by D. G. Swank
I squeezed my eyes tighter. Make it all go away.
“You’re the one who can make it go away,” Donall whispered into my ear. “You have the power, but first you have to look.”
He was right, at least about that last part. I was hiding behind my eyelids like a baby, not acting like the strong woman I prided myself on being. But when I opened my eyes, Donall’s hand hovered inches from my face, the spider on top of it. It reached two legs out toward me, and I instinctively jerked against the vines holding me in place. My fight-or-flight response had kicked in, yet I could do neither, and my panic escalated.
“You can make this spider go away, Rowan,” Donall said in a calm tone. “Just see through the magic and make it go away.”
“I can’t!” I said, starting to cry.
“Yes, you can,” Arthur said. “Look.”
I studied the spider and saw nothing but those long hairy legs reaching out for me and a pair of fangs inches from my face.
“Focus,” Arthur encouraged, leaning closer. “See the magic. Make it go away.”
I tried out of self-preservation, pure and simple, but I still saw that damn spider.
“Step two,” Donall said with a sigh as he flipped his hand over and dumped the spider onto my lap.
I screamed, which I hated—I didn’t want them to win, even in something so small—but I was powerless to stop myself. I jerked and bucked, trying to loosen the vines, as a sob erupted from my throat, but the vines still held me firmly in place.
“Your mother was so wrong about glamour being a worthless gift,” Donall said as he stood upright and watched. “Glamour is an amazingly powerful gift if used effectively.”
I looked up at Arthur. He had some weird connection to me because of my father. Could I get him to help me? He’d seemed reluctant to stoop to this. “Arthur. Please! Let me see the book again! I’ll tell you what it says. I swear!”
His jaw tightened, and he turned slightly as though unable to watch.
The spider had righted itself and became agitated by my screaming and thrashing. It scurried across my lap and up my chest toward my face.
I froze in terror.
Peter must have become impatient because he extended his hands and two more tarantulas crawled out of his sleeves. He and Donall didn’t make a show out of it this time—he just dumped them both on my lap.
I screamed again, my peripheral vision fading as panic overwhelmed me.
They aren’t real! I screamed at myself.
“That’s right,” Donall said. “They aren’t real. Make them go away.”
I poured every ounce of concentration into seeing through the glamour, but my mind kept snagging on the individual hairs covering the legs. It was time to give myself a pep talk. Focus, Rowan. Don’t let them get the best you.
I went with the weapon that had always served me best—my sharp tongue.
“Is this the best you’ve got, Peter Savage?” I forced out. “The things you made for my first tests were sloppy and amateurish. These are slightly improved, but I’m surprised you can’t do better.”
Peter’s eyes narrowed. “Most people don’t look that closely, and the spiders seem to be effective enough, even with my supposedly sloppy work.”
A spider was now crawling up my head, its legs skittering across my cheek, and I had to bite my lip to keep from screaming. Focus on Peter. “Then you must make glamours for idiots because a three-year-old could have seen through most of those.”
Donall released a loud groan of frustration. “Why isn’t she seeing through the glamour?”
“I don’t know,” Arthur said, sounding worried.
If Arthur was worried, then I had good reason to be afraid. I was proving myself useless. I had a pretty good idea of what happened to useless people around here.
“Yes,” Donall snarled like a feral animal. “You are.”
He struck out, and although his hand never touched me, my chair went sliding backward several feet. The vines twisted tighter, squeezing my chest and making it difficult to breathe.
“Donall!” Arthur shouted.
“You told me I had control for the evening,” Donall shouted back. “You know we need results tonight!” Then he turned toward the doors to the hall. “Bring in the cop.”
No!
Donall just grinned at me, a sick look as they brought Logan in—much too quickly for him to have been in his room. They’d clearly prepared for this contingency. Four guards surrounded him, but he was walking of his own accord, likely because he knew he was coming to see me. My sweet fool. They’d only brought him in here to torture him to get to me.
“Rowan!” he called out when he saw me tied to the chair.
“Bring him over to the pole and bind him,” Donall said, walking over to a support pole in the middle of the room.
I had to figure out a way to keep Donall from hurting him. The spiders had terrified me—this would break me.
“You know how to keep me from hurting him, Rowan,” Donall called out. “All you have to do is see through the glamour.” Then he turned his attention to Logan, who’d finally come to his senses and was trying to resist the guards dragging him toward the pole.
I had to stop this. “Let me see the book!” I called out. “Let me look again!”
Donall spun around and stared at me like I was an imbecile. “If you can’t see through the glamour of the vines and the spiders, how the hell do you expect to read the damn book?”
“Let me try!” I pleaded, hating myself for begging, but I’d do anything to protect Logan.
Donall was counting on that.
“Don’t do it,” Logan shouted, trying to pull free from the guards. “Don’t you dare read it for him!”
Donall grinned and flicked his hand toward Peter. “Let her go.”
The vines disappeared into thin air, and as I watched them fade, I caught the glimmer of something.
Magic?
I shot a glance to Donall, scared he’d picked up on my thoughts, but he was too busy making sure the guards got Logan tied up good and tight to pay me any attention. I briefly thought about glamouring myself invisible, but I’d never be able to truly hide from Donall. He’d find me by reading my thoughts.
