I had died, or I'd wanted to. Or was that just the magical memory? I suddenly wasn't looking forward to feeling well enough to cry.
"She found a spark," Nicole said, wiping away a tear. "Something tiny, but it was enough. She's…she's been healing you for the past few days."
"D-days?" I sputtered.
"She's sleeping off another session," Nicole said. "It's been difficult on her to heal so much. She can't… I'm glad you're awake." She walked over to the dresser and plucked a glass of brownish liquid from the shelf. "Drink this."
I knew it was a healing potion before I even tasted it. "You made a potion for me?"
"It was in one of my old… Well, I did my best," she whispered.
Gavon must've taught Nicole how to make potions. Gavon had been in Nicole's life. Had been her father for at least six years. And then she'd had to live with the fact that he'd betrayed our mother and…
"Most in the Guild would have killed the potion maker at birth," Cyrus had said.
Was Gavon continuing the facade with my mother or did he truly care about Nicole? Why would he teach her potion-making if he thought her to be insignificant in his grand world domination schemes?
The more I knew about the man who'd fathered me, the more confused I became.
Nicole's potion was far superior to the one Gavon had made for me, and by the second sip, I was already feeling half-human.
"Thank you," I whispered over the rim of the glass.
"Don't scare me like that, Lexie," Nicole said, climbing into bed next to me.
I gulped down the rest of the potion and placed the glass on my bedside table. She wrapped her arms around me and rested her chin on my shoulder.
"What happened to…to Cyrus?"
"He's gone. You don't have to worry about him anymore."
I didn't believe her for one second, but I didn't say anything. I was barely fifteen—he had at least thirty years of magical training on me. And he would be back to finish the job. Which begged the question…
"Why are we here? Why aren't we at the compound with the family?" Except, for some reason, I couldn't quite remember where the compound was. Memories of a woman, Thanksgiving, an argument…
"Lexie, Gram…she's…" Nicole covered her face and sobbed.
"They've kicked us out of the clan, haven't they?"
Nicole nodded and wiped her face. "Gram came…came for…Jeanie and told me…she said that she couldn't afford to lose any more clansmen. That was her…her first priority."
"But we're her grandchildren—"
"We're a liability," Nicole whispered.
"I'm a liability," I corrected.
Nicole's eyes filled with tears again, and I closed my mouth, keeping my outrage at bay for her sake. I was torn between admitting it was smarter to keep the family away from us and our strange parental problems and the aching hurt that came with knowing our own family had forsaken us.
Father or no, Irene was our grandmother, Mora was her daughter.
My magic stirred in my chest, dredging up the memory of my mother's last day. I didn't want to tell Nicole that I knew every detail of how our mother had faced Cyrus, how she'd used my magic to fight him. It was no wonder I knew how to use attack spells; she'd been an artist. Her magic ebbed and flowed like water on the beach, but the most shocking thing was how calm she'd been. She'd known that she was going to die, but she was fearless.
A tear slipped down my face for the woman that I would never know. I'd always pictured her to be this blonde, kind woman, a nicer version of Marie, but she was…she was a badass.
Questions burned me—how could she have wielded my magic, what was Gavon like before Cyrus showed up and ruined everything?
Why hadn't Gavon shown up to save her?
Why hadn't he been there to save me?
What were we going to do now?
I looked at Nicole, devastated and heartbroken, and decided that questions would come much later—when we were stronger and had our feet under us.
I wrapped my arms around her and stayed silent as she cried on my shoulder.
I went back to school a week later. The story circulating in my first class was that I'd been in a bad accident and my aunt had been killed, so I got a lot of mournful looks from my classmates and pats on the shoulder. The only positive I could see was neither Callista nor Joel (they'd apparently made up) found it within themselves to step on me when I opened my locker. Mills had pulled me aside to assure me that I had all the time I needed to make up the essay tests I'd missed, and if I needed to talk, he was there. I appreciated his offer, but I couldn't say anything to him.
There was no one in the world I could talk to—no one I wanted to, anyway. I'd barely seen Marie since she'd stopped healing me. Sometimes I'd see her at school, a pale-faced shell of my sister. Once or twice, I offered to listen to whatever guilt she was feeling, and she angrily rebuffed me. But I could see it in her eyes and I continued to try to get her to talk.
Nicole, on the other hand, had bottled up her fears and insecurities so tightly they were leaking out of every half-smile and fake laugh. She told us she was quitting school and getting a better job, but I knew she'd never be able to afford the mortgage payment. Not that if any of us really wanted to live there anymore, not with the memory of Jeanie.
I hated how much I'd taken my aunt for granted, how little I'd really known about her. She, like my mother, was this new person to me. I'd always thought we'd been forced upon her, but she'd taken us in. She was arguably the least qualified person, but she'd done it because she loved us.
And now I'd never get the chance to thank her for her sacrifices. So instead, I promised her that I'd protect what was left of our family.
