We were introduced by our guardians — Cristof was mine, Gentian was Nate’s. Both old warlocks knew what we did not and tried to discourage our friendship. But something stronger drew us together. Back then, I thought it was admiration, the promise of adventure, the excitement of finding a high-spirited equal. Too late I learned that it was fate.
From the first day of our training, a remarkable friendship grew between Nathaniel DuBaer and me. Each of us felt we’d known the other forever. We could talk and joke easily, were equally good at most events, could hear each other’s thoughts as clearly as if we’d spoken aloud, and often knew in advance what the other was thinking.
In casting and creating spells, summoning spirits, using concentration and telekinesis to move objects at a distance and even to pick up small creatures and move them out of harm’s way, we were evenly matched. Showing off, we knotted snakes without touching them, caused snails to speed past trotting ponies, and cats to happily ride the backs of dolphins. Nate once willed my ears to flap while I made his thick, dark hair stand on end with a focused glance. In some areas, we excelled individually. My hearing was far more honed than Nate’s; his ability to find hidden objects was keener than mine. Separately or combining our talents, no one could touch us in any category.
When we learned of the curse — which was shortly after our initiation ceremony — we were undaunted, idiotically unafraid, arrogant. Our solution, our pitifully childish response to a blood curse that had succeeded for two centuries and six generations, was that it would end with us. We would not marry, not father children, and so there would be no sons to kill. And since we would never kill each other, in fact, had pledged to protect each other, the curse, we reasoned, would end.
Enter Leila. Leila and her best friend, Rhianna Noble. Of all the young witches of Coventry, they were the brightest, the most powerful, and the most attractive. Yes, dear goddess mine, the one you called “Lady Potato” when you were a disrespectful child, was the most sought-after girl on Coventry Island, second only to the glamorous and willful Leila Tavisham. What Leila lacked in soft beauty, she more than made up for in brains, personality, and determination. She literally swept Nate off his feet.
We were in the square one evening walking past an outdoor café at which the young witches were having tea. Rhianna, who I knew and liked well, waved, inviting us to join them. But Nate was deep in conversation and paid no attention. I smiled and shrugged, as if to tell the girls, “Well, another time, maybe.”
Then Leila’s hand fluttered. A fledgling might have mistaken it for a dainty gesture of farewell, but I knew at once that it was a spell-casting gesture, an undulating wave meant to direct Leila’s wishes toward her victim.
Before I could say a word, Nathaniel went down. His lanky legs grew rubbery and tangled. He gasped, pitched forward, and fell to his knees at Leila’s feet.
I was about to scold the mischievous girl — and Rhianna, too, who was laughing shamelessly — when I realized that something more than strong magick had taken place. No incantation, herb, or crystal, no flutter of a dainty hand could accomplish what had befallen Nathaniel.
When he looked up at Leila, I saw that it was too late. His clear eyes had grown foggy, his dark, fretting eyebrows had lifted. The full lips that had gasped, startled into an O, spread as slowly and sweetly as thick honey into a grin of sheer enchantment.
Nate had not just fallen because of Leila, he’d fallen for her.
Within a year, his vow never to marry was broken. I stood up for him at their wedding. And truly, Ileana, I was glad for him and for his brilliant young bride. Glad in the ignorance of youth, happy and certain that love and friendship could triumph over superstition. One vow we would not break, I told myself, to defend each other.
And it was that vow that destroyed everything.
Nathaniel and Leila had three sons, as you know. Still, I believed we could halt the curse. Thantos, the eldest, was about to turn thirteen when fate proved me wrong.
Pigheaded and haughty now, your father was merely headstrong then. And he’d decided that what he wanted for his birthday was to explore the Coventry caves.
It was said that desperate people inhabited some of the caverns — witches and warlocks whose evil tempers, burning resentments, and self-centered fears had made them outcasts and exiles and driven them underground. Some were truly crazy, madmen.
Instead of being discouraged, Thantos claimed that running into such frightening creatures would add to the thrill.
Nathaniel felt it was too dangerous. “Felt,” I suppose, is too weak a word. He sensed it, I think. He knew it. Yet I teased and goaded him into going. Not with his son, but with me.
