by Carly Hansen
She found Catelyn there, rummaging through a pile of ancient electronics.
Fenix’s heart leapt when she saw her. Catelyn seemed at ease and happy. Fenix silently vowed never to lose her again.
She walked up to Catelyn, held her by the shoulders, and shook her playfully. “Hey, you,” she said as she combed her fingers through Catelyn’s hair, like she used to when they were girls.
“Hey, you, back,” Catelyn said, completing their childhood greeting.
“Are you alright?”
“Now I am, yes.”
“How do you like your new home?”
Fenix saw the hesitation on Catelyn’s lips.
“It’s different,” Catelyn said finally, smiling.
“Granted.”
“At least there is a lot to discover here. There’s so much junk from the past that I only read about. It’s neat to be able to actually touch the stuff.”
“And there’s the garden.”
“Yes, the garden’s interesting. But that witch is, umm…”
“She grows on you,” Fenix said with a laugh. “Trust me, she’s not as terrible as she pretends to be.”
“If you say so.” Catelyn chuckled and ran her hands through her long, pink hair.
“Pink, huh?” Fenix said. “When did that happen?”
“Well, when did that happen?” Catelyn laughed harder and waved her finger up and down to indicate Fenix’s appearance. “I came searching for my sister, but it looks like I found a brother.”
Fenix looked down at herself and grabbed the lapels of her jacket. She tried on her deepest voice. “You don’t like it?”
The two giggled.
“I lived on the streets for a while,” Fenix said. “It was just safer as a boy. Still is for my job.”
Catelyn nodded and raked her fingers through her hair. “You don’t like it?”
“The pink takes some adjusting to.”“This was in celebration of gaining my freedom. Did it the night before my eighteenth birthday.”
Fenix nodded, and the two fell silent.
“Did they harm you in any way?” Fenix asked after a while.
Catelyn shook her head. “They were scary as hell. But I heard the leader order the others not to touch a hair on my head. So, no, they didn’t hurt me.”
“Good.”
Fenix closed her eyes, thankful that Catelyn been spared the worst. “I’m sorry you had to go through this,” she said.
“You don’t have to apologize.”
“I feel I do. They were using you to try to lure me into a trap.”
“Who? And why?”
Could she really explain it all to Catelyn? Would her sister ever fully understand?
For her part, Fenix still wasn’t prepared to accept all that Gaius had told her about her past, or her destiny.
Fenix sighed. “I’ll explain later,” she said, “but right now, I’m still coming to grips with certain things.”
Catelyn stood up and faced Fenix. She held Fenix by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. “Take all the time you need, and tell me when you’re ready.” Catelyn smiled, then pursed her lips. “But know that I already know certain things about you.”
“Like?”
“Like what I saw the night of the fire all those years ago.”
Fenix caught her breath. “I’m sorry about that. I never meant to—”
Catelyn put her finger to Fenix’s lips. “Shhh! It’s okay.”
She smiled. “Ever since I could remember, I knew there was something strange about you. I used to hide and watch you. A few times, I saw when you’d set fire to Dad’s things. With your bare hands. I couldn’t believe it. I was too shocked to say anything about it to you or Dad.”
Years of guilt, shame, and horror bore down on Fenix. Somehow everything seemed worse now that she knew Catelyn had known about the fire in her hands all along.
“I never did any of that on purpose,” Fenix said. “You have to believe me.”
“It’s okay. I believe you.”
“I’m sorry about everything. That night when our house burnt down—”
“I saw a lot of strange things happen the night of the fire, Keera,” Catelyn said.
“It’s Fenix now, remember?” Fenix said, smiling.
Catelyn nodded. “Okay. I’ll try to remember.”
“I’m sorry,” Fenix said. “It must have been a terrible experience for you.”
Catelyn shrugged. “I had nightmares about my foster homes burning down for many years after. It was hard to accept that Dad was gone. But I was sure you survived, although people tried to convince me that you and Dad both perished in the blaze.”
Fenix shook her head. “I got out just before everything went up in an explosion. When it was all over, I hid in the bushes. I heard firemen say they found two bodies. I was sure it was you and Dad. That’s why I ran away.”
Catelyn nodded.
