by A. W. Exley
Lettie told Dawn of her flirtation with the handsome Soarer. Of the contrast between his lavish and opulent life and the work she did at Grayson’s side, to bring some comfort to the much poorer villagers. Then she narrated events of the grand ball, where Byron gave her an ultimatum to either stand with his Soarer family or against them.
Lettie curled her fingers into her palms to continue her story. “Byron admitted that Soarers killed your parents. A salamander fused the carriage wheels to the railway track while a sylph used wind to keep the doors closed.”
Dawn closed her eyes, her lids screwed up tight. Perhaps to hold back tears, although the rising steam from the water would disguise them. Not that she needed to hide her pain from her friends.
Dawn wiped wet hands over her face and opened her eyes. “Did he say why?”
Lettie shook her head. “Nothing we don’t already know—that your father questioned the accounting of the investment and had to be silenced before the other investors rallied behind him.”
“Always questions without answers,” Dawn said as she picked up the soap.
“There is something else I have learned while here.” Lettie took a deep breath and revealed the one truth she had learned. “I have discovered I hold some affection for Grayson. Not as a sister does for a brother, but as a woman has for a man. He says that he has loved me since he was a child.”
She stared at her hands, not sure how Dawn would react to the news. When Lettie looked up, there was a wide smile on Dawn’s face.
Dawn reached out a wet hand and squeezed Lettie’s. “That gladdens my heart. When I first met him, I suspected that he had long carried a torch for you. He’s a fine man.”
“And a most excellent doctor.” Lettie beamed. He really was the most clever doctor she had ever met, and she had seen a few in her time. Including the quacks who thought bleeding and leeches were the height of medical knowledge. “Marjory was the one who pointed out that Ava stole one type of love from me, but she did not rob me of the capacity to love.”
“What else have you discovered?” Dawn asked as she shampooed her hair.
“Marjory found Ellen Basset, who used to live in the cottage next to your parents.” Lettie glanced to Marjory. How to gently break what they learned, and would Dawn be devastated to hear that James Uxbridge wasn’t her father?
Dawn ducked below the water to rinse off and then bobbed up again. “Oh, I remember her. She was always so kind to me whenever I was well enough to sit out into the backyard.”
“She would love it if you visited her while you’re here. She was delighted to hear you have thrived and found a wonderful man.” Marjory winked.
“Of course. And what did Ellen remember of my parents?” Refreshed and clean, Dawn rose from the bath, and Lettie wrapped a large towel around her.
Lettie and Marjory fell silent, each waiting for the other to speak. Lettie had caused enough pain to her friend. Marjory could take up the burden. She narrowed her gaze at Marjory and inclined her head to Dawn.
“She remembered your mother quite clearly when she arrived in Whiterock all those years ago. Alone and … with child,” Marjory said.
Dawn froze, absorbing Marjory’s words. “You mean my father followed her at a later time?”
Marjory picked up another towel and patted the wet ends of Dawn’s hair that curled around her neck. “No, love. Verity confided in Ellen that the babe’s father had died. It was Ellen who took Verity into Sunderland where she first met James Uxbridge. He was smitten on sight and married her three months later, determined to claim you both as his own.”
Dawn was silent as she took the towel and dried her hair.
“We can leave, if you would rather be alone with that news?” Lettie said.
Dawn shook her head but a tremble ran through her hands. “No. I prefer the company. Please carry on if there is any more. Better it is all out in the open.”
Lettie took a deep breath. “Ellen told Marjory that the day before your family moved, your mother planted an apple tree. She said it was special, for you.”
Dawn frowned. “An apple tree for me?”
Lettie nodded. “We went out there the other day on a hunch that your mother meant something more than that you liked the fruit. We wondered if she might have used the apple tree as a marker for something buried in the ground, and we were right.”
“What did you find?” Dawn’s voice was a scant whisper.
Lettie ached for her friend as they turned her world upside down. Again. Dawn had only discovered in recent weeks she was an Elemental, now she discovered the man she had called Father was not the one who gave her the spark of life.
