There was really only one option left. I needed to find the Lost Sect. If I were one of their descendents, maybe they would help me. At the very least, they probably wouldn’t kill me and steal my magic. At least, I hoped not. And if they had the same abilities, maybe they could teach me how to use the magic stuck inside me, and I could figure out a way to rescue Silas.
But the Council and the Brotherhood had both tried to find the Lost Sect and had failed for decades. All I knew for sure was that they were here in Earth. As I thought, my leg bounced up and down as if I’d thrown back a six-pack of energy drinks.
I froze when I realized I unconsciously sensed power in my surroundings, as though the air itself was full of magic. I closed my eyes, opened my mind, and inhaled the energy all around me. Magic was everywhere. When I realized this, my powers expanded, flaring around me. Now that I was calm, accessing my magic seemed easy. It required almost no effort, like breathing. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the realization. This had to be the difference between the Aeternal and Earthen sources. My ability to put the compulsion on Landas had confirmed my connection to the Earthen source. Here in Earth, I was closer to my magic than ever before.
Marcel’s charm pulsed in my palm. I grasped it tighter and sensed the faintest of pulls. If Marcel was one of the Lost Sect, maybe I could use his—
Pressure twisted my stomach.
Two men skimmed in front of me, clad in leather and carrying swords. The closest one grabbed me by the shoulders. A familiar pulling sensation started to form. He tried to skim off with me.
I grabbed a head full of brown hair and slammed my knee into his face. He cried out, grasping his bleeding nose. I twisted out of the other man’s reach and jumped off the bench. I pushed energy into Marcel’s charm, praying it would do what I believed it would. The familiar sensation of skimming pulled me through the air. The bus stop fell away.
HORSE-DRAWN BUGGIES rolled along a gravel road, and wood-framed buildings lined both sides of a dirt street down the center of what appeared to be a small town. Men and women walking on the street stopped mid-step to stare at me.
I spun in a circle, trying to process the new location. Did I just time travel? I was definitely still in Earth, but the town surrounding me completely lacked any modern technology from what I could see. The people weren’t dressed in Amish clothing, though—I saw jeans and T-shirts all around.
Someone yelled. Magic flared all around me. An entire arsenal of personal weapons appeared, flashing threateningly toward me from every man and woman in view.
I held up my palms and looked around in awe. Every flare glowed white like mine.
A netlike spell sprang over me with the same complex magical tapestry Silas had conjured on Landas, blocking my magic until I could barely even feel the energy around me. As if I’d lost my sense of smell, everything dulled.
I resisted the urge to fight back as two men grabbed me by the shoulders. Without a word of explanation, they marched me through the town with my arms pinned to my sides. I’d found the Lost Sect, now I needed to talk them into helping me. “I need to talk to someone in charge! I’m one of you. Hey! I said I need to talk to your leader.”
They didn’t answer as they frog-marched me forward. A crowd of people followed us, murmuring and whispering. I fell silent and waited to see where they were taking me.
The buildings we passed were basic—mostly single-story structures with barn-shaped roofs. Two buildings rose higher than the others—a large bell tower and a barn-shaped hall with a flat-roofed square extension. It was either their Town Hall, their school, or their church. Maybe it was all three. As they marched me down the gravel road, the crowd trailing us grew, their auras lit with white magic.
I tried to take in everything. Equal parts excitement and nervousness rushed me. I’d found the Lost Sect. But as usual, I didn’t have a good plan. I had no idea how to talk them into helping me. If they were anything like the Council, they would want something in return for their help. But I had nothing to offer and no backup plan.
The men pulled me inside the tall Town Hall building, leaving the crowd outside. The large, open room had exposed wooden beams in the high ceiling, but the space was dominated by a stone table with six sectioned pieces placed together in a large, wide circle. Plain wooden chairs sat in rows of circles around the stone table, creating rings of seating for at least a hundred.
Three people sat at the stone table. A lean, fit man with receding sand-colored hair stood with a stiffness in his stance that made me think he might have been favoring an old injury. The second man had olive skin and small, square glasses. They both wore basic T-shirts and jeans and appeared to be in their late thirties. The latter man frowned as he looked me over.
The third person, a woman, wore a white button-up shirt tucked into a high-waisted black skirt that flowed to her ankles. Her auburn hair was swept into a bun at the nape of her neck.
My attention froze on her, and my brain stopped working. It was the woman from the photographs.
Her keen gaze took me in. “Maeve?”
I flinched. “Who are you?”
“Let her go.”
The men released me, and I shook out my numb arms as the magic-blocking spell around me melted away.
“How much do you remember?” the woman asked.
I opened my mouth and closed it again. Memories twisted in my brain, but I pushed them down, afraid of losing control. This woman was triggering some serious confusion. I stared harder, trying to decide if she was the person in the photograph—the woman Silas had guessed was my mother.
“I’m Deanna.” Her eyes drifted over my features, and her mouth dropped into a small frown. “This is Casius.” She pointed to the man at her side. “And Thomas.” She indicated the man with glasses, who scrunched his face in confusion.
She addressed the men without turning away from me. “It’s her, right? I’m not losing my mind?”