We would inspect the caves, map the way, choose a safe route. And then, on Thantos’s birthday, we would all go together.
Why? I have asked myself a thousand times. Why did I insist? Why did I so callously pressure my truest friend, laugh at his objections, and coax him to ruin?
The answers are never reassuring. I missed our old friendship, Nate’s and mine. Selfishly, I wanted him to myself, wanted his attention and good company again. And here at last was a trek Leila would not accompany us on. More arrogant and foolhardy than I ever was again, I agreed with a green boy, a willful child, that it would be an adventure. The rest of the story is known. I have not lived a day since then without regret.
We weren’t long into our underground journey when it happened. One of those frightening creatures, one so desperate he’d truly become a madman, ran at me carrying a spear of forged iron. Before I could defend myself, Nathan, true to our childhood vows, leaped in front of me.
I saw the deadly rod fly at his chest. Without thinking twice, I tackled Nate and knocked him down. Out of harm’s way, I thought. Until the lunatic warlock began to laugh. He was slapping his knee and laughing and pointing at Nate.
I turned toward my friend and saw blood gushing from his head. He had hit the cave wall as he fell. He sat slumped, limp against the cold, wet stones. As the madman disappeared into the darkness, I rushed to Nathan, thinking I’d help him up, that I could stem the blood with herbs, bind his wound with strips of my own cloak, and carry him from the accursed cave.
He read my mind and sent back a terrible message. I will not leave alive.
And as I came nearer, I saw that my best friend was mortally wounded. The wall against which he leaned was all that was keeping his shattered skull together. I wanted to protect him. Instead, I killed him.
As had been foretold, the curse claimed a new victim.
Because of an Antayus, the bravest and brightest DuBaer was murdered. Exactly as Abigail’s son had decreed.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CRAILMORE
Crailmore, the DuBaer estate, was, as advertised, magnificent and scary. A soaring structure on the cliff crest of a cold and choppy sea, it seemed to preside over Coventry Island, or maybe lord over it. A welcoming shelter? Or foreboding fortress? It depended, Alex guessed, on which DuBaer was in residence and in command at the time.
As she trudged behind Ileana and Cam, who was keeping a deliberate distance from her sister, Alex’s gray eyes swept over every detail of the impressive old house, noting the small touches: stained-glass windows aglow in the amber twilight, the weedy, still-fragrant remains of once lush flower beds, and smoke curling from fireplace chimneys.
Cam shuddered in the shadow of the looming house. The mansions of Marble Bay’s wealthiest district also sat high above water, but they were lovingly landscaped and maintained. While Crailmore was larger and grander than any of them, its walls dripped with moisture, a briny sea mist that reminded Cam of sweat; and its stone facade and high fence made the place look like a prison. An effect that was sharpened when the iron gates creaked open automatically as the trio approached. The massive front door also swung back before they could ring the bell.
A servant, a light-haired young warlock, appeared immediately. He reminded Cam of Shane. She wondered whether, when he was in
training with Thantos, Shane had also been one of her uncle’s servants. And then she found herself wondering whether he was still …
“No,” Alex’s voice broke into Cam’s thoughts. But she was talking to butler boy. “I’m Artemis. That’s my sister, Apolla, but you can call us Cam and Alex,” she was saying.
Surprised and embarrassed that a mainlander, even one of the fabled DuBaer twins, could so easily read his mind, the young warlock flushed. “I … thank you. I mean, I’m so sorry,” he said, flustered. Then, clearing his throat, he declared, “Welcome to Crailmore. If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you to the sitting room where Lord Thantos is waiting.”
Ileana, Cam, and Alex followed him down a broad, richly carpeted hallway. Marble pedestals holding antique vases, candelabras, and sculpted busts lined the corridor. Gilt-edged mirrors and gold-framed portraits hung on the walls.
Emily Barnes, Cam’s interior decorator mom, would have busted the elaborate, meant-to-impress decor. “Garish, overdone, showy,” was how she’d put it. Just thinking of Emily gave Cam a wretched twinge of homesickness. She suspected her twin was not feeling the same way — but would not ask, nor tap into Alex’s head.