Lettie wrung her hands. She didn’t want to hurt her friend, but there was so much to learn about her history. “A tin containing old letters. One of them is addressed to you.”
Dawn hugged her friend and the women held each other for a long minute while comfort was offered and taken. Marjory picked up Dawn’s travel-soiled clothes and quietly left the bathroom.
At length, Dawn ended the hug. Her eyes shimmered with tears. “Thank you, Lettie, for all you have done. Let us hope we will have some answers at long last.”
Later, dressed and somewhat refreshed, Dawn sat in the drawing room on the large sofa. Lettie took the rectangular tin that Samuel had retrieved from its hiding place and placed it in Dawn’s hands. The Meidh did the same thing Lettie had done, tracing a burning feather with a fingertip.
“It’s the symbol of the Soarers,” Jasper said. He stood behind his mate, one hand on her shoulder to lend her quiet strength for what would come.
“Rather telling that my mother possessed a box embossed with their burning feather.” Dawn still hadn’t opened the container, and the suspense was eating at Lettie.
Grayson reached out and took her hand. He pulled her closer to him and whispered by her ear, “Let Dawn do it in her own time. This part is her journey, not ours.”
Lettie wanted to pout. She needed to know now. Perhaps she could suggest Grayson distract her upstairs? But then she would miss what happened here. Darn it.
“There’s a letter in there addressed to you, from your mother,” Lettie said.
Dawn reached up and touched Jasper’s hand, then she opened the lid and simply stared at the contents. After a long moment, she picked up the letter that bore her name and set the tin down on the sofa. She slid one fingernail under the seal and lifted the wax. In the silent room, every rustle and crinkle as she unfolded the paper seemed overly loud.
Lettie wondered if they all held their breath, waiting. Would the letter contain a great revelation or the answers they sought? It better not be a recipe for apple pie.
The clock on the mantel kept time. Lettie counted each tick to distract herself; otherwise she feared she might lunge at her friend and tear the page from her hands.
At length Dawn raised her head and her gaze sought Jasper. She rose from the sofa and walked to him. Jasper touched his mate on the nape of her neck and pulled her to him until his forehead rested against hers.
Dawn let out a deep sigh that echoed around the room. Then she reached up on her toes and kissed Jasper. She pressed the letter into his hand. “Could you read it out for the others, please?”
She walked to the window and stood with her back to them and her arms wrapped around herself, lost in her own thoughts.
Jasper’s gaze followed his mate and deep frown lines wrinkled his forehead. Then he cleared his throat and dropped his attention to the letter, reading ahead before he began to read out loud.
“Dawn,
I don’t know if you will ever find this, but if you do, I can only say that I am sorry. I can never fully explain our history to you. When your father sent me away, I vowed to keep you safe from their world, and that has meant maintaining my silence. I have done what I must to protect you.
I wish I could heal your heart and make you healthy like other children. I do not know what ails you, and I cannot consult those who might.
I hope a quiet, enclosed space that you can nurture with your trait will ease your distress, and I pray our move will prove me right. We must go, for someone has recognised me. I grew careless thinking that Delens’s work hid us, but you are at risk if we stay.
I will take nothing of my old life with me except the two most precious things that Zadoc entrusted to me. I want you to know that James is a good man, and he loves you as though you were his own. I have grown to have genuine affection for him, but Zadoc’s name is the one burned into my heart. Your true father had a beautiful vision. Fire must be free, he used to say, but in the end his dream cost us everything. We lost each other.
Live well, Dawn, and I hope you find love as I once did,
Your loving mother,
Verity.”
Jasper blew out a sigh and folded up the letter. He walked to Dawn and wrapped his arms around her.
“Fire must be free,” Lettie whispered. “Words a salamander would say.”
The clock marked off five minutes before Dawn lifted her head from Jasper’s protective embrace. “We must see what else my mother hid away.”
