I distinctly recalled Io’s name being present on the list. I couldn’t hold back a shiver at the thought.
“They told us you were all killed,” I breathed.
The corner of Io’s mouth twitched.
“Then I guess what I showed them was effective. Four hundred years and they still have no idea.” She shrugged. I could tell she was trying to seem indifferent, but for the first time since I’d awoken, she seemed genuinely perturbed. Her gaze had grown hard.
“What did you show them?”
She rolled her shoulders backward and stood up straighter. “A copy of myself. When they tried to tie me to the pyre, I showed them a double. Keeping a hold on my magic after the process wasn’t easy, but—”
“Wait, that’s possible?” I spluttered. “My magic isn’t gone?”
Io laughed softly. “No, it isn’t gone. You’re still you. Who are you, by the way?”
“Cassandra Borden.” I glanced over my shoulder as I heard a car pass on the road outside the alley and then returned my focus to Io.
Io frowned and gave my arm a gentle squeeze. “I knew your grandmother Eve. She was like us.”
My chest constricted at her words. ‘Grandmother’ was a bit of an understatement, as Eve was a distant ancestor, but I supposed the passing of time had been strange for Io. I’d known Eve had been transformed in the attack as well as her husband, but until now, they’d just been names in a history book.
They were just like us, but their families turned on them. Our family did. My family.
The urge to vomit surged through me once more, and I fought it down, though just barely.
“I need to find my mother,” I told Io. “I need her to know I’m—”
I’m what? I asked myself. Alive? That’s not technically true.
“In one piece,” I said finally.
Io tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear and gave me a stiff half-nod. “I don’t advise it, Cassandra. I truly don’t. But I will go with you and stay outside, just in case you need me.”
I quirked a brow. “I don’t think that’s necessary. I mean—I do appreciate you helping me, but it’s my mother. I’m not in any danger.”
Io sighed. “My husband’s brother watched as he and I were dragged out to be set on fire. Don’t underestimate what we are to them now. We’re not witches, we’re not mages. We are the Changed.”
“That’s not going to matter,” I said with a shake of my head. “It’s not.”
She’s not like the members of our family that turned on Io and the others.
“Whatever you say, dear.” Io’s voice was somewhere between resigned and irritated. “Lead the way.”
*
“Mum?”
I moved through the darkened kitchen, doing my best to ignore the burning at the back of my throat. The sensation had grown stronger over the trip back to my home.
Don’t think about what it means. You’ll have time to figure out how to feed without killing people later.
“I refuse to accept it.”
I turned on my heel toward the voice. My mother stood in the doorway, her silhouette visible in the light from the corridor behind her. I mentally cursed myself for not sensing her approach.
No wonder the vampires never see her coming. I’m sure I’ll be punished for letting my guard down.
“Mum, I—”
“Tell me it isn’t true.”
She stepped forward, and the fine hairs on my arms and at the back of my neck stood on end. I heard the faint hum I knew meant she was on the offensive. Her magic sparked around her, tiny golden bursts illuminating portions of her body as she watched me.
A wave of defeat crashed over me. “I—I couldn’t stop it,” I stammered.
Is she actually blaming me for this?
She sighed heavily. “I am bound by our laws, Cassandra.”
“Our laws?” I repeated. “Which ones?”
“The ones against sheltering our enemies.”
The words hung in the air and echoed through my mind. My eyes flicked to the window. I knew Io awaited me around the corner, out of my mother’s range, and I wondered whether she would gloat, if she knew what was happening.
“Enemies? That’s ridiculous, Mother. I’m not your enemy.”
“You need to go.”
“Where? Where am I supposed to go?” I demanded. “This is my home!”
She pulled in a long breath and let it out with a sigh. “Get your things. Quickly.”
Tears prickled at the corners of my eyes. I gritted my teeth and started forward, preparing to brush past her on my way toward my room.
As the scent of iron and something unbelievably sweet hit my nose and a pang of dizzying hunger shot through my stomach, I paused.
I studied my mother’s impassive face. She was watching me with her red lips pressed into a thin line, and I recognized the look she wore. One raised brow—she was challenging me, awaiting my next move.
Her hand twitched just slightly at her side, and I caught sight of a single droplet of blood that had broken through a hairline cut along her thumb.
All at once, my control snapped.
I charged forward, reaching for my mother’s wrist. She grabbed me by the throat and slammed me down to the hardwood floor. I gasped as pain splintered through my back and along my spine at the impact, and I clutched her shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” I spluttered as my other hand attempted to pry her fingers from my neck. “I can’t—I can’t help it.”
“You are not one of us any longer,” she said, her tone cold with finality.
I felt a tear slide from my eye and trace a line down my temple toward my hair.
“Mum, please,” I whispered.
“Get out. Before I do something I don’t want to do.”
She released my throat and retreated to lean against the counter, her knife raised in front of her.
Raised to me.
I sat up slowly and shook my head, hoping for an instant that I might be able to force this vision away and return to my real life.
This can’t be happening.
