But the buzz of Logan’s cell phone saved me.
“That would be Brendan,” Aern said. “He’s already called me.” Aern shared a look with Logan before his eyes came to mine. “He seems to think you’re being reckless with our Brianna.”
Emily shifted, and I knew if Brendan were here, she’d give him a piece of her mind.
“He’d like to have her back at Southmont,” Aern continued. “Under his protection.”
Emily glanced at Logan. “Well, I guess you’re doing something right.”
“Brendan isn’t that hard to hide from,” he said after a pause. “It’s easy to deceive a man who thinks he’s above it.”
Logan’s gaze didn’t travel back to Aern’s, and I could see that there was some unspoken message between them, something purposefully left out. It only took a moment to realize what it was—if Logan didn’t have me at one of the Division properties and Council wasn’t yet prepared, then where were we?
When my eyes came back to Aern, he changed the subject. “So, any luck?”
I had all but forgotten the book beneath my fingers. “No,” I said. “Not yet.”
He nodded. “There were a few things we found among Morgan’s belongings. You’re welcome to look at those as well.”
“That would be great,” I answered.
Emily slid her chair back to stand. “I’ll take her now.” She glanced at Aern. “If it’s safe.”
“Yes,” he said, barely managing to mask his relief that she was finally verifying her safety before making a move. But I had a pretty good idea she’d been checking for me, not her. As far as Emily was concerned, chosen or no, she was still my protector.
Chapter Ten
Discovery
I followed Emily into a small office off the main library. The library was different than the archive, not only in its reading material, but in its openness and warmth. The room was flooded with sunlight from three large windows, the bookshelves only shaded by a pair of bright patterned curtains on either end. The furniture was pastel and, by all appearances, soft, scattered with an eclectic but somehow balanced collection of pillows that made me want to curl up there for the rest of the afternoon. So, I was a bit snow-blind when she closed the door on the tiny, dark room where Morgan’s things were stored.
She moved two large boxes from the floor onto the polished black desk. “Most of it got thrown out, but there were a few things we thought might be of some importance,” Emily explained.
I stepped forward, shifting a couple of notebooks on top of the pile aside. “You’ve already looked through it, then?”
“Not really,” she said. “Aern and I pulled this stuff from Morgan’s office and the other box was gathered from his private rooms.” She waved vaguely at the box in question before sliding the chair out of her way to stand beside me. “We didn’t take much time examining it. It was pretty creepy, all in all.”
I flipped open a hardcover journal, feeling a spasm of revolt that nearly had me throwing it back down at the words scribbled in Morgan’s hand.
Emily leaned over my shoulder, peering at the text that spelled out our own names in hurried, uncontrolled script. “Yep. Like that.”
I forced myself to continue through the pages, seemingly random notes and numbers interposed with quotes from the prophecy, all in more than a few different languages. And the word Dragon. Over and over.
“Blood of the Dragon,” I mumbled in Latin, not entirely meaning to, and Emily ran a hand over her bare arm.
“Well, this is fun,” she said. Using a pencil to pull a silk blindfold from the box of personal belongings, she tossed it toward the far corner of the desk with a stifled gag.
I laid the journal aside and drew out another. “Didn’t he have a cell phone or something? A planner his assistant kept?”
Emily nodded. “We can’t find anything digital. My guess, they’re with said assistant and he’s still out there. Protecting it.”
“I should have waited,” I said. “I should have come with him here, in the center of it all—”
“Back to his lair?” Emily interrupted, holding up a set of black satin wrist straps as she did so.
I felt my face draw up. “Yes. Back to his lair. At least that way I’d have had the chance to find out more, maybe to reverse the sway on everyone.”
“Please,” Emily said while flinging the satin onto her pile, “alone with Morgan was the last place you needed to be.” She reached into the box with her pencil once more, grimacing at a second pair of silken restraints.
I stared at her. “Why did Aern keep that?”
