by Jamie Magee
Her mind was racing through the lore she knew on Phoenix’s. They could vanish out, but as far as River knew they couldn’t get in your head.
“I don’t want to talk about boys. I want to get my work done and get home.”
“Why? Is he hurting you? Do we need to come up? Soren stopped me from leaving yesterday, but you know I can slip that boy if I need to.”
Last night River wanted her here. She wanted all of them there. Now she didn’t know.
“You need to keep Raven safe.”
“Right and that is your job, too, so if you are down we all are.”
“I’m not down.”
“Soren swore Mason hadn’t talked to you yet, did he man up since then?”
“You could say that.”
“What happened?” Ash demanded.
“I’m not going to rehash it with you.”
“Did you at least ask him about Indiana? What she had that you didn’t? I would have made up a boyfriend, too, if I was in your shoes.”
“This is her house.”
“Do what?”
“Yeah…Mason is not human anymore. He died last week and has risen as a Phoenix, his job is to protect Indiana.”
“I’ll be there in five hours.”
“No.”
“River, you may be an island, keeping emotions to yourself, but no one could handle this alone. You guys left too much on the table.”
River knew if it got too bad she could call out to Dagen, and he’d get her home within a beat of her heart. But she wasn’t a coward. She didn’t run from hard situations. And she wanted to know what was in that text down there. Especially if she could figure out how to help Dagen take down the Lord of Death he was after.
“We need this information. If I need out, I’ll get out. Simple as that. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”
“Which is when? Do we even know for sure Rydell is going to get out of the Veil right now? That he’s the right lover in the grave—call me crazy but I’m thinking Raven is pretty into that biker.”
The biker was a whole other story, a complicated one because River was almost sure he was not human, at least he ran with an immortal crowd.
“This is about Skylynn, too. I’m doing my best to figure out Rydell. Lover or not Raven would want him out.”
“That’s what mom said.”
Odd silence.
“It’s getting real again, Ash. I gotta go, I have a ton to read.”
“You call me when it’s too much, even if it’s just to cry or scream.”
“Me? Cry?”
“Yeah, right, the island. Keep it real, River.”
“Always.”
River grabbed her phone so she could have music to listen to while she worked and swallowed her anxieties, or at least tried to. She peeked out her door into the hallway— not a soul was in sight. Good.
She followed the same path she had taken to get up there last night minus the wrong turns. She didn’t pass anyone beyond the wait staff that happened to all be human. Each smiled warmly and asked if they could get her anything. She declined.
When she reached the dome room, she figured out that Mason was playing his avoiding game again. She knew his breed of souls could sense her moving through this home. He knew she was awake, they all did, and they were keeping their distance. Fine with me, River thought, yet her heart cracked a little.
She barely found the will to be mystified by the magical staircase as it led her down. She was busy finding a playlist on her phone that didn’t have a song that would remind her of Mason. It was near impossible because all the songs had drums within them, an instrument he played, that she watched him learn to play.
She stopped short at the bottom of the stairs. All the clocks were there. The scent of rain had dissipated, but that wasn’t what had her tense up. It was the lilies. Water lilies. Her favorite flower, there were little bowls marking the path she had to walk, with the flower and a floating candle. The water was a mix of lavender and blue…just like her eyes.
She felt her soul seize, a hollow heartbeat, heat flowed over her flesh. The boy had a memory, and he was killing her with those memories.
She followed the path expecting to find him at the end. As she moved closer, she thought she heard music. She pulled her ear buds out, and sure enough the soundtrack to Dirty Dancing was playing. It was her favorite movie, and it wasn’t because of the movie itself. That was one of many movies her Mason and her pretended to watch. Pretended when they were too busy exploring each other.
Right outside the library a table was set up. A bowl of almonds was there, energy drinks and water was on the table, sweet gestures that proved in some way he still knew her, but that was not what threw her.
What threw her was the letter.
The envelope had turned yellow. You could tell it had been folded in the same position for a long time. It was addressed to her, in his handwriting.
With shaking hands, she picked it up. It smelled like him, the same cologne that made her weak in the knees.
The notebook paper was just as aged as the envelope. The handwriting was his, the classic boy handwriting with sharp edges and small, neat print. She held her breath when she saw the date, in the same faded ink. Whatever this was, it was written right after they’d split.
She willed herself to read the words.
You are my air. I can’t breathe without you. I haven’t breathed since I left you. I’m drowning without you. I have been. I’m so far gone that at this point my only fear is pulling you into this death with me. I don’t know who I am anymore, but I know I’m not me without you. I’m sorry, not for what you think I did because I’m innocent, but for turning into someone you believed could hurt you. I love you, River. I could never love another girl the way I love you. Our love is raw, real, forgiving and accusing, light and dark, bliss and pain, a perfect calamity that defined me and gave me reason. I’m my true self with you. Home, peace is what I find in your soul. Let me in again and I promise to never allow you to doubt how precious you are to me.