Unless he couldn’t read my mind.
I shoved that thought deep down, bringing thoughts of my sisters to the forefront. Would I ever see them again? Would they know what had happened to me? Would they be okay?
“You’ll definitely see your sisters again, Rowan,” Donall said as he turned toward the box holding the book. “Either as a reward for your service to the Dark Set or as an example of what happens to those who stand in our way.”
“I knew I’d be punished for not reading the book,” I said, “but I figured I’d read it and you’d be done with me.” I drew my fingers across my throat. Donall would know what I was thinking, but it felt less like he was eavesdropping if I communicated it directly.
Donall lifted the lid off the box and picked up the tome, setting it on the table. The blood on the pages made me think of my sisters, and long to reach for them through the bond that no longer existed. “We have no plans to kill you, Rowan,” he said. “Especially if you read the book. The Dark Set rewards those who help us in our fight for freedom.” He turned his head to look at me. “I was sure Arthur would have told you that.”
“He alluded to it, but I have a hard time trusting anything any of you say.”
Donall shook his head. “You can be certain of one thing, Rowan—we mean what we say.”
My gaze drifted to Logan.
Donall’s eyes glittered with curiosity. “Why do you want a nonmagical man? Why would you lower yourself and dilute the Whelan bloodline?”
“I’m not a broodmare, Donall,” I spat back. “And who says I want him?”
He laughed. “Do not take me for a fool. I know you want him—your thoughts tell me everything—and I could lie and tell you that you can have him, but you deserve the truth. Once the Dark Se
t takes over, there will be no more mixing of magical blood with that of nonmagicals. They have diluted and polluted our magic enough. We must spend the next generations building it up.”
“By marrying pure bloods to one another?” I asked in disbelief. “Let me guess. You’ll force arranged marriages between the best bloodlines.” Then I remembered what Arthur had said about Donall wanting to marry a Whelan. “And you want a baby with Whelan blood.”
“Not only that, Rowan,” he said with a grin, picking up on the thought behind my words. “Arthur was right. I plan to take a Whelan wife.”
“I’m not sure if you missed sex ed, but there’s no need for marriage to have babies.”
“True enough, but I want a Whelan for more than just children. I need a strong magical helpmate.”
“And you want me?” I released a bitter laugh. “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”
“I’ve promised Phoebe to Brandon in lieu of his cooperation, and while Celeste is powerful, she seems…”
“Troubled,” I finished.
“Yes.”
“You and I would never work,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. “I’m too opinionated for a self-serving asshole like you.”
To my surprise, Donall laughed. “That’s what I’ve come to appreciate about you, Rowan. Your directness. But I also appreciate that stubborn streak. It will serve you well as we take control of Valeria and the world.”
“That’s presuming I read the book and become cooperative.”
Donall smiled again, but this time it looked sinister. “I have ways to coerce you.”
And we all knew what those were.
“Don’t you fucking do it for me, Rowan Whelan!” Logan shouted, as if he were the mind reader. “I don’t want to be alive if that asshole is in charge of the world.”
“That can be arranged, Officer Gillespie,” Donall said good-naturedly. Then he turned serious as he glanced down at the bloodstained book. “Arthur believes you are capable of this, but I’ve begun to have serious doubts. If you could read it, surely you would have discovered your power by now.”
“It’s buried deep,” Arthur said. “Linnet made sure of it. We just need more time.”
“We don’t have more time!” Donall said in frustration. “You know the Large Council is having an emergency meeting in two days to discuss Lucia’s disappearance. This is our chance to take over. But we need the power of the orb and whatever else we can find in the book. Which means we need Rowan to read it now.”
“Then use the cop,” Arthur said. “Perhaps her need to protect him will ignite her ability.”
“No,” I pleaded. “Just let me try again.”
Arthur gave me a stern look. “Then open it.”
I walked closer to the book, surprised when I felt its power call out to me. Phoebe and Celeste had claimed they’d felt the same thing after their blood had soaked its pages. Had I given it enough blood for it to claim me as its own?
Would that make a difference in what I saw?
“Do not underestimate the power you could have, Rowan,” Donall said, almost breathless, obviously excited by my thoughts. “If you read this book the way it was originally written, the entire world will know you. They’ll revere you.”
“Don’t you mean they’ll revere you?” I asked as I stopped in front of the book, my fingers itching to touch it.
“That’s a given.” He bobbed his head toward me. “But some of their admiration will be reserved for you.”
I gave him a snotty glare. “I’ve spent a good portion of my life being hidden on a farm. Maybe anonymity is more my thing.”
My bad attitude didn’t deter his new enthusiasm. “I know you feel you should be adversarial, but don’t forget that I can read your thoughts. You’re intrigued by your new connection to the book. You want to open it. You want to see if you can read it now.”
There was no denying that part of me did. I wanted to see if I was as special as my sisters, but I didn’t want it badly enough to doom the world. I wasn’t that big of a narcissist.
He held out his hand. “Come, Rowan Whelan. Read the book for me and I’ll give you a life you could only have dreamed of. Read the book and I’ll make you the most powerful woman in the world.”
