He’d called Setsuna after getting back to New York yesterday, demanding to see her. Not for an official meeting but a personal one. She’d agreed without hesitation, which told him she’d known what he would ultimately find in Salem.
They got out of the car, locking it behind them. The porch light was on, and he could see the soft glow of more light seeping past the curtains drawn across the living room windows. He knocked loudly when they made it to the front door, the threshold surrounding the home brushing softly against his shields.
The dead bolt turned, and the door opened, revealing Setsuna standing in the foyer without her carved rosewood cane. She was dressed in black slacks and a soft-looking violet sweater, house slippers on her feet.
“Hello, Patrick,” she said, stepping aside so they could enter.
Patrick crossed the threshold, letting the familiar magic wash over him. He didn’t bother removing his shoes since they were leaving right after the meeting. Jono followed him to the living room, where Patrick made a beeline to the wet bar in the corner and proceeded to pour himself a glass of whiskey.
Setsuna sighed from somewhere behind him. “Please tell me you ate something if you’re going to drink like that.”
Patrick set the whiskey bottle down on the wet bar with a loud smack, staring at the amber liquid in the cut-crystal glass. “There’s not enough alcohol in the world to drown out what I’m feeling.”
“Pat,” Jono said quietly.
He turned around, holding the glass with tight fingers as he met Setsuna’s gaze across the living room. “You knew who they worshipped. All this time, you knew.”
Setsuna didn’t try to deny or equivocate. She only nodded, her eyes filling with a quiet sort of sadness. “I knew.”
Nearly every coven in existence worshipped some form of god or goddess, ancestors, or demon—something to pray to, to ask for guidance from, to gain a blessing. Setsuna had always prayed to her family’s kami. When visiting her home around his time at an Academy growing up, Patrick had worshipped nothing and no one. He still didn’t.
The apartment back in New York had no altar, no physical frame of worship to guide prayers he never spoke. But his mother’s family prayed, and who they worshipped was the same goddess who owned his soul debt. Patrick wasn’t sure he could ever reconcile the two.
“You always warned me against reaching out to my mother’s family. I always thought it was because of Ethan. That you wanted to keep them safe from him. But that wasn’t it,” Patrick said.
“No, it wasn’t. Not completely.”
He glared at her, hand shaking so hard the whiskey sloshed against the side of the glass. “You told me to lie, and I did. You told me I had to change my name, and I did. You never told me the truth. You let me believe it was just Ethan.”
“I never lied about your father. Ethan was a threat back then the same as he is now.”
“That’s beside the point. I’m talking about my mother’s family. Did you think I’d never find out?”
Setsuna sighed, appearing tired, though not unrepentant. “Sit down, Patrick.”
“Setsuna—”
“You want answers, and I’ll give them to you, but sit down first.”
She was already moving toward the leather couch, though Jono remained standing. He met Patrick’s eyes before tilting his head at the furniture. Patrick grimaced, taking a large swallow of whiskey before going to sit on the couch, leaving an entire cushion between himself and Setsuna.
She folded her hands together over her lap, sharply cut hair brushing her shoulders as she turned her head to look at him. “Who we worship is private. It is for every family, for every group of magic users that comes together to offer up their prayers.”
“I know,” he bit out.
“Then know that I would have let your mother’s family know you were alive if they had worshipped anyone else but Persephone.”
Patrick wasn’t sure he believed her—wasn’t sure he could. Jono cleared his throat, and Patrick’s attention snapped to him.
“She’s telling the truth,” Jono said quietly.
Patrick swallowed, realizing that while he was shielded in her home, Setsuna was not. She had to know Jono would be able to smell the difference between a lie and a truth, and had kept her personal shields down accordingly. Patrick stared at her, not knowing what to say in the face of her revelation. To know that his life could have been lived in another way if only a handful of choices had been different. That his future maybe wouldn’t be this.
He didn’t know, right then, what he would have preferred.
Maybe the Fates had it right after all, or maybe they were wrong. He would never know.
“I got attached to your mother’s murder case after you were brought to me. I was the one who gave Eloise her second interview regarding the sacrificial murder,” Setsuna said after a moment of silence had passed.
“She hates you,” Patrick said.
“Yes. But I interviewed her to see if it was safe to send you back. She was devastated. They all were. If I could have given them a reprieve from their grief back then, I would have. But when I was in her home, I saw her altar to Persephone, and all I could think about was you in that safe house here in DC and the soul debt you owed at such a young age.”
Setsuna’s mouth twisted slightly, but she never looked away. Patrick only had dim memories of that time after being brought to her—shock and trauma having eaten away at those moments he’d lived through all those years ago. He hadn’t been welcomed to her home until after the legalities over his name change and ward status were finished.
“You asked what I wanted back then. I told you I wanted to go home,” Patrick said slowly.
“And I told you it wasn’t safe. I didn’t lie back then, Patrick.” Setsuna sighed, flexing her fingers together. “You were eight and traumatized, and I had no right to send you back to a family who worshipped the goddess who owned your soul. The pressure on you to view Persephone as benevolent, as a savior of sorts, when she held your life and soul in her hand, your future, wasn’t fair. I refused to put you through that.”
