I couldn’t believe that only hours before I had tried to defend him against my father. I’d argued he was being too hard on Nico. Not giving him credit where credit was due. But now he’d betrayed me, and ruined my most cherished friendship.
He’d effectively stolen from me the one thing I loved most in this world, and he would be made to face what he’d done. To answer for it.
I wanted to know why.
I took the stairs two at a time, stumbling in my haste to find him. The wooden door was stiff and I had to slam my shoulder into it to open it.
“Diana?” Nico asked, turning from where he’d been filling a trunk with his things.
Unable to maintain any sense of composure or propriety, I croaked, “Why?”
His mouth closed, and in the amber glow of the lamplight, his face fell. He wasn’t even going to try to deny it. He had done it, then.
Until that moment, I thought maybe Alistair had been wrong. Maybe Nico hadn’t had anything to do with his separation from Dolores. But now I could see it in his expression and in the way he clutched a threadbare undershirt in his fists.
“I’m an officer now,” he said, his voice strained, and when he released his shirt, I saw the glimmering ink of his officer’s mark on the inside of his forearm. “It’s my duty to uphold the law.”
“The law,” I laughed. “The law?”
He looked up and cringed back at the sight of me. Good. He should back away. My magic surged up at my calling, running up and into the arches of my feet. Filling my body with intoxicating power. Taking away the pain and replacing it with strength.
“How could you?” I demanded, moving forward to jab two fingers into his bare chest. “How could you do that? You knew what he meant to me, Nic. You knew and you did it anyway.”
I could see him trying to come up with an explanation. His chiseled jaw was so tight it looked like he might break a tooth. Outside in the growing dark, the river rushed, and dark clouds were rolling in from the east. A lone bolt of lightning struck the earth and my power surged even more, given added strength from the natural energy of the oncoming storm.
“It isn’t as though I arrested him. I only spoke to him, Dee.”
“Don’t call me that,” I snapped.
“I only spoke to him,” Nico repeated. “I warned him that if he didn’t break it off with his lady friend that I’d have to uphold my duties and report it. I didn’t have to give him a chance to do the right thing, but I did. For you.”
I shook my head. “For me?”
“He isn’t good for you, Diana. He doesn’t put you first. He doesn’t see how incredible you are. He should cherish you, but instead, he treats you like… like his pet.”
Wait, what was he trying to say?
I lost my breath as dawn broke over my thoughts and I finally saw the light. “You didn’t do this because of a sense of duty as an officer,” I accused, swallowing a foul taste in my mouth. “You wanted to separate us. You knew he’d blame me. God, Nic, you made sure he knew it was me who told you, didn’t you?”
When he didn’t respond right away, my hand flew up to cover my mouth, stifling a painful sob there.
“Deny it,” I said through quivering lips.
He didn’t respond, and the light hitting his face showed me the moisture glistening on the red rims of his eyes. Other than Alistair, Nico was my best friend. My only friend.
The sting of what he’d done hit me like a thousand lashes. His silence weighed on me. It was crushing. I could hardly breathe.
“He didn’t deserve your love,” Nico said, coming toward me with his hands out, palms up in a peaceful gesture. “I’m sorry, Diana. Let me explain it better. I can put on the kettle. We can talk—”
“No,” I said definitively, the power within me soaring to heights I’d never known before. If it weren’t for the numbness still holding on at the edges of my mind, I might’ve realized I needed to temper it. To soothe it. But I was past the point of control.
Nico reached out for me, his angelic eyes begging me to understand. But all I saw through the red haze of my rage and power-drunk fury was a man who’d betrayed me. A man who destroyed forever the relationship I most cherished.
And I snapped.
When his hand closed around my wrist the sigil sprang from my fingers almost of its own accord. It bloomed into a beautiful, entrancing ball of white-hot energy. So warm. So reassuring.
“Don’t touch me!”
“Diana, please,” he begged, unperturbed by the attack sigil I held to. He yanked my wrist, trying to get a hold of my other arm. “Please,” he said again, more frantic this time as he tried to subdue me—to pull me into him.
“No!”
“Stop it, Diana,” he shouted. “Come here!”
He tugged hard on my wrist.
I stumbled and lost it—the orb and the spell it contained were gone. The attack sigil flew into Nico’s chest and sent him careening backward. The shock on his face was the last thing I saw before his back smashed into the worn wooden railing of the balcony. The planks bowed to his weight and the force of his impact. Breaking apart to allow him to fall down, down onto the water-washed rocks at the river bank.
The magic that’d been writhing within me seeped away, back into the floorboards and further, back into the earth from where it came. Leaving me shaking, cold, and alone as the first rumbles of thunder shook the boathouse.
Somewhere outside, a horse whinnied, and I heard the banging of hooves on wooden boards. Shadow… Nico’s familiar.
I broke out of the stupor a moment later and realized what I’d done. I fell forward and vomited onto the floor, my sides heaving, and lungs screaming at the lack of air.
I clawed my way to the ledge, past the broken bits of damp wood, and looked over the side.