“Below all the men, of course,” I said in a dry tone.
He smirked.
“You really don’t know how to negotiate, Donall.” As soon as I made the statement, I regretted it. He had been negotiating, and now he was about to raise the stakes.
He tilted his head. “Arthur has sung your praises to me for years. Have you considered doing this for his sake?”
“Why the hell would I care about Arthur’s feelings?”
“Donall…” Arthur warned.
Donall ignored him, staring at me in amazement. “Have you really not figured it out?”
“Figured out what?”
“Donall!” Arthur shouted.
Then it hit me.
Suddenly I knew why his magic had felt familiar. How he knew so much about me. How he knew so much about my mother.
Why he wanted me to succeed at this so badly.
He didn’t look the same, but I knew in my gut that Arthur was my father.
Chapter Twenty-One
“No,” I whispered in horror. “You can’t… you don’t look anything like him.”
“Glamour,” Arthur said in defeat.
“But you’re dead,” I said in protest, even though the evidence said otherwise.
He didn’t respond.
Glamour…
I turned to Peter. “You’re in on this. You glamoured him.”
His eyebrows rose playfully. “Who else do you know who is capable of such amazing illusions?”
Arthur still didn’t respond, looking distraught.
But I didn’t care if he was unhappy. “At least treat me with enough respect to let me speak to my actual father and not this persona you’ve concocted.”
After two long seconds, my father nodded his head, and turned to Peter.
The glamour faded, leaving a sparkling residue of magic the likes of which I’d never seen before. I was too upset to dwell on it, because standing in front of me was the man I’d loved more than anyone in the world. My only ally in a house full of women who were stronger than me. The only person who’d ever cared how I handled being the weakest of my sisters. His death had devastated me, and now he stood before me alive and well and a member of a group that was out to destroy witchkind, his daughters included.
“Rowan,” he said, his voice breaking. “You weren’t supposed to find out like this.”
That was like throwing a lit match into a container of gasoline. “Find out like this? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Rowan,” he pleaded.
“Where the fuck have you been the last six years?” Part of me wanted to cry, but the rest of me was too angry.
“Whatever you think, it’s important that you know I didn’t want to leave you girls. That I didn’t want to leave you, Rowan.”
“Yet you left us anyway.” I pressed the heel of my hand to my forehead. “How did you pull this off? I saw your body.” My hand dropped to my side. “You were dead.”
“Obviously I wasn’t dead, but Xenya sure wanted me that way,” he said bitterly.
“Xenya? The woman who was our rock after Mom’s death and your desertion just days later? I don’t even know what we would have done without her those first few months.”
“Xenya’s not as sweet as you think,” Donall said. “She was there to comfort you because it benefitted her. She poisoned your father. If not for the quick intercession of the Dark Set, he would be dead.”
My mouth dropped open. “Xenya poisoned you. Why?” Then a new truth hit me. “Oh my gods. You killed Mom.”
His face went ashen. “No. I swear to you, Rowan. Not me, yet Xenya blamed me anyway.”
“Because you know who did.”
Donall groaned. “You can have your fami
ly squabble later. Time is running out, Arthur.”
“You can cut the charade,” I ground out. “I know he’s my father. Call him Xavier.”
“Xavier Whelan was reborn into Arthur Potter. Peter gave him a new face. I gave him a new name, and we’ve kept him safe from the witches’ circle ever since.”
“You mean from the Small Council?” I asked.
“No,” my father said. “The witches’ circle is a secret group of witches intent on keeping magic from mages. Your mother was a member, and she wanted Celeste to be a member too. They were the ones who encouraged your mother to hide your true gift from you.”
He’d dropped so much information, I wasn’t sure where to start. So I addressed the suggestion that hurt me the most. “She wouldn’t do that to me.”
My father stepped closer. Part of me wanted to beat the shit out of him for all the pain he’d caused me—more pain than a father should force his daughter to endure—but part of me also ached for him to wrap his arms around me and tell me everything would be all right, just like he used to do when I was a little girl.
If only I could believe that. If only I could believe in him.
Instead, I took a step backward and snarled, “Don’t you come near me.”
Pain filled my father’s eyes. “Rowan. You have no idea how much it hurt me to leave you behind.”
“But you did it anyway,” I said, tears streaming down my face. “I was so scared. I wasn’t even twenty-one, and suddenly I was in charge of my two younger sisters and a book of deadly spells. And both of those sisters were more powerful than me.”
“You were never weak,” he insisted, his eyes wide. “Your mother wanted you to think you were and convinced me that you were too. She fooled us both.”
“You were the only person who truly understood me. And you left me alone.” I hated that I sounded pathetic and weak. I hated that he’d reduced me to this.
“You’re not alone now,” Logan said in a calm, firm voice. “You have me.”
I turned to him in shock, realizing he’d been watching our entire exchange in silence.
Logan leaned forward, his arms tied behind his back. “He’s trying to convince you to give him another chance. He’ll promise never to leave you again, but he clearly chose ambition over his daughters. Over you. He never once found a way to let you know he was alive.”