“Are you sure?” Jasper held her face in his large hands.
Dawn managed a weak smile. “We need answers, or at least a direction. And I do believe Lettie might erupt if I take the tin and retreat. We need to know what Zadoc entrusted to my mother. I will assume one was me, but what was the other?”
Dawn took her place on the sofa and picked up the box again. She picked out one of the worn letters. She scanned the contents, her lips moving every now and then as she repeated a word or phrase.
From across the room, Lettie could see the tight lines of script. She had only glanced at two letters, enough to discern that the contents weren’t for her. Now she wished she had taken a longer peek.
The room was silent as Dawn read, the only sound the rustle of paper when she finished one page and flicked it over to read the reverse. Then she quietly folded the letter up and returned it before taking another.
“It’s a love letter from Zadoc to Verity. Written before I was conceived. They were deeply in love, and she talks of the mark left by the Cor-vitis on their bodies. Zadoc was her mate, and a salamander.” A slight tremble ran through her hand as she held the next letter.
Jasper’s hand tightened on her shoulder. “You are a Warder now, Dawn. They cannot reach you.”
“This is what the water showed me, that by going to Ravenswing you would reveal yourself to the Soarers. But you are part of our family now, and we will all protect you.” The memories seemed distant to Lettie, a mere fragment that bubbled to the surface of her troubled mind. Words thrown at Dawn when Ava still had tendrils in her mind. As the fractures in her mind healed, so did disparate thoughts and memories pull together and begin to make sense.
Dawn unfolded the next letter, which seemed much shorter from the way the block of text stopped halfway down the page. She began reading and a frown took up residence on her brow.
“This doesn’t make sense.” She held out the letter to Jasper.
“Don’t keep us in suspense. What doesn’t make sense?” Lettie asked.
“That letter is from a man called Delens to my mother. He offers his condolences on the death of Zadoc and refers to the thing mother had to keep safe. He goes on to say he has done what he could to obscure its existence, and that it is now up to her to keep it safe.” Dawn raised her head to Jasper, waiting for his assessment. “If it is not me, could it be the other thing Zadoc gave her?”
“A fair assumption. But it still doesn’t tell us what.” Jasper rubbed a hand through his hair. “Delens is an odd name.”
“It’s Latin.” Samuel spoke up from the corner, where he had remained silent. “It means to erase. Often used in association with memory or forgetfulness.”
Jasper blew out a sigh. “He must be a Meidh who can erase memories.”
“We have yet more questions without answers,” Lettie whispered and tightened her grip on Grayson’s hand.
24
Lettie thought herself still mad and that they played a demented treasure hunt, with fiendish clues leading them ever onward through a maze. Dawn stared out the window while Jasper glowered at the letter in his hand as though he could extract the hidden subtext from the ink.
“What would you do if you could erase memories?” Grayson pondered aloud from her side.
There were things she would forget if she ever met such a Meidh. Not to erase the person, but to ease the pain of their loss. Thinking on the nature of memories and the blank spots in her mind, a thought gushed into her mind. “Of course! That’s why the Soarers couldn’t see Verity or Dawn. This Delens said he did what he could to obscure the existence of some object, but what if it threw a much wider net and also concealed them from the Soarers?”
“I grew careless thinking that Delens’s work hid us,” Dawn repeated the line from her mother’s letter as she turned back to face the room.
Jasper let out a low whistle. “It all starts to make sense if Delens gave this object, whatever it is, a forgetfulness effect. What if for some reason they wanted to hide it from the Soarers, but it didn’t occur to them to also hide it from us?”
“It might have been something of import to the Soarers but of no consequence to Warders,” Samuel suggested.
“We answer one question and find two more. What was the object, and why did they want to conceal it?” Grayson stroked his fingers down the sides of his moustache.
“And what risk was posed to Dawn if they were discovered?” Lettie stared at her friend. What danger had they placed her in by revealing the lost glimpses of her mother?
“I have vowed to protect it, and in turn it will protect us,” Dawn whispered.