White capped waves rushed passed, churning up dirt and debris as the storm picked up and the wind turned. “Nico!” I shouted, but my voice was swallowed up by the storm.
It was dark, but I could see well enough to know he wasn’t there, and that he wouldn’t have survived the fall, or the rushing water. Not even Nico was strong enough to outswim the undercurrent in these waters during a storm like this. Even on a calm day, I’d been sucked under on more than one occasion.
Shadow whinnied some more, rebelling against the painful severing of the bond. In the distance, I could just make out the small stall Nico had built several summers before. Where would Shadow go now?
What have I done?
The sky opened up and the rain poured down, mingling with the hot tears now making their own tracks down my cheeks.
I wasn’t sure how long I sat there in the rain and wind. Watching the sky light up with knives of white light. Listening to the way the clouds groaned at what I’d done. I sat there until I was cold and really and truly—physically numb.
I wished I’d never found out about Dolores. I wished I’d never confronted him—that I didn’t tell Nico. I wished I’d just told Alistair I loved him ages ago, or that I realized how Nico felt about me so I could tell him I’d never feel the same way.
I wished so many things were different. But there were no second chances, and certainly, no way to go back in time, as much as I wished our people still retained the knowledge to do such a spell—we didn’t.
Eventually, I’d have to get up off this balcony and face the rest of my life whether I liked it or not. I looked one last time into the turbulent waters of the river below and cursed the thing that had caused so much pain and awful things. Without love would any of this have happened?
I understood then—that it was my own actions that caused this chain of events. It was my obsession with having Alistair all to myself. It was not caring that Nico wanted more than to be my friend. It was all the ugly thoughts and hopes that hid in the darkest corners of my mind. Love made people dangerous—made them do stupid things. Like Nico. Like me. Like Alistair.
Would two people who’d loved one another despite their differences still
be together if it weren’t for my interference? Without love, would someone I once called friend be dead at my own hand?
It was a question I would ask myself for the next hundred years.
8
January 2003
One-hundred years may seem like a long time—and that’s because it is, even by witch standards. But the day Alistair Hawkins reappeared on the radar of the witching community after his century long absence I realized time meant little when it came to how I felt about him.
After Nico, I vowed never to allow love to cloud my judgment or poison my thoughts again. And I stayed true to that, for the most part. I had lost interest in forming meaningful, long-lasting romantic relationships. Flights of carnal passion were much more diverting, and I found after several more years that I coveted the fact that there were no strings attached almost anywhere in my life.
I’d never told anyone what happened to Nico. His body was never found, and the broken wood on the railing spoke for itself. He’d fallen. And that was the end of it. Everyone else accepted it easily enough.
It took me years not cringe every time I went home and had to face the old boathouse in the distance of my parent’s kitchen window.
“Do you think he’ll get it this time?” I asked Bethany. She was my apprentice in the Arcane Archives. It was her who told me Alistair had petitioned to acquire the vacant seat on the council. After Dolores he’d all but vanished, holing himself up at home, living off his family’s wealth. I never heard from him, and I’d been terrified to face him after what happened. It was like he was dead. A ghost who only tormented me now in dreams.
“He’s been garnering a lot of support from those radicals, I hear. That group… what are they called?”
“Manifesto?” I offered; a bit surprised.
Bethany nodded, her blown out bleach blond curls bobbing with her. “That’s the one.”
Manifesto was a very underground operation, and few people outside of the Department even knew of its existence. But when you worked in the archives, there wasn’t much that went on you didn’t know about. We’d seen our fair share of correspondences, documents and other files that held information on the group.
Though we really weren’t supposed to look at anything more than was necessary to complete our duties. It was shocking either of us even managed to secure a position at the Department. Until not so long ago, it was run only by men.
“You seem surprised,” Bethany added, halting in her restoring of an older document that held an original potion recipe from Emeris.
I tucked the file I’d been working on away, back onto the shelf, considering. From what I knew, Manifesto aimed to break the chain of government, and instill a new leader that would allow for us to come out to the mortals. It was an old bag.
Everyone knew it would never be allowed, no matter who lead us. It was far too dangerous, and we only had to look through history to know that for certain. Every time the mortals so much as suspected our kind as being capable of the things we were, we were hailed as devil worshipers and made to pay the price for such heresy in blood. If only they understood the true nature of our power… but the humans were daft and could never truly understand.
And if they didn’t understand, they would fear. And fear led to more dangerous things.
It was what Alistair wanted though, when he was with Dolores. I thought maybe after she left, he would let it go, but it seemed I was wrong.
I sighed. “Just surprised to hear about him is all,” I said offhandedly. “I haven’t seen him since we went to the academy together.”
“Long time.”
“Yeah.”
Bethany turned to me, hand to hip. “Hey, you know what—you should go see him. I know you said the two of you had a falling out, but it’s been long enough, and I can see you still care for the guy.”
She was right, of course. I would always care for Alistair. As much as I tried not to, I still thought of him from time to time. Of what could’ve been if I hadn’t acted so foolishly. And it had been a long while. Surely Alistair would forgive me for what I did. He’d called me family once, though it still hurt to think about that. He’d said I was like a sister to him.