“Some people found me hiding in a field not far from home,” she said. “They handed me over to the child welfare authorities. All those years I was shifted around from foster home to foster home, there was one constant. I was determined to find you when I gained my freedom.
“Over the years, I learned to hack databases, and I searched records for any scrap of information that could lead me to you. When I turned eighteen a few days ago, I began traveling all over, chasing leads. Even hitchhiked up to the Northern Region because of something I saw in a border patrolman’s notes. Yeah, I followed a lot of false leads. Then I wound up here because of a picture in the Tresmort police street-gang files that I thought might have been you.”
Fenix let herself fall into a chair. She bent her head, unable to hold back her tears. “I’m sorry for all the pain this caused you. It was all my fault.”
“But, Keera,” Catelyn whispered, “the fire that destroyed our home that night was not your fault.”
“It was.” Fenix’s words tumbled out through sobs. “I was angry with Dad for hitting me. I just couldn’t control myself.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Catelyn said. “Are you talking about the fire in the bathroom? If you started that one, then Dad put it out.”
“What?” Fenix said, looking up.
Catelyn hugged herself. “I’d been hiding under the stairs,” she said, “and when I heard you fall down, I ran out. I saw Dad grab the extinguisher. He put out the fire in the bathroom completely.”
Fenix could only stare at Catelyn in silence.
“After he put the fire out,” Catelyn said, “this thing appeared out of nowhere. I can only call it a thing because it wasn’t human. It was tall, gray, and had flaming red eyes. It had this horrible voice, and it screamed, ‘Where is she?’ It fought with Dad, knocked him unconscious, and breathed fire out of its nose.
“Then I became aware of a man in a white tunic on the stairs, standing over you. The creature began to spread fire everywhere, and the man in the white tunic told me to run.
“I saw him fight with the creature. He sent what looked like a shaft of lighting into its chest and made it shrink. From a giant beast, it became the size of a child. It was still fighting the man in the white tunic when he shouted at me again to run. I got so frightened that I just left, running and screaming.
“I wasn’t thinking when I did that. I mean, I knew I’d seen you on the stairs, where you’d fallen. But when the man told me to run, I just picked up and fled. It was only after that I began to feel guilty about leaving the house with you still inside.”
Catelyn brushed away the tears from her cheeks. “Later, I was told about the two bodies that had been found. I tried to tell people what I saw happen, but nobody believed me. I was sure it was that creature that’d been burnt and not you.
“At least, I hoped it was. I prayed long and hard that you escaped. That’s why I vowed to find you, and I spent every minute that I could searching for anything that could lead me to you. I’m so sorry I left you.”
Fenix rushed to Catelyn and h
ugged her. “Catelyn,” she said. “I’m the one who should be apologizing to you.”
“What for?” Catelyn said. “None of this was your fault.”
Fenix held her sister tightly, and, as tears streamed down her cheeks, she felt years of burden being washed away.
Chapter 44
In the quiet of the night, Fenix slinked through the front entrance and went for a stroll. She told herself she’d let her feet take her wherever they willed. It was no surprise to her that she ended up in the building where Micha had landed.
Moonlight streamed through the hole in the roof, but there was no other sign that Micha had lain, bleeding and broken, on that ground.
Fenix didn’t want to remember him that way. He had fought bravely, even though he’d been vastly outnumbered. She guessed that, with more time, he would have caught himself and would have fought off Baldwin and the Newones who’d held him down.
She reached to the back of her mind for images of him that she preferred to hold on to.
There he was, tossing back his sleek hair and buttoning his white jacket the first time she laid eyes on him when he parked his car outside Alda’s warehouse.
Fenix’s body felt warm all over again as she saw herself nestled in Micha’s strong arms while he carried her back to Alda’s after the Chimera had sapped her strength.
She smiled as she pictured his boyish smile as he emerged, half-naked, from beneath the water the night that he dove off the wharf.
Her body tingled as she felt, again, that deep ache to throw her arms around him and taste the sweetness of his lips just before they went into battle up in the mountain hideout.
Fenix sighed.
The problem that had brought Micha to Alda’s warehouse was no more. He was with his own kind, and they would take care of him.
She would probably never see him again.
He had come into her life for a brief moment and stirred emotions in her that she hadn’t experienced before, and, therefore, didn’t understand. She didn’t fully appreciate those feelings at the time. And now, she missed them.