Patrick stared at Setsuna, barely able to feel the glass in his hand as he listened to her speak. He knew, rationally, where she was coming from. That yes, he’d been young and just survived a near-death experience at the time. Her decisions on his behalf didn’t make it better.
“You didn’t give me a choice.”
“I told you from the moment you became my ward that you could worship any god or no god, and you chose never to worship anyone. Covens exist to keep the memory of a god alive. Ask yourself if you would you have been allowed that freedom if I had sent you back to Eloise.”
Patrick didn’t say anything.
“I kept you with me because you would have been made to pray to the goddess you were unintentionally bound to. How would that have been fair to you? Where is the choice in familial requirements?” Setsuna asked gently.
Patrick flinched, knowing deep down she was right, but that didn’t make it better. “You and Ashanti made sure I was good at keeping secrets. I could’ve kept this one.”
“You were a child. You had enough weighing on you back then.”
“You still should’ve told me. Before I went to the Citadel and the Mage Corps, or even fucking after. I deserved to know.”
Setsuna slid across the couch to sit closer to him. “When you came to me, I had no plans for children in my life. I always disappointed my parents in that way, but I never disappointed myself. Not until you became my ward. I knew I could never be your mother, and I didn’t want to try because that would’ve been a lie. But I at least wanted to be someone who put your best interests above as many others as I could. Looking back, I can see the failures and the successes.”
Setsuna finally reached for him, curling her fingers over his wrist above the cuff of his leather jacket. Patrick thought about jerking away, but he was the one who’d come here tonight, looking for answers. So he stayed where he was, stiff beneath her to
uch, and somehow knew that this was growth, bitter as it was.
“I tried to keep you safe the only way I knew how,” Setsuna said. “I wanted you to live to see adulthood for you, not for what you thought you owed others. You were so hurt as a child, Patrick. I tried to give you space by letting you learn amongst your peers, and I was always here for you when you came home. But you were so standoffish, and I didn’t want to push because I was too afraid that trying to break through to you would harm you even more. You’d had enough of other people forcing their wants and desires upon you. I didn’t want to add to it.”
“I…”
Patrick didn’t know what to say to that, not with the sting in his eyes from tears. His stomach twisted, and his face was hot from anger, but beneath it all was the memory of quiet days spent in this house between semesters at the Academy boarding school. Of how Setsuna was so focused on her career back then but made sure to be present when he was around for holidays or the summer break, even if they didn’t know how to live around each other.
She’d still tried, in her own way, to care, and he could see that now.
Nothing was ever going to be fair after Persephone dragged him off that spellwork in the Salem basement all those years ago. In that respect, Setsuna was right.
And he’d survived long enough, grown old enough, to understand that.
Patrick set his whiskey glass on the coffee table so he could wipe at his eyes, smearing wetness over the skin near his temples. “Ethan wanted to be a god, and I never wanted to be a hero. Now look at the mess we’re in.”
Setsuna’s fingers tightened over his wrist. “I know. If it was ever in my power to change things for you, I would have tried.”
Patrick closed his eyes, sifting through the anger and pain, the heartache tied to the family he’d lost back then and kept losing because of the decisions Setsuna had made on his behalf. But he remembered how he’d felt knowing his mother’s family worshipped Persephone, the full-body rejection he’d suffered through.
Persephone owned his soul debt while Ashanti had honed him into a weapon that Setsuna had tried to keep safe and sheathed as best she could.
He’d survived to wield himself in this war, though the cost he kept unearthing seemed impossible to pay some days. But he wasn’t alone in this fight and hadn’t been in all the years prior since coming to DC as a child. He knew with a certainty that made his teeth ache that if Setsuna had sent him back to Eloise, he’d be worshipping Persephone now, and there wasn’t any freedom to be found in the confines of family tradition.
Setsuna had made the best of an impossible choice all those years ago, the same way Patrick was doing now.
Patrick opened his eyes and shifted on the couch, pulling his arm free. Setsuna let him go—she always had—but he caught her hand in his, giving it a careful, tentative squeeze. When he turned his head to look at her, he was struck by how tired Setsuna appeared. For the first time in a long while, she looked her years.
“I hate that you lied to me about this for so long. I don’t know when I’ll be able to forgive you for that. But I’m still here because of you, and I don’t think I’ve ever said thank you for that,” Patrick said.
There was a time, he knew, where he would’ve been furious over this kind of revelation and refuse to listen to reason. But they’d both been dealt shitty hands when it came to his life, and she’d done the best she could with the cards given to her. In the end, her best had kept him breathing.
Setsuna blinked, the corners of her eyes crinkling ever so slightly from the careful smile that curved her lips. “I was never after your thanks.”
“I know.” Patrick’s gaze drifted over to where Jono stood, leaning against the wall, watching them dig through his past with cut-glass words. “But for this, you have it.”
It was the same situation he’d found himself in with Gerard last December in a way. Lied to for his own protection without his knowledge, and he could choose to hold on to that pain and anger and sense of betrayal until it choked him.
Or he could let it go and move on, for however long he remained standing.