In fresh ink ‘you are my air’ was written, the last line was underlined.
She let the tears flow as she read it over and over, as she imagined him writing this years ago and not finding the nerve to send it to her. She wanted to kill him for that. She knew the note had to have been written between the time he was accused of being with Indie and when he actually was.
The dark part of her said he didn’t mean it because he did hook up with her and a host of others, but the romantic in her said that he had to have carried this with him. He carried her with him.
She was expecting him to pop in at any moment, to manifest at her side. She even questioned if he was just hiding to see her reaction to his display, but he never showed.
She put the note in her pocket, glanced back at the lilies, then decided she had a job to do. She had to figure out why this library felt like it should have her name across it.
Chapter Fourteen
River had been decoding for hours. At one point, she’d even gone back upstairs to ask one of the wait staff if they had a large dry erase board or even an old school chalkboard. And what do you know? In this city that was just a house, they found one.
River wasn’t sure if the wait staff were allowed in the basement or knew about the magic stairs, so she heaved the massive board all the way back to the library on her own.
She had the board on the back wall, the only wall that didn’t have books locked in a case. Staring at the whiteboard, she was beyond frustrated. Even after putting up keywords, and making connections she was still lost. She was missing texts, she knew she had to be.
At that point, she didn’t know if the Falcon’s were jacking with her or if someone from the past was. If possibly this family had somehow been robbed.
The text was mind-blowing to her. She had an awkward talent of seeing what she read, like a vision, and because she knew so many languages, she was usually pretty efficient when it came to this task,
but she shouldn’t have been as fast as she was with this text.
In truth, she should still be on the first book, not even halfway through it. Which made her think she was being careless, but at the same time she had never read a text that she understood so easily as this one, including her favorite novels written in the English language.
Her speed made no sense when she factored in how distracted she was. She’d pulled the note Mason had written to her out and read it ten times, and she was constantly looking to the doorway wondering when he would surface.
Avoiding me. Typical, she thought each every time she found the threshold empty. She had no idea what she was going to say to him. All is forgiven wasn’t high on her list of possibilities. She was furious at him for not fighting harder, or at least mailing the letter. At the same time, she knew him well enough to know that giving it to her now was more than likely one of the hardest things he’d ever done. And that said a lot considering the boy died days before.
She was going back to her board to write down another note of something she’d found when she heard and felt a warm whisk of air.
The sensation made her soul seize. She thought for sure Mason had come for her.
“Well, I would have lost that bet if I had guessed who would’ve shown up down here first,” River said to none other than Phoenix.
River wasn’t sure how to take him. That name he called her the night before, Seneca, confused her. How defensive he was when it came to Mason, how he was able to pull Indie away—both told River he was the dominant in this household. River’s gut feeling was telling her this boy had power; aged, regal supremacy. Yet, she didn’t fear him, not at all.
“Sorry to disappoint,” Phoenix said with a sly smile as he looked down at her, his deep gray eyes amplified the flames in the centers.
River narrowed her stare on him, for some odd reason a vision flashed in her mind. She saw Phoenix in a different light, his eyes without fire, but with light behind them, and a warm, inviting smile. She saw him in countless suits or positions of power. Royalty. She saw humbleness, a man seeking to protect his family, his realm.
Then all at once every vision she had of him burst into flames before they were covered with darkness.
She didn’t know how she knew, but right then River understood that Phoenix was immortal, that more than likely he was Mason’s sire. What was confusing her was why would Indie’s lover sire her ex?
“I should have expected it. One of your little offspring has a habit of avoiding difficult situations and the other, vampire boy, I think I made his head spin. Didn’t mean to come on too strong.”
“A bloody Vampire?” Phoenix said with his thick accent.
“Most do tend to linger near blood,” River said with an arched brow, mocking his use of verbs. “With that hair and those eyes—Gavin looks otherworldly, especially when you see him with an old book lounging in antique chairs.”
Phoenix’s fire eyes moved over River’s fake serious expression before a smile eased across his lips.
“They’re at a wake.”
“Who the vampires?”
Phoenix threw a ‘no you just didn’t say that’ expression her way, yet she could tell he was amused. “Genevieve and company.”
“Wait. A wake? Like a funeral?”
One nod. “Not everyone made it out of that accident Mason rose from.”
Awesome, so Mason was not only dealing with his transformation, the surprise bomb of me, but he’d also lost someone. The very idea of that made River’s heart hurt, which she assumed was Phoenix’s point
“Mason didn’t make it out either did he? You sired him.”
Phoenix smirked, “I see the two of you found time for a chat.”
“I wouldn’t call it that.”
Phoenix raised his brow as a sinful smile lingered on his lips.
River was sure he took her words the wrong way and was halfway embarrassed that he did. “It wasn’t that either,” she looked down at her work hoping her blush wasn’t easily seen.