She couldn’t help sighing again, this time louder and longer.
Her heart was heavy. No, she would probably never see Micha again. But that was for the best, wasn’t it?
The possibility of him one day discovering that she was a peacesmith was too great.
Alda’s wry smile from earlier in the day flashed through Fenix’s mind, and she thought she understood it now.
It had nothing to do with Ivan. The witch had rigged the space-bending wand with Micha in mind.
If he’d proved a false ally at the time, then he would have been left behind to be destroyed along with the others. It was a clever, if devious, plan on Alda’s part.
For Fenix’s part, she was happy to know that Micha Angelo, on this occasion at least, proved to be a true ally rather than an enemy.
It was a good way to remember him.
Her footsteps were heavy as she reluctantly walked to the exit. Impulsively, she stopped and returned to the spot she was sure Micha had lain. She dropped to her knees and splayed her hands on the ground, yearning for a vision.
Her body soon froze. Pain stabbed her in head. Her eyes stung as a blinding white light enveloped her. An image flashed across her brain like lightning and then was gone, leaving her so weak that she tumbled to the ground.
Trembling, she rolled onto her back and tried to wrap her mind around what she’d just seen.
Behind closed eyelids, she’d caught a brief glimpse of two people locked in an embrace, their lips firmly pressed together. The two people were herself and Micha. She was sure of that much.
But what was that?
It wasn’t a vision of the present, and it certainly wasn’t a memory of anything that had actually happened in the past. She’d not seen into the future before, but she chose to believe it was a premonition. It had to have been.
Fenix stood and dusted off her jeans. She decided she would not question the vision. She was satisfied to just hold onto it for the moment. Time would tell how true it was.
She left the building and sat on the wharf, dangling her feet over the wall like she had that time when Micha dived into the water.
The soft sound of footsteps came to her ears.
Fenix looked up just as Gaius bent down and sat next to her.
“And how are you doing?”
“Good,” Fenix said, meaning it. “I’m actually doing really good.”
“Well, I wanted you to know I thought you did just great.”
“If you could call nearly getting us all burnt to a crisp great.”
“Hey, the bad guys were destroyed and we got out of there in time. That’s all that counts.”
“Yeah, but one of our crew was hanging from a roof and another one went through a roof.”
“Well, that part had nothing to do with your powers. I blame that on the witch’s screwed-up magic.”
“You’ll never be her favorite person if you continue to talk like that.”
They both laughed.
Gaius looked at Fenix with serious eyes, even as he kept the smile on his face. “I mean it, Fenix. You did well. You tapped into your power as a peacesmith.”
He clasped her hands in his. “It’s in here,” he said. Then he let go and pointed to her heart. “And it’s in here as well. Don’t ever forget that.”
Fenix got up and dusted off her jeans. “It was scary as hell to do what I did,” she said. “It was kind of cool, too, you know, now that I look back on it. But I can’t tell you how glad I am that it is all over now.”
As she walked away, Gaius got to his feet too.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Fenix,” he said.
She turned to look at him. His face was calm, yet serious.
“What did you say?” she asked.
“You’re wrong.”
“About what?”
“It’s not over,” Gaius said. “It has only just begun.”
********
Want more?
Return to the lives of the Fenix and the gang in Magic Bound: The Peacesmith Series, Book 2 — Pre-order now!
A NOTE FROM CARLY: Thanks for picking up a copy of Magic Reborn: The Peacesmith Series Book 1. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much I enjoyed writing it.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Many thanks and gratitude to those whose love and support made this book possible. Special thanks to my parents and siblings who’ve always been there for me, and to Steven for his encouragement.
Many thanks to my editor Cynthia Shepp as well as to Rose and the rest of my beta reading team. Special thanks to Rebecca Hamilton for her invaluable advice.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Carly Hansen is convinced that when she was born the doctor used a novel to whack her on the bum to make her take her first breath. She’s been lost in the world of fiction ever since she can remember, either devouring books by her favorite authors or scribbling the wild imaginings that pop into her head.
She’s kept conjuring up stories, even after growing up and working in the admin department of a not-for-profit organization. Carly feels humbled and grateful that she gets to share her writings with the world and positively loves to be in touch with readers.
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