“I don’t know,” she murmured, “but we’re definitely going to have a talk about it.” She tossed the material to the side, and it landed under the dim light of a desk lamp.
“Wait,” I said, leaning forward over the boxes. “Is that blood?”
She leaned closer, the look on her face confirming my suspicion. “That would explain it,” she said, her gaze slowly going over the other items lying in the box. She held up the pencil, gingerly pointing toward a black satin drawstring bag. “So, what do you suppose is in there?”
“You’re the one with the pencil,” I offered.
“Thanks,” she muttered. She picked up a second pencil and held them chopstick style to loosen the string while holding the bag with the barest possible grip of thumb and forefinger from her other hand.
For a moment, she looked relieved, and then, briefly, confused. It didn’t take long to work itself out in her head, and the instant she realized what she was seeing, she looked pure sick.
She was frozen, hand unable to release the horror it held.
“What is it?” I asked, more stunned than concerned. Whatever it was couldn’t hurt us. It was just a box of junk. The real danger—Morgan—was locked away.
She opened her mouth in a choked breath, but no words followed.
“Emily,” I started, but fell silent when I’d moved enough to see the contents for myself.
Each of her reactions made sense then, and my own thoughts followed the same line. But when I finally made it to disgust, I didn’t freeze. Instead, my hand reached out of its own accord, unable to keep from grasping that one last piece of her, even with the awfulness that it signified.
A small shudder escaped Emily when I removed the lock of hair from the bag to lie across the fingers of my open hand. It was so familiar, so perfect ... and so utterly horrible. It was the same soft texture I’d known as a child and I had to resist the urge to bring it closer to my face, to see if it still held her scent. It was a warm chestnut color with the faintest blonde streaks, healthy even as it lay disconnected in my hand. There was no question who the lock of hair belonged to.
And that was what made it wrong.
My fist closed over the bundled strands. Morgan had a section of our mother’s hair. He’d thought she was the chosen and he’d kept this with him, his prize. Terrible images of him leisurely opening the black satin bag while he stood in his room, pressing the lock of hair to his face, inhaling my mother’s scent, tore through me, but they weren’t visions. They weren’t prophecy. They were simply a product of my imagination, too vivid and too real.
I closed my eyes tight, forcing them away.
Beside me, Emily pressed her fingers to the base of her throat. It was the only movement in a now still room. I opened my eyes, bringing the fisted hand to my front jeans pocket. It was not the best option to carry a bundle of hair, but I didn’t want any part of it touching Morgan’s things. Not even an envelope. I would put it some place safe later.
I stared into the box as Emily silently resumed our search. Eventually, I too continued the sorting, but neither of us spoke. There was nothing to say as we stood, side by side. No words except the awfulness of what that lock of hair signified. Morgan had trapped our mother, used her to release powers that could end the world. And she had taken her own life to save us. To save everyone.
A long while later, when Emily’s box was complet
ely empty, she dropped it onto the floor beside the desk and unceremoniously shoved the discard pile over the edge to land inside. She’d only saved a small notebook and a ledger, and I was nearly to the bottom of my own with no more than three journals, and a few random receipts and papers to show for it.
I flipped open a folder marked “potential properties” to find surveys, reports, and printouts on various estates I assumed Council had considered acquiring under Morgan’s rule. Nothing sparked recognition, but tucked behind a reported marked up in red ink, I found an envelope that didn’t have the feel of empty. I laid the folder down to open it, and pulled out a photograph I’d known for years.
“It’s from my duffle bag,” Emily whispered beside me. “He must have found it ... just like Aern said.”
I studied the photo of my mother, a younger Emily and I leaning easily into her arms, and I couldn’t help the tug at the corner of my mouth seeing our goofy smiles. We’d no idea then, what would truly come. None of it had seemed real. But our mother had known. Her eyes were the same strange green I remembered, not the softer shade of Emily’s and mine. And though she tried, her smile didn’t quite reach them. I wondered if she’d known. If she’d seen this moment before, seen her two daughters alone in a dark room, grasping the one final piece of her we had left. My gaze trailed the blonde streaks of her chestnut hair in the photo and I could feel the pressure of the banded lock where it rested against my hip inside the jeans pocket.