“No doubt, there are just lilies in my basement to bring forth an ambiance and what on earth is that feral noise.”
“The song? Stay, by the Zodiacs and Williams. It’s part of the soundtrack of a movie I plan to watch one day.”
He tapered his confused stare on her. “You’re listening to music that belongs to a movie you haven’t watched?”
“Yep.”
Phoenix’s gaze searched River, and the energy all around her as if he was plotting an epic war and wanted a strategy.
River almost apologized for being so rude last night—almost.
“You understand the lore of Phoenixes?” he asked.
“Not really something I focused on, but I know the gist.”
He raised his chin. “In your studies, have you not been made aware that fire is purity?”
“I have.”
“It is believed by many that it bares the soul, takes away all the superficial actions of life and elevates what matters, at times when we were too scared to face what matters. That in turn the soul aches for what purifies it with balance.”
River crossed her arms. “I could see how a culture could grasp the belief.”
“So you realize that what Mason is feeling now is his soul, and whatever emotion he grasps now is one that will define him for the rest of his existence. No matter how many times he burns, he will always return to the same point, the point that illuminates what was meant for him.”
“Nope. Didn’t get that email.”
Phoenix put his hands on the table and leaned forward. “It would be nice to not have my soul mates guardian a miserable sap for the rest of this ride.”
“What are you doing? Bribing me? Nudging me? Telling me to play nice?”
“Not at all. That’s your business. I said it would be nice, now didn’t I, little bit?”
Oh, so we were on a nickname basis? “Not what you meant, though, fire boy. I’m not getting in the middle of your soap opera.”
“Pardon?”
“Mason left me for your soul mate. Not sure where you were when that went down, or why you made him immortal, but let’s just say the past is a little painful. Like lemon in an open cut painful. It’s already making this,” she said motioning to her work, “Hard to focus on.”
“He didn’t leave you for her, but you already know that. And the past in this life is not what has my interest, but rather one that is further back.”
“Oh yeah?”
Half the text River was able to hash out had everything to do with the Falcon’s. It was like they were the core of this web, connecting in some way to every name, even if only by association. What didn’t add up were the descriptions, or the tone given to the names. They resembled those present, the resident’s of this manor, which had River’s imagination running wild.
One nod.
“Well, that makes two of us. Who is Sebastian Falcon?”
His stare told River it was him. Intriguing.
River shook her head. “Where did this manor come from? It was moved here, from where?”
“You haven’t figured that out yet?” he asked slyly.
“No, because what I figured out makes no sense.”
“Humor me.”
“Parallel universe. What I’ve read in pieces so far, is that it traveled on a parallel path and that it landed here because this place correlates with a designated spot in the Veil, as well as vital dimensions, and of course, a path back to where it came from.”
“You read that?”
“In parts. I’m not making it up.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
River lifted a brow. “You’re accepting this as fact?”
“I trust the author of this text.”
“Who was?”
No comment on that point. “You said it’s parallel to a point in the Veil?”
“Come here, fire boy,” River said leading him to the board. She’d drawn the parallel universe, the Veil lingeri
ng in between, and the surrounding dimensions this text mentioned. “According to this, the manor was moved here, under a predicted planetary alignment, with some wicked spells. It passed through some sort of wall, and landed here, on purpose. This place, our world, or rather dimension, was not really born yet. The text called it the isolated one, which births queens. Apparently, a clear path of energy is also here for the Kings to find said Queens, some are said to be born here as well.”
“This is the Veil?” he asked pointing to River’s handy dandy artwork. She was surprised that was his question that the whole moving a manor out of a parallel universe forever ago was not as awesome as she thought it was.
“Yep. And this word means mirror or reflection, it’s over the manor and this spot in the Veil,” River said pointing to the board. “Maybe that’s why you have so many freaking ghosts at your gate. They’re confused because this house is reflected in the Veil as well, or it could be because we both know Indie is the Queen of the Veil.”
He smirked. “I’ve been all over the Veil, and I have never seen a reflection of this home, except…” he trailed off as his stare shifted to the side.
“I don’t suspect you could have. I don’t know exactly what went down with Mason’s accident, but my money says Indie was with him and that she died too. This manor is spelled, the reflection would not show until the queen was on deck. Meaning dead and risen by fire. Obviously you figured that part out, though.”
“Why there,” he said almost to himself, staring at the map she’d made of where the manor was in the Veil.
“It all has to do with energy. In association with where The Reaper and the Lords of Death keep an address.”
“Explain.”
“My hands are bit tied because you’re missing a lot of books. What I know is just the title page to this web. The blurb on the back of a movie if you will. But, it seems that when you die, depending on how and such, you fall into one of these places if you do not move on. The thing is, though, that the Lords of Death have been a bit greedy. Or at least that is what I got. I meant it when I say I’m missing a lot. Because of the greedy death Lords the avenue to The Reaper is as wide as the head of a needle, only the lucky souls manage to get there, the rest are trapped.”