He was better at forgiveness now, Patrick realized, staring at Jono. Better because of the compassion Jono always showed him right alongside the support that came with no strings, no quid pro quo of promises. Just the knowledge that Jono would always be there for him, no matter what. That support allowed Patrick to walk through the minefield of emotions that was his past, of everything that made him who and what he was, to come out the other side as whole as possible.
It hit him right then, stealing the breath from his lungs, what he would’ve lost if Setsuna had given him back to Eloise. He wouldn’t be waking up beside Jono every morning, wouldn’t be sharing drinks at home or at Tempest. The pack they’d built wouldn’t even be a dream because Jono would still be in London, Wade would still be the prisoner of a god, and Sage would always lose the freedom she wanted for herself and other werecreatures beneath corrupt god pack alphas.
Maybe the Fates might have thrown them together eventually, but there was no guarantee they’d be who they were now if he’d grown up differently.
And Patrick, well, he liked the man he’d become when standing by Jono’s side.
That tangle of emotion washed through him, forcing out the sting of anger and distress, leaving behind the cool knowledge that he would always choose Jono.
That he would always come back to this, to them.
Oh, Patrick thought, holding Jono’s gaze.
What a hell of a time to realize he was in love when they were still so utterly fucked.
And he couldn’t give voice to that sudden clarity, not when they still had a war to win. So Patrick did what he had always done when there was a fight to be had—he shoved down what made him happy in favor of getting through one more day, one more week. If they could get through Samhain alive, then he’d unravel that knot. He’d stop hiding behind other syllables in favor of a truth he felt down to his ruined soul.
Breathing in deep, Patrick looked at Setsuna, still holding her hand in his, remembering a different time when he’d stumbled into her life and she’d pulled him to some form of safety that he could—all these years later—finally accept.
“Thank you,” Patrick said, voice thick in his throat. “For what you did for me.”
Setsuna wrapped her arms around him for an awkward hug that left Patrick biting his lip. They hadn’t hugged much while he grew up, and he knew now it wasn’t because she hadn’t wanted to. Patrick’s boundaries had been nonexistent back then, and she’d worked in her own way to help him rebuild them. Those barriers had sustained him, maybe even hurt him, but eventually, Jono had taught him how to bring them down of his own volition.
The people in this room had taught him a lot about himself without Patrick even realizing it.
“Do what you feel is right when reacquainting yourself with your mother’s family,” Setsuna told him after she let him go.
“I will,” Patrick promised.
Setsuna patted his knee and rose to her feet. “You don’t want to miss your flight home.”
Patrick nodded, leaving the remnants of his whiskey on the table as he stood. Jono pushed himself away from the wall, never taking his eyes off Patrick. “Ready?”
He met Jono’s gaze and nodded. “Yeah. Let’s go home.”
“I’ll see you out,” Setsuna said, ushering them to the door.
She removed her house slippers in favor of a pair of shoes from the shoe rack by the door, following them outside into the cold to stand on the porch to see them off. Jono was already at the car when Patrick made it to the sidewalk, pausing to turn back to Setsuna, lips parting on words he would never speak.
A threshold lived in the framework of a home, guarding the space a person lived in. Where Setsuna stood was beyond its reach, but she wasn’t out of reach of the high-caliber spelled bullet that cut through the air—so close to Patrick he felt its passing—and slammed into her chest, finding its mar
k, or maybe missing it altogether.
He would never know for sure because he’d turned, shifted out of the line of sight, and if he’d stayed put, his own personal shields still in place, maybe things would’ve been different.
“Setsuna!” Patrick screamed.
He slammed his shields outward, covering the area against the sniper staring through a scope somewhere in the dark.
Too little, too late.
Patrick saw Setsuna crumple to the ground, and he couldn’t catch her, no matter how fast he moved. When he slammed to his knees beside her on the porch, the growing pool of blood beneath her looked black in the glow of the soft light situated by the door.
“No, no, no,” Patrick gasped out, pressing shaking hands to the gaping wound in her chest. “Please no!”
Her eyes wouldn’t look at him, staring far away at something only she could see.
In the cold, beneath a cloudy night sky, Setsuna’s blood slipped between Patrick’s fingers, impossible to stop.
9
Patrick sat on a leather chair in a private waiting room at George Washington University Hospital, staring at the blood beneath his fingernails.
He couldn’t get them clean.
At some point after their arrival, Jono had pulled him into a bathroom and washed his hands for him because Patrick hadn’t been clearheaded since Setsuna was shot. The water hadn’t washed away all of it, nor his failure.
Fingers trembling, he clenched his hands into fists, fingernails biting into his skin. The sounds of the hospital was dull noise beyond the waiting room where the emergency nurses had ushered them after taking one look at Jono’s eyes. The privacy was welcome, considering Patrick had been the one to start notifying people in charge of what had happened.
When EMS had arrived at Setsuna’s home, she’d barely been breathing. They’d gotten her in their bus for transport almost immediately, and Patrick hadn’t been able to follow because her home was a crime scene and he was a witness to the attack on a federal director’s life. He’d managed a bare-bones statement to the police before walking away, pulling the fed card to get to the hospital because that’s where he needed to be.
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