“Go!” she shouted.
I moved to my feet in a flash and hurtled out of the kitchen and through the foyer into the street, where Io awaited me just outside the door that I hadn’t bothered to close.
“Come on,” she said, her lavender eyes sympathetic. She slid an arm around my shoulders and gave one a squeeze.
As I followed her away from the house, I didn’t spare a backward glance to see if my mother was watching.
**
*
*
My Lord, why do you not rescue me? The mages have surrendered me to the fae. I have not betrayed our cause by revealing your name. I have remained loyal. I beg you, do not leave me here. Medius is not as the fae pretend. These creatures are as cold and violent as they find our race, and yet they pretend to guard peace. I will not last long, here. It has taken all my strength to withhold my thoughts from the woman called Brigid—she tries harder each day to extract them from me, and I fear one day she will see past the thoughts I pull to the surface to keep her from the extent of our plans.
I beg you, send help. Free me.
*
Unaddressed letter from Proteus Sinclair
Discovered with his body
3 March 2009
*
The Moonlight
*
1995
“Prove your loyalty to me. Show me you aren’t afraid.”
Apollo stared at his father, trying hard to ignore Lysander, whom he wanted to tear to shreds. At this moment, nothing he had been promised in the new world they were building—no seat of power, no amount of glory for the Bellamy line—was worth the price he was being asked.
Apollo had known Lysander liked to watch his soldiers fight to prove themselves. Still, he hadn’t anticipated being pitted against his father.
“Are you prepared for this war, Apollo? To do what you have to do?”
I want to grab you by the throat and wring the life out of you. I want to erase the fact that I met you from my memory and never look back, Apollo thought bitterly.
“Yes, I am,” he said.
He squeezed the handle of the knife he held and grazed his thumb over the edge of the blade. He knew it would do more damage than he was prepared to inflict, but he couldn’t resort to his physical strength without risking much more. Snapping one of his father’s limbs was not an option. Small cuts would heal; Brutus’s abilities would seal a flesh wound more quickly than they would reconnect the portions of a broken bone.
Brutus Bellamy had begun supporting Lysander and his army roughly ten years earlier, and at the time, Apollo hadn’t understood. He’d known that the Born were superior to the Changed and that the mages were an unrelenting pest, but he hadn’t understood what Lysander had wanted to change. Now that three of his closest friends had been murdered by mages espousing their right to “protect themselves and the innocent humans against the vampire threat,” Apollo had endured enough. He was ready to make his way to the frontlines and kill anyone who stood in the way of his people’s right to feed. Brutus had never joined Lysander’s forces, but he’d financed their training. Apollo knew his father didn’t approve of him entering the conflict personally.
Brutus hadn’t asked to be dragged into this exercise.
Lysander had been known to kill his own kind for refusing him, and Apollo wished he’d never put his father in the position to make that choice.
Apollo studied his father’s face. Brutus kept his lips set in a tight line, unflinching. He held no blade, and for an instant, Apollo wondered whether his father planned to hold himself back. Would he take issue with breaking his son’s arm? In doing worse? Or would he simply try to disarm Apollo and restrain him?
I shouldn’t have to strategize against you.
Apollo’s hand trembled. He did his best to steady the knife he held, but the light of the chandelier above him flickered off the quaking blade and betrayed his fear. He pled with his eyes for his father to know that he didn’t want this.
“Go. Now,” Lysander ordered.
Apollo took a step forward, and Brutus matched it.
In a flash of vampiric speed, Apollo rushed to stand in front of his father and slashed at his arm. Brutus let out a small hiss as the blade dragged across his bicep, but he caught Apollo’s wrist before it had completed its swing and twisted it. Apollo struggled to keep his hold on the knife. He bit back a grunt as his wrist strained painfully in his father’s grasp.
“Brutus, Apollo, please!”
Apollo closed his eyes and tried to tune out the voice of his mother. He brought his foot swiftly into his father’s leg and swept it out from under him, and Brutus’s grip faltered as he righted himself. Brutus released Apollo’s hand, and Apollo drew backward and swiped at his father’s stomach.
Brutus slid to the side, and Apollo’s knife met empty air.
“Call them off! There are other ways my son can prove himself,” Thalia Bellamy insisted from beside the fireplace to Apollo’s left. For an instant, he allowed himself to look at her. She was pleading with Lysander, who didn’t bother to spare her a glance as he watched the pair at the heart of Brutus’s study.
Pain burst through Apollo’s head, and white flashes of light consumed his vision as his father’s fist impacted his nose. Mentally cursing himself for the moment of distraction, Apollo crashed to the hardwood floor. His spine screamed in protest on contact.
“Apollo!”
Don’t stay down. Don’t stay down.
Apollo pushed himself to his feet. His head swam and the room around him rocked like a ship at sea, but he could not pause. He lunged at his father and drove the knife into his shoulder.
Brutus let out a pained cry, and Apollo’s stomach turned. He pulled the knife free at the same moment he heard the clang of metal from his left.
Focus. Don’t look.