They weren’t speaking.
They weren’t even exchanging telepathic messages.
Cam was still wounded. And Alex had given up trying to explain why she’d decided to withhold the Shane info. If Cam insisted on feeling betrayed — whatever!
Ileana’s head was reeling and her heart pounding. She was determined not to be impressed, not to feel anything here. Still, her awe and anger were uncontainable. This vast palace, with its glittering history and treasures on display, should have been hers. Instead, she’d been banished, abandoned on the far humbler doorstep of a warlock who had no interest in wealth, property, or prestige. Her rising rage was tempered only by a soul-deep truth: She’d been better off growing up with Karsh, saved, probably.
But her senses were in disarray: gratitude battling resentment, wonder tempering fear. The twins’ contradictory thoughts, which kept intruding on her own, only added to Ileana’s chaos.
She turned to look back at Alex and almost crashed into Cam. The girl had stopped suddenly and now stood staring at one of the largest gilt-framed paintings. In it a handsome young man with thick, dark hair and smiling eyes was portrayed in an old-fashioned pose. He held a soothsaying globe — a crystal ball — in one hand and with the other clasped a leather-bound book to his chest. Over the fingers clutching the book was draped a delicate chain from which a round amulet dangled. The coin-shaped charm was inscribed with a dancing bear wearing a crown.
“The DuBaer family crest,” Ileana said aloud. “That’s your grandfather, Nathaniel.”
“He’s your grandfather, too,” Alex pointed out, stepping closer to the portrait and, incidentally, closer to Cam, who bristled at her nearness.
A tiny tremor, an electrical buzz, flashed between them. Under Nathaniel’s smiling gaze, they both sensed Cam’s sudden craving to grasp her sister’s hand and her stubborn unwillingness to give in to it.
Stepping away from Alex, she asked quickly, “Is it like our amulets?”
“You mean, does it have magical properties? Yes,” Ileana responded as Alex, hiding her hurt and annoyance, continued along the gallery. “That’s what amulets are: talismans, good-luck charms, to put it crudely. And I’d guess that particular one is very strong, since it carried not only ‘our’ grandfather’s power but Lord Karsh’s love, as well.”
Cam glanced over at her twin to see whether she’d heard what Ileana said and to check out her sister’s reaction to the info.
What she saw took her breath away.
Alex was bathed in light. Several feet away, a white brightness radiating from her, she stood staring up at another painting. She seemed lit up from the inside, Cam crazily thought, like the light-up plastic goose lamp Cam had as a child.
This time, even Ileana could feel the electricity that passed between them, Ileana, and the startled young servant — and the luminous woman who’d entered the hallway unnoticed.
“I see you’ve found your father,” the woman said. It was her voice the twins recognized before her face and body.
Hands extended to take theirs, Miranda swept toward her children. But it was a new Miranda, wonderfully alive with clear gray eyes and skin shining, free of pallor and worry. She had released her golden-brown tresses from the confines of her braid, and her hair, so like Cam’s — and Alex’s true auburn — cascaded in waves of shimmering silk.
Her costume was of silk: she wore a fresh white tunic, a long, loose coat that fell to her ankles, and soft velvet slippers that, though they were white, reminded Ileana and her charges of Karsh’s scuffed, black velvet shoes. Miranda took Cam’s hand and put a slender arm over Alex’s shoulder. With Ileana beside them, they studied the portrait Alex had discovered.
Ileana, of course, recognized Aron. Her throat thickened at once with tears, which, out of habit, she refused to shed. He looked exactly as she remembered him when she was fourteen and he was the handsome, gentle, fun-loving man she’d wished was her father. Aron’s eyes, gray as her own, as Miranda’s, and his true daughters’, gazed down at her now as compassionate and loving as they had in life.
In the painting, he stood tall and lean against a vivid blue sky. His dark hair whipped by wind, his cape billowing. Behind him, at a distance, Crailmore rose on the cliffs.
