.
“Everything will be fine,” I lie.
THE NEXT MORNING, WE ALL meet at a street vendor to grab breakfast before our meet with Seamus. Weldon’s clothes are wrinkled. His hair is a mess. He looks like he tossed and turned and never quite found one position to finally rest in. He looks like he’s seen a ghost, and that ghost has spooked him to the point of no return.
Jezi stays close by his side, though she never says a word. When he looks over at her, there are so many words in his gaze, so many grateful things he doesn’t have to say, and it kills me to watch his eyes shut down. To see him retreat into his internal cell with little hope for return.
“You okay?” Gavin asks Weldon.
He shrugs and looks away.
Gavin looks to Jaxen, his eyes narrowing and his mouth pressing thin. He doesn’t have to say it. We all feel the same way. We all want to wring Mack’s neck.
We hook a right, and the Military Compound comes into view. I think my heart falls to my feet. My whole body feels like it’s going to leave without me. It’s going to take off for the building and burst through Seamus’ door. I’m eager, anxious, and just a little bit dreadful to discover what they have decided to do with Clara.
We’re almost to the sliding doors when people start rushing past us in the opposite direction. I don’t notice it at first, not until an entire crowd engulfs us, stopping us in our tracks. I turn around. They’re headed for the city square where the large Jumbotron is. Clara’s face is on the screen, her eyes seeming to pick through my skin, piece by piece, with a tiny toothpick.
“But she… she’s supposed to be locked up,” I whisper out.
She lifts a piece of paper, drops her eyes to it, and begins to read. “High Priest Seamus Everett Sullivan, Faye Hadley Middleton, Jaxen Reade Gramm, Gavin Amery Gramm, Jezibelle Darlene Beaumont, Cassandra Lynn Reed, and Weldon James Jacobsen, you’re hereby summoned by the High Priesthood to appear before the High Priesthood at this very hour. Failure to comply with this summons will result in automatic banishment. You have ten minutes.”
And just like that, her face disappears.
So does my courage.
I swallow. I feel so transparent, so easy to read, as everyone around us slowly turns in our direction and stares. Stares like they’ve never seen a criminal before. Stares like we’re some rabid animal loose from a zoo that needs to be caught and put down.
Jaxen’s hand finds mine, but there’s no solace to be found.
“She’s out. She’s loose,” I mutter, unable to fathom the thought of her being back in her ranking. “They must have decided not to do anything with her or the evidence.”
“We knew this day would come,” Weldon says from the other side of me. He looks down at the ground, and then back up at me. “The letter from your mom—do you still have it?”
I manifest my Grimoire, rip the page out, and then send it back to my room. “Here,” I say, handing it to Weldon.
“What are we going to do with that? The Priesthood already knows about it, and they don’t care,” Gavin says, sounding annoyed and tired.
“Yes, but the Coven doesn’t know. This, I’m sure, will be broadcasted all over. We can bring it to their attention… to all those who are a part of the rebellion, secretly waiting for the right moment to come out of the shadows,” Weldon says, sounding a little bit renewed.