The back of Brutus’s hand slammed into Apollo’s jaw. Apollo gritted his teeth against the sting and bent his arm to strike again.
Thalia screamed.
Apollo’s head whipped toward the sound as his mother dropped the fireplace poker she held to the floor with a bang. The makeshift weapon had been angled toward Lysander, who wrenched free the knife he’d driven into Thalia’s heart.
She dropped to the floor, unmoving.
*
Apollo tossed his glass into the dormant fireplace and listened to the sound of it shattering with savage satisfaction. He couldn’t harm the person he most wanted to, so he would have to settle for breaking whatever he could until the pain dulled.
“Apollo, look at me. Look at me, please.”
“Leave me,” he said weakly, closing his eyes to keep himself from seeing Seraphina.
He didn’t deserve her. He didn’t deserve someone so good-hearted and pure and blameless while he was responsible for something so terrible.
I should have refused him. She wouldn’t have tried to stop it, if I had.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
He felt his fiancée’s hands grip his shoulders, her grasp firmer than he’d ever felt it before as she steered him away from the dormant fireplace into the nearest armchair. He sat with a bone-deep sigh and slid his arms around her when she sat on his lap, her hands gripping his cheeks.
“I’m not going,” she repeated. “Not ever.”
Apollo wanted nothing more than to believe her. Iin one instant, he’d lost both of his parents, and he didn’t believe he could survive losing Seraphina, as well.
He pulled her close and buried his face in her shoulder.
*
Lysander had long-since departed the house. Apollo trembled from head to foot as he watched his father stride toward the door carrying his mother’s limp form.
“You’re no son of mine,” Brutus snarled. He departed the room without looking back.
**
*
*
Magekind is a plague.
I had but two things of significance remaining to me, both in the form of people dear to my heart. Now, I have but one, and Artemis Johanssen will pay for every drop of Born blood spilt at her hand. With Jacques gone, I am the only surviving member of the family in which I was raised. Mother and Father are long-dead, and though Jacques had a wife and children, I have never been close with them, and they are of no comfort to me in my state of mourning.
Lysander says he will assist me in exacting my punishment upon the family of Artemis. Why should they, he says, be allowed to survive while the Born are slaughtered like so many cattle? It is our birthright to hunt for our survival, and for too long, they have punished us for this.
Artemis will be the last of her line to fall. She will watch those she loves burn, and then I may see it fit to end her suffering.
*
Excerpt from the diary of Elisabeta Sturm
Dated 24 September 1813
*
The Matriarch
*
2001
The harsh smell of burning flesh permeated the air, and Hecate knew what she would find before she turned the corner. She’d told her mother it wasn’t safe to stay here—that to remain in Sheffield was to agree to be hunted down and slaughtered just as the other members of their line had been for the last few months. Now, as Hecate turned into the living room of her parents’ home, her stomach churned.
They sat on the sofa, lashed together with a thick, metal chain. Three people in a line, their skin burned almost beyond recognition, their clothing melded to their flesh. Their last moments had been spent together—powerless to save one another or to hold back the death they’d known was coming.
Bile rose in Hecate’s throat, and she turned away from the sight, waving her hand noncommittally to her friend Margaux as she stepped out of the room and back into the cleanly kept, white-carpeted hallway. She caught sight of the silver frame on the table that held a photo of her family, alive and whole, and
she immediately looked away from it. She didn’t need to twist the knife in deeper.
“Do what you think is best,” she called to Margaux. “I can’t watch.”
Hecate was a product of her breeding. Down to her core, she was a Johanssen witch and a huntress, born to eliminate the portion of the vampire threat it fell to her to destroy. As the eldest daughter of Agrippa Johanssen, Hecate was to lead her bloodline when she came of age.
She shouldn’t be taking her place as head of her line at age twenty-three. But now, as she forced herself to stride quickly down the hall and onto the porch before she could give in to the urge to vomit, she knew she had no other option.
Elisabeta Sturm would pay.
The Alliance’s treaty with the vampires had expired. At last, the vampiress who had been systematically eliminating Johanssen witches for generations was free to do so in the open without fearing punishment. Agrippa, Cato, and Ariadne were merely the latest on her list. They were also the final straw for Hecate, who had recently begun a family of her own and couldn’t give the vampiress the luxury of the time to murder her son and daughter.
Hecate thought bitterly as she sat down at the edge of the porch of how she should not be the one to stop Elisabeta at all. That honor should’ve fallen to Artemis, the eldest surviving witch of her line, who was far too busy serving as a representative on the mage Council to bother with such trivialities as the murder of her relatives for her sins.
“This is your fault!” Hecate screamed at the sky.
She wanted to drive her own blade into Elisabeta’s heart and enjoy every second of suffering. But the way Agrippa, Cato, and Ariadne had been left had clearly been meant as a challenge for Hecate. A trap for the last survivor.
She sensed a presence approaching from behind her. The other witch moved quietly, cautiously, as though doing otherwise would set off the time bomb Hecate had become.
Immortal Dissent Page 3