“Definitely her,” said the man she’d called Casius.
“Do you know who I am?” I asked.
“Maeve.” She rolled my name the same way Silas did.
I brushed away a pang of anxiety. I had to trust that he was okay. There was nothing more I could do to help Silas.
“Gods, I haven’t said that name in ages. Your mother always loved that name.”
Images of the auburn-haired woman from my memory surfaced, bringing along a sharp ache in my chest. There was so much I didn’t understand. “You know my mother? Who are you?”
Deanna cocked her head to the side, and her mouth pursed. “Your mother was my twin sister. I’m your aunt.”
My brain started prickling. The hair and her features were so like my own. It was like looking into a fun-house mirror—the parts were different, but they were all there. I swallowed around a dry throat. “I don’t remember you.”
Her eyes narrowed, suspicious. “Then how did you find us?”
I held up Marcel’s charm, still on the chain around my neck. “I channeled power into this.”
“We don’t make homing spells. It’s too dangerous if it falls into the wrong hands.” She leaned in to examine the charm without touching it. “Thomas?”
The older man leaned forward, pushing his glasses up his nose as he too looked at Marcel’s charm without touching it. “It’s been imbued with magic from our source. It’s not a homing spell exactly, but you must have followed it back to us through accessing your own magic. It’s quite clever, actually. Only one of our own would have been able to use it.”
“Where did you get it?” Deanna asked.
“I found it, and it brought me here.” My answer was vague, but I didn’t dare give her more information. Even if she was my aunt, I didn’t know if I could trust her yet.
She pursed her lips, thinking, before she spoke again. “You don’t remember anything else?”
“Honestly, something is wrong with my memories. I think I was taken from my real family, and it had something to do with your
people here.”
“You weren’t taken; you left us six years ago.”
A dull throbbing started behind my eyes.
She nodded at my arm. “Your magic and memories were bound after your mother died.”
Her words felt like a weight, slowly crushing me. I considered the interlocking triangles inked onto my skin. Holy hells. The tattoo wasn’t a tattoo at all; it was a magic-blocking spell.
“May I?” She reached for my forearm, and power flared around her.
I nodded then flinched as she touched the tip of her finger to the tattoo, but no pain followed. The mark flooded with energy until she pulled her finger away, and the glow faded. “The binding is still partially active,” she concluded. “We can help you unbind the rest, and your memories should return. If it wasn’t intentional, do you know what caused the binding to begin breaking down?”
I paused, unsure if I should tell her about the power Marcel had stolen from the Brotherhood and that they were chasing me. I didn’t want to scare her off before I figured out what had really happened to me. I needed their help. “I think Marcel, my, uh, brother, did it. He transferred a lot of power to me when he died.”
Deanna’s face tightened, and she sat down. Moisture pooled in her blue-green eyes. “I’m so sorry, Mae. He left several months ago. I didn’t know what he was planning, or I would have tried to stop him from leaving.”
The emotion in her voice made me feel guilty for breaking the news to her like that. She was his aunt, after all. “I’m sorry. I don’t really remember him—other than his final moments. I have this whole other set of memories, and neither seems completely real.” She seemed to really care about what had happened to me, so I swallowed and decided to go for the big ask. “Will you help me remember?”
She reached toward me but pulled back without touching me. “Of course we will. We’re family. After your mother was murdered, your father agreed to help you forget. He didn’t think you were safe here anymore, and he wanted you to have a chance at a normal life.” She shook her head as though she didn’t agree. “He hid you among the Mundanes.”
Blurry feelings and half-remembered recollections started to click into place in my brain. “You mean Michael Smithson—Father Mike?”
She nodded. “Your father.”
My memories started bleeding at the edges. “How is that possible? I...”
My father reaches for our hands, his eyes puffy and bloodshot. “It’s for the best,” he says.
I glance at Marcel next to me. He stares back at our father with a hard face. “Mom always said we’re stronger together—”
“Marcel.” My father sighs, his face tight with a weary expression. “Come with us. It’s not safe here anymore.”
My feelings are so raw that I’m numb. I don’t want to feel this way anymore. I can’t keep running and waiting for them to find us. I can’t do it anymore. I just want to forget.
Marcel pushes back from the table and lurches to his feet. The chair screeches across the wood floor. “Then leave! Run away and hide. But don’t pretend it’s what’s best for all of us!”
The memory slammed me into one of the wooden chairs lining the aisle. Tears burned behind my eyes. I couldn’t believe I’d ever doubted him. Even without my memories, Father Mike had always been my family. He’d always loved me and taken care of me.
“Where is he?” Deanna asked, glancing toward the door as though expecting him to walk in. “I would have thought Michael would come with you or at least send word.”
The tears spilled over. “If he’s not here, then the Brotherhood has him. Titus promised to kill him.”
Deanna’s face drained of color. She stood from her chair before she changed her mind and sat back down again. “I didn’t know. I’m so sorry.” Her lips tightened into a thin white line. “We’ve all lost so much.”