“Do you know what it is?” Jasper asked.
Dawn pressed a hand to her forehead. “Perhaps. But it seems too ludicrous to give credence.”
“The ludicrous and fanciful seems all we have at the moment. What do you suspect, no matter how ridiculous?” Grayson stroked his finger and thumb down the side of his moustache.
Lettie wished he wouldn’t do that. It drew attention to his full mouth and reminded her of the tickle torture his upper lip inflicted on her the previous night.
Dawn smiled. “A paperweight.”
Lettie snorted. It was ludicrous. Why would the Soarers want a paperweight? The niggle in Lettie’s mind became an incessant itch. As the flow of ideas in her mind receded, it left one thought washed up. The water whispered that it was relevant. “How did Zadoc die, Dawn?”
Dawn returned to the sofa and picked out the last letter in the tin. As she read, her pale face turned white and a single tear fell down her cheek. “It doesn’t say, but this is Zadoc’s last letter to Verity. He had sent her away for her safety and that of their unborn child. He says that if he is successful, he will join her and they will redefine the future for Soarers and Warders. But if he fails, to remember that he will love her forever and will wait for her in the sky with Ouranus.”
As Grayson said, they had tumbled down a rabbit warren of never-ending questions. “What did he mean by redefine the future for Soarers and Warders?”
Samuel and Jasper exchanged a long look, and then both men shook their heads. Jasper walked around the sofa and sat next to his mate before he gathered her in his arms. “We may never know if this is all Verity left behind.”
“We need to find Delens.” Dawn folded away the letters and placed them back in the tin, and then she rested her head against Jasper’s solid chest. “Whatever happened, the Meidh was a witness to events and knows the answers we seek.”
“We also need to find out where the engines for the Esmeralda ended up,” Marjory reminded them.
“You need some rest first.” Jasper stroked a thumb along Dawn’s cheek and rubbed away a tear.
“I’ll not argue about that, if you can do without me for a few hours?” Tired lines pulled around her eyes as she smiled at her mate.
“We shall try,�
�� Jasper murmured as he tilted her face to kiss her forehead.
“It will also make it easier for you to talk about my mother and her loyalties without me here.” Dawn rose from the sofa.
Silence fell over the room, and Lettie dropped her gaze to stare at the toes of her boots. It would be easier to discuss the more unpleasant aspects of Dawn’s history without her in front of them and having to worry about treading on her raw feelings.
“I’ll help you settle upstairs—I have nothing to add to Elemental business,” Marjory offered, and the two women left the parlour.
Jasper waited until the door closed behind them, then he ran a hand through his dark hair and pulled at the roots. He said aloud the one thought running through Lettie’s mind. “Dawn’s mother was mated to a Soarer, who died doing something he thought would impact us all.”
Grayson squeezed Lettie’s hand and caught her eye. “Yet Verity married a human and raised her daughter with no awareness of her Elemental nature.”
His eyes worded it differently as he stared at Lettie. She read a flare of hope and an offer in that sentence. An Elemental who had lost her mate went on to marry a human and live a perfectly content life, why can’t we? In that instant she saw the small boy, clutching his drawing of a knight rescuing the princess from the tower and the ogre.
Samuel leaned a shoulder on the side of the fireplace. “It is not uncommon for neutral Meidh to marry humans. They both have a normal lifespan.”
A silent sigh heaved through Grayson’s chest and he dropped his gaze, but not before Lettie caught the hope evaporating from his face as a sliver was torn from his childish drawing. Life wasn’t fair. She had suffered for decades at the hands of Ava, and now she could not have a love that endured for centuries.
No. She would not give up so easily. The world contained many different kinds of Meidh with all sorts of unimaginable powers. Ones who could create or extinguish life. Ones who could freeze flesh and shatter Elementals. Others who could manipulate memories and make people vanish. If there was a single Meidh anywhere in the world who could allow Lettie to share her life force with Grayson, she would hunt them down and beg for their help.