Even though he'd given them to me, I dove into the magic books hidden under my bed. I wanted to be as good—better—than my mother was. Maybe then I could be prepared when Cyrus came back.
I wasn't sure what he was waiting for, maybe to catch me off-guard, but the longer he stayed away, the more paranoid I became, until I started prowling the beaches of Salem for the tear. I was going to try to close it, or charm it with one of those magical intruder alert charms that he'd always been using.
Once or twice, I thought I saw someone I knew, or I passed a house that seemed familiar, but I ignored the tug toward Clan Carrigan. If Gram wanted to have a conversation, she could find me. As far as I was concerned, they were as dead to me as I was to them.
It was a Thursday afternoon when I finally stumbled across the tear. I was walking along a desolate stretch of beach, trudging through snow and mud, when my magic began to sizzle and pop against my skin. I closed my eyes and let my magic loose, and it circled and felt his magical charm around the tear. Our magic was so similar that the charm unwound and a bright, crackling light appeared in front of me.
I released a breath and waited.
When the sun set and I knew Nicole would start to worry, I went home, but the next day, I was back. I sat in front of the tear and watched it. The third day, I brought a magic book with me to try to locate that magical charm Gavon had levied on the tear. The fourth day, after I tired of reading, I practiced attack spells on the Atlantic.
"Yah!" I screamed, flinging another powerful spell out. It was paltry, nothing like when I'd been fighting for my life. But after releasing thirty of them, I started to feel a little woozy. I sat down on the rocky beach, glad that it felt nothing like the beach back home. I wasn't sure I could ever go there again, the same way I was avoiding walking into Jeanie's bedroom.
"I'm not sure that throwing spells across the ocean is such a smart idea."
I jumped to my feet, shocked that Marie of all people stood behind me. She wore a thick winter coat that I was pretty sure she'd stolen from some posh Bostonian and a pair of fur-lined boots. She didn't bother to sit, but she pulled off her black gloves and stuffed them in her pocket.
"Come here."
I crossed the space between us and let her heal me, although I was rather fon
d of ending the day drained. It made dealing with the memories in our house a lot easier to stomach.
"Why are you coming here?" she asked.
"Want to make sure he won't come back."
Marie snorted. "Which he are you talking about?
I didn't answer her question. "Did Nicole send you?"
"Nicole has no idea where you are, remember?"
"So why are you here then?"
"Because you've been obsessing over this tear for weeks, and it's time you come home. It's Christmas Eve."
The reminder of our first Christmas without Jeanie threatened to overtake my stoic mood, so I swallowed. "I want to make sure no one comes through that tear."
"Are you making sure, or are you hoping someone does?"
I looked at my hands. I was waiting for someone to come back. I wanted answers.
"What was it like with him?" I asked, squinting at the tear as a large lightning bolt cracked out of it.
"I don't remember much of it," Marie said. "But I remember things were…good. Happy. He was a great dad."
The pain in my chest turned into lead. "Do you think it was all a lie?"
Marie was silent and chewed on her lip for a moment. "Look, he left. He let Mom die. He almost let you die. So it really doesn't matter what life was like. He's just…" She sighed again. "He's just a ghost. And one you don't have to worry about anymore."
"I wish—"
"No," Marie snapped. "You lived fifteen years without him. You don't need him around anyway."
I looked out on the black ocean again. "I want him around, though. I felt like…like he…"
"You don't need him," Marie repeated, wrapping her arm around my shoulder. "You have me and Nicole and…well, that's all you'll ever need, okay?"
I leaned my head on her shoulder. "Does that mean you'll stop being so mean to me?"
"I am never mean."
I actually laughed. It was the first time in weeks.
"I don't want you coming back here again, okay?" Marie said softly. "We all need to find a way to move on. And we can't do that without you."
I nodded and allowed her to pull me to stand.
They did need me, but not to move on. There were people out there who wanted me and my sisters dead. I was now the leader of our little three-person clan, and it was up to me to keep our family together. And since the rest of my family had forsaken us, it was up to me to keep us alive.
After all, Warriors don't whine, we just do.
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Acknowledgments
Thanks go to my bevy of brilliant beta readers. Karlin, thanks for being such an awesome supporter from Lyssa to Lauren to Lexie! Tamara, Alice P., Ali L., Arpita, thank you for offering your help and insight!
Dani, as usual, you're the best.
And finally, thanks also go to my typo checkers, Lisa, Brett, my mom, and Apple's text-to-speech function.
About the Author
S. Usher Evans was born and raised in Pensacola, Florida. After a decade of fighting bureaucratic battles as an IT consultant in Washington, DC, she suffered a massive quarter-life-crisis. She decided fighting dragons was more fun than writing policy, so she moved back to Pensacola to write books full-time. She currently resides with her two dogs, Zoe and Mr. Biscuit, and frequently can be found plotting on the beach.
Visit S. Usher Evans Online
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