We sat in silence. I couldn’t wrap my brain around how everything I’d learned about my past was possible. My whole life was made up, and now that I’d finally gotten some answers, I’d already lost an entire family I didn’t remember. I’d chosen to walk away from the painful memories six years ago, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to get them back. I had so much to figure out.
Finally, I found at least one concrete question I could ask. “What does that mean exactly? That you bound my magic? And what did that have to do with my mother’s death?”
“We’d established a remote farm in northern Idaho. Every few years, the Council would send a patrol of Guardians, and we’d have to hide for a few months or relocate if they got too close. But for the most part, we lived undisturbed.” Deanna swept her long black skirt to the side and sat back in her chair. “Until the Brotherhood. Six years ago, they found us, and Delilah—your mother—sacrificed herself so the rest of us could escape. She was our strongest, the Anchor of our Circle.
“After she was killed, we realized the Brotherhood had found a way to trace our magic. They were hunting us, absorbing our powers and with them our ability to access Earth’s Source. We were a risk to the very thing we had sworn to protect.”
She reached over and squeezed my hand. The gesture felt familiar and foreign at the same time.
“The Sect fractured,” she continued. “Some chose to hide in remote locations like this farm, shielded by magic-dampening spells; others moved to heavily populated areas, hoping to blend in. Some even gave up their magic and became like the Mundanes.”
At that, Thomas and Casius shared a look, and I realized there was a lot more to that story. It sounded as though their entire community had fallen apart.
“Your father bound your magic in order to hide you and erased the traumatic memory of your mother’s murder. He thought you could live a normal life. We... disagreed. You were so young, and the trauma was so fresh. You just needed time to heal.” She leaned toward me and rested her hand on my arm. “You begged him to help you forget. In the end, it was not my decision, so we helped him do it. We bound your memories and your magic, and you both left. I’ve regretted it every day since.”
The sharp pain in my chest grew, like a fist squeezing my heart. It became hard to breathe. I had a mother. Delilah. Father Mike was Michael, my father. My brother, Marcel, and my aunt, Deanna. Faces and names and memories flitted around the edges of my consciousness.
It was too much. I stood and paced the aisle between chairs. Casius had to sit down to avoid being bowled over. Silas’s stress management habits had rubbed off on me.
The random thought sent another pang of fear through my chest. I could lose Silas too. He could already be dead.
Thomas cleared his throat. “I’ve never heard of this happening before, that one person could undo a binding spell—even partially. It should require a direct connection to a source.”
I finally pieced it all together. “Marcel used the Brotherhood’s magic to do it.” What I’d seen in the flashes, and in my own tattered memories, formed the picture I’d been avoiding. “I believe he came to Boston to bring me home, but they found him first. Titus tortured him to give up the location of the Sect, but he wouldn’t, so they tried to do a Transference to steal his abilities and his memories.” I swallowed hard. I had no memories of Marcel as my brother, but the memories of his torture were terrible. “Marcel found me, magically I mean. We connected just before they killed him.”
Thomas scooted forward in his chair, his expression intent. “He linked with you during a Transference?”
I remembered the very first vision I’d had and the wave of crushing magic that I’d believed to be a panic attack. We were connected at the moment Titus slit Marcel’s throat—the exact moment at which he’d performed the Transference. “Yes. I’m positive. He used their magic to break the binding on my magic. I have the Brotherhood’s magic that he stole during the botched spell, and they’re trying to kill me to get it back.”
Casius tapped his fingers on his thigh. “I didn’t even know that was possible.”
Tears filled Deanna’s eyes. �
�He was a fine young man. I’m so sorry, Mae.”
The familiar use of my nickname—the name Father Mike called me—was like a stab to my heart. I didn’t remember them yet, but I couldn’t deny that these people were my family—a family I’d forgotten because of the Brotherhood. My hate for Titus made me physically hurt. I added Elias to that list; he’d betrayed his people and mine. They both had to be stopped. My pain hardened into anger. I wouldn’t let all the sacrifices be for nothing. I would hunt them both down and kill them.
“Marcel fought the Brotherhood until the very end,” I said. “I’m going to stop them. They’re going to pay for Marcel, for Father M—my father. For my mother. For everyone.”
I locked gazes with Deanna, Casius, and Thomas. Their expressions reflected my sadness and anger.
“Will you help me stop them?”
Determination spread over each of their faces. “We’re stronger together,” Deanna said. “It’s time to fight back.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Magic flowed over the circular stone table in the middle of the large hall. At each section, one of the six leaders of the Sect stood in front of a carved magic symbol. They called themselves the Circle. I stood between Deanna and Casius. Thomas stood to Casius’s left, and the other three Circle members—Tamara, Jason, and Leah—took the remaining positions.
Beyond the Circle, the rest of the Sect gathered, watching. Deanna told me they always included everyone in major decisions. Each person got a vote, and the room was packed with hundreds of people. The rows of chairs were filled, and more people stood behind those, watching.
I had expected some debate about the decision to fight, but there was none after Deanna showed them my flare. She expected me to take my mother’s role of Anchor to the Circle, which would allow them to access the full power of the source and give them the opportunity to finally fight back against the Brotherhood.
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