Maybe we could be close again. Maybe I could help him get what he wanted. There weren’t many candidates for the open seat. With a few choice words to the right council members and aristocrats in the community, I could give him what he was after.
It could be a peace offering.
“I do—still care for him, that is. And you’re right—it has been a very long time.”
“Atta girl,” Bethany said with a wink, turning back to her task.
I found myself in my modest two-bedroom walk-up drawing out the portal that would take me to Rosewood Abbey only the next evening.
If I wait any longer, I’ll lose my nerve.
The doorway glowed faintly against the floral wallpaper in my bedroom, before the section of wall fell away and I was left standing just inside the main gate. My heart skipped a beat, and I marveled at how even after all this time, the mere thought of seeing him again could send my body into sheer chaos.
My skin bristled at the blistery cold. A gust of wind blew over the property, licking at the frost-coated blades of grass. Rosewood Abbey crouched at the top of the drive—looking darker and even more ominous than I remembered.
Just go, Diana, I told myself. The worst he will do is turn you away, and then at least you’ll have tried to set things right.
I pulled my ruby red peacoat tighter around myself, cursing my choice to put on the stiletto heels. Maneuvering over the gravel drive proved to be a challenge and took me a considerable amount of time.
My ears were red and freezing by the time I reached the front door, and my fingertips were white with cold. Now that I was here, I couldn’t seem to raise my hand to knock. The muscles in my back tensed up and I grit my teeth against the fear. This was Alistair.
I knew him.
And it’s been a hundred years.
Chances are he’ll be just as excited to see you. More than willing to put the past in the past.
After all, Dolores was merely a girlfriend. It wasn’t as though I’d broken up a marriage.
Right.
I lifted a hand and knocked on the door, noticing how it’d been replaced sometime over the years. The wood looked new, and the iron knocker at the center had changed from a curved blade protruding from an iron rose to the head of a wolf. A round knocker in it’s bared metal teeth.
How peculiar.
I heard the footsteps inside and resisted the urge to run. Instead planting myself firmly on the mat outside. I swallowed, clearing my throat—tucking my hands into my pockets.
No one came to answer the door.
I knocked again, but this time the door buckled at my touch. The hinges creaked as it groaned open. There was no one in the foyer.
A sudden sinking in my stomach reminded what happened the last time I went into this house uninvited. I wouldn’t do it again.
“Hello,” I called into the warmth of the Abbey, noting how many things had been restored and upgraded in the past hundred years.
Just then, a woman rushed through the foyer, a heavy-looking suitcase in her right hand. She startled at seeing me in the doorway and dropped the case. It hit the marble flooring with a loud thump.
Recognition flitted in my mind, and I saw the same thing register in her eyes, too.
“You,” she choked out, regaining some composure.
“Dolores?”
9
Without being asked or invited, I stepped inside, and the door fell closed behind me. It was like seeing a phantom. We studied one another for what felt like an age, but I was sure was mere moments. When I was convinced, she was, in fact, real, I began to process what exactly that meant.
The last time I saw her she was barely twenty. And now she looked barely thirty. She’d aged even less than I had… in over one hundred years.
Impossible.
She shook her head, lifting her case once more. “What are you doing here? Did someone send you to finish what you started? Is that it? Because if it is, you better get it over with—I’m in no mood.”
“Dolores, how—”
She stopped me with a look. “Why are you here?”
Even though my mind was still reeling, I thought that a fair question given the circumstances. “I—well, I heard Alistair was running for a seat on the council. I came to see if I could help,” I explained. “I work at the Department, you see.”
She cocked her head at me, her green eyes considering—squinting in confusion. As though I’d just said the most ridiculous thing in the world.
“Is he home?” I added.
Her jaw clamped shut, and I saw a crack in her stony gaze. Behind the mask of bravery, I saw pain. Worry.
“Dolores, I’m sorry, but is everything alright? Should I leave?”
Leaving was the last thing I wanted to do, but this wasn’t my house. What I did want was an explanation. Why was she here? How was she still alive? And where in the world was Alistair?
Seeming to decide something, she lifted her chin. “He lied to you,” she said, and then paused, taking a long breath. “That night—”
She was interrupted by the high-pitched wail of… of an infant crying.
Dolores rushed up the stairs, muttering something in her wake.
A dark shape scuttled across the floor to follow her up the stairs. I recognized the animal at once. It was Alistair’s familiar, though it’s eyes were milky, and it’s full sparse and dry from age.
Had I stepped into another dimension when I walked through that door? I felt so hopelessly confused and needed answers. In a hazy state of disbelief, I followed Dolores and the animal up the stairs. Followed the sounds of the child.
I came upon a room at the end of the corridor and discovered it was a nursery. The walls and wispy curtains white. A dark wooden crib at the far end, and a dresser just inside the door. Stuffed things and small wooden toys littered the floor to the far right. And in the middle of the room stood Dolores, a babe swaddled in a pale pink blanket in her arms.
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