She had known. All along, she’d done everything she could to stop the fate her visions warned her of.
Emily reached over to take the photo from my hand, and once it was empty, I had the instinct to pinch the skin at the base of my thumb and forefinger. It was a trick I’d learned from our mother, one of those secrets to keep your emotions in check, but I wasn’t going to cry.
I drew in a solid breath, the idea that I didn’t need to fight tears relaxing me even more, and Emily said, “She saw all of this, didn’t she?”
I reached automatically for her, to comfort the grief that was somehow absent from me, and she stopped me with a look. “You don’t have to do that, Brianna.”
I hesitated, still contemplating the lack of sorrow. The hours after finding our mother’s lock of hair had been painful, full of regrets and what-ifs, but the overwhelming heartache at her loss seemed farther away. I didn’t know what that meant, and stab of guilt that maybe I’d accepted it, that I’d gotten over the death of someone who’d meant so much, struck me.
Emily watched me, so I finally asked, “Do what?”
She sighed. “That thing you do. Where you take it away. You don’t have to, Brianna. I can handle it.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but she turned from me, tucking the photograph between the pages of a nineteenth century collection of ancient Egyptian symbols. She was finding her own place to keep it safe.
We walked from the office into the library, but the difference was no longer blinding. The sun was setting and the room took on a soft glow, the urge to curl up on the sofas only tempered by the figures against the farthest of the three large windows. Aern moved first, hand sliding free of his pocket as if in anticipation of Emily. I watched the gesture, maybe too long, as we crossed the room, and my gaze moved to Logan where he stood by the glass, eyes on me.
The last rays of sun struck his face, giving them that otherworldly glow the seven lines sometimes had, and I couldn’t look away. When he didn’t either, my thoughts replayed the moment on the stairs, the words that kept returning. Is it now? I glanced down, shifting the documents in my hand as my cheeks heated.
“Find anything?” Aern asked. I looked up, but he’d been questioning Emily.
She shrugged. “Nothing to speak of.” Her tone didn’t betray the lie, but in truth neither of us wanted to speak of the lock of hair or anything else we’d seen. She gestured vaguely toward the journals and folders now situated firmly under my arm. “Brianna’s got a couple of things she’s going to take a better look at later, but I don’t expect much.”
Our eyes met in an unspoken agreement, because we both expected nightmares of Morgan and our mother, but then Emily slipped easily under Aern’s shoulder and the tightness at the corner of her eyes relaxed. “Be safe, Brianna,” she said.
I managed a smile. “I will.”
It struck me that her words were so like those used by Logan’s men, and my gaze fell to him. He was still watching me, but now that the three of us were watching him back, he stepped closer, taking the documents from beneath my arm to place them in his pack.
He turned to Aern, each taking the other’s forearm in the traditional Council manner, and they shared their own unspoken message before Logan said his good-byes and we left the Council buildings.
I had very little to say on the ride, the pressure of my mother’s lock of hair inside my pocket a constant reminder of Morgan and what had come to pass. It was time to take action, I knew that, but if I didn’t find some sign or clue soon, I’d be fighting blind. And I didn’t think I could trust myself not to go for Morgan first. Especially now.
Chapter Eleven
Dragons
The echo of Logan’s car door in the near empty garage startled me out of my thoughts. He was opening my door a moment later, ushering me to the place only Aern and I knew as his home. I was only vaguely aware of the extra bags he carried until we were inside and he placed them on the kitchen counter.
“You picked up supplies?” I asked.
“Only a few things. They had extra,” Logan answered as he sorted containers into the refrigerator and cabinets.