Slowly, Cam realized her jaw hurt. Her mouth had been open since she’d seen her sister glowing weirdly, since Miranda, her stunningly rejuvenated birth mother, had entered the gallery, since she’d seen and “recognized” — there was no other way to put it — the father she’d never known.
Cam’s lip trembled. Tears welled up. She would never know the man in the portrait. Her sorrow doubled, because now that she knew what he looked like, she knew she’d never again think of David Barnes as her daddy, no matter how hard she might try.
Slowly, Cam became aware of Miranda’s hand in hers. And the strange warmth that embraced the three of them — her mother and sister and her. She wondered whether she, too, was glowing.
Most of all, she wondered what her father had said. This father, the handsome young warlock in the painting. Because he had said something to her the moment Miranda’s hands had united them. Aron had whispered something. I will be with you; I always have, Alex told her sister. That’s what he said. Miranda’s eyes glistened with tears as she stared up at her lost husband. But her sadness, if that was what she was feeling, Ileana noticed, didn’t diminish the remarkable change in her. She looked years younger, lighter, less timid, less dowdy.
With one of the only powers left to her, Miranda heard Ileana’s thoughts. She turned, stepping away from her girls, to Ileana. “It’s being here,” she confided. “Here where their spirits are most alive.”
“They?” Ileana asked.
Miranda gestured to a painting on the opposite wall. It was of Leila and her children. The boys were very young, gathered around her: Fredo, small and sickly thin, clutching the skirt of her long gown; Thantos, beefy, grinning brashly, his arms crossed, stood in front of her; Aron was at her right, with Leila’s hand resting lovingly on his shoulder.
“Aron and Leila,” Miranda explained. “Their presence here in paintings, old photographs, and so many memories … I feel as though they’re with me, protecting and guiding me.” She lowered her voice modestly. “Blessing me.”
“I know,” Ileana replied. “I feel Karsh’s love that way at his house and … well, everywhere on the island.” She crossed the room and stood before Leila’s portrait.
This woman who Miranda so treasured, Ileana’s proud, imperious grandmother, had been responsible for uprooting Ileana, casting her out of this, her birthplace, her birthright — and for turning Thantos, that greedy, arrogant mama’s boy, against his own wife and daughter. Because they were of Antayus blood. And because the old woman believed in the curse.
A sudden bitter wind di
stracted Ileana. She turned toward its source, the doorway at the end of the gallery, which supposedly led to the sitting room. “Dolt, you leave me waiting?! How long does it take to bring my guests to me?” a booming voice raged.
And there he was. Her father, filling the door frame, glaring at the servant boy who now lay at his feet, frozen, literally frozen, into a grotesque ice sculpture.
Miranda and the twins saw the terrible scene, too, and gasped.
It was their shock and dismay, Ileana was sure, that caused her furious father to defrost the young warlock and pretend it had all been a joke.
As the boy scrambled away, Thantos came toward them. “Blessed?” he said, smiling at Miranda, “did I hear someone speak of being blessed? No more than I am, dear sister. Look at the beautiful brood that honors my home.”
Cam shuddered and, despite the afternoon’s upset, met Alex’s hand halfway. Miranda looked stunned, her eyes still riveted to the puddle on the carpet where Thantos’s fledgling had lain. With every ounce of contempt she could muster, Ileana met the foul tracker’s gaze and returned his counterfeit grin. “Daddy,” she cooed with almost tangible hatred.
Unshaken, Thantos took Miranda’s arm and led her toward the door. “Come along,” he called over his shoulder, “I mustn’t ignore my other guests.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SEVEN FOR SUPPER
The sitting room was multiplex-sized and could comfortably contain a crowd. But only two chairs were occupied. Both faced a walk-in fireplace where flames hissed and crackled. Above the mantel, another portrait hung. This one was the most flamboyantly framed, indeed. It was the largest, most grandiose canvas of all.
In it, a bandy-legged, barrel-chested man with glittering black eyes and a beard as cropped and black as Thantos’s glowered arrogantly. Wearing a black cloak, his trousers tucked into cuffed leather boots, he stood with one hand on his hip.
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