I smiled. The houses of the Seven Lines were never wanting for anything. And then I realized I was watching him far too closely. Again.
I cleared my throat. “I’m going to …” I trailed off, pointing vaguely toward the bedroom as I was stifled by my lack of a good term for what I was doing that didn’t sound like freshen up or slip into something more comfortable.
Logan nodded toward the pack that held the journals we’d collected from Morgan’s office. “I gathered a few things for you as well. I know you weren’t planning on spending this many days away.”
I stepped to the end table that held the bag, folding the top back to find two blouses, a clear zippered bag of travel sized soaps and lotions, and, to my horror, at least one pair of underthings. I stared up at Logan, mortified, and he immediately amended his explanation. “Ava put some things together. For you.” He rubbed a palm across his chest. “They keep extra on hand is all.”
I closed the flap, schooling my features. “Thank you. I’ll just …” With a tilt of my head, I backed toward the bedroom door. When I was hidden safely behind it, I held my head in my hands.
Eventually, I dropped the bag onto the bed, grateful to find the documents packed into a separate compartment from the clothes. After carefully spreading out the contents of the document side, I dumped the remaining items onto the charcoal comforter. Clearly Ava had no idea what we were up to, because she’d included a thin silk blouse and camisole in a pastel peach shade, and an ordinary black cotton tank top. I ran my fingers over the material—designer, new, the perfect size—and wondered what their stockrooms looked like. Or maybe they’d gone shopping for their prophecy girl. With a sigh, I took a set of fresh clothes and the zippered bag toward the bath. I paused when I saw the small carved box atop the side table. The lock of hair pressed against my hip, and I gently tilted the lid of the box to check inside. It was empty, the shallow interior seemingly untouched, so I laid my things aside to retrieve the banded lock from my pocket. It was oddly ceremonial, placing the last remaining piece of my mother there, and my chest squeezed for a long moment before I closed the lid.
I hadn’t gotten over her death, I realized. It had only gotten easier because I’d accepted the prophecy. I had accepted my place, and in doing so her place, in the order of things. I had a purpose. That purpose had been there from the beginning, but it was as if it had been pushing me, dragging me
, forcing me along with it.
Now I was moving forward of my own accord, hunting instead of being chased. I would find the clue. I would choose our fate. And I was incredibly grateful Logan had a nice shower.
I leaned forward into the spray, allowing the steady thrum of water hitting stone to drown out my thoughts, willing the heat to permeate my muscles, stiff from the days of tension and disuse. I ran a hand absently over the scar on my side, aware that it could have been far worse. In a matter of weeks I had nearly healed. We might not have been as capable as those of the Seven Lines, but there was something in Emily and me that allowed us to repair faster and easier than the average person. Something that made us not quite human.
Twisting the handle, I closed off the spray with that train of thought. I ran a towel and comb through my hair, and by the time I’d made my way to the bedroom, I’d already populated a mental list of which documents to review first, which of Morgan’s things held the most promise for a hint of that clue. I threw on the black tank over a pair of designer jeans and stood barefoot above the journals.
It was the notebook that my hand reached for first, despite my utter dread of the idea. I pressed a knee into the bed, leaning on one leg as I paged through Morgan’s notes and scrawls. Dragon, drascendo, drestillia, draco. Mare, visum, oculus, serpens. Born of the Serpent. Daughter of Great Power. Eyes of the Sea. It was random and it was prophecy and no matter how many times he’d written it, it meant nothing to me.
And then it did. Suddenly, unquestionably, it did. My fingers drew back from the words as if I’d been burned; a terrible, undeniable sharpness was there that hadn’t been before as I reread our names:
Emily Elizabeth Drake
Brianna Katherine Drake
Daughter of Great Power. Born of the Serpent.
Emily was the chosen. We’d been wrong again, it hadn’t only mentioned one of us. We were both there in the prophecy, hidden among clever phrasing. Two of us, but she was the chosen. The daughter of Great Power.
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