by K. A. Poe
“I really don’t —” He paused and looked at me, my eyes pleading. “Very well,” he said reluctantly.
I wasn’t surprised in the least to find Artemis’s door locked. I knelt down and peered through the keyhole, then stood up in defeat; Iris may know how to pick locks, but I didn’t have the first clue. I looked at Alan.
“Can you like, kick it open or something? Like they do in the movies?”
“That wouldn’t be obvious at all, would it?” he said with a shake of his head. “Why don’t you just use your Telekinesis to turn the lock from the inside?” Alan suggested.
I stared at him in surprise and felt stupid I hadn’t thought of that first. I glanced once more at the doorknob, then back at him. “How’d you know about that ...?”
“Word travels fast, remember?” he said and anxiously looked down the hall. “Hurry. Try it if you’re going to.”
With a nod, I pictured the opposite side of the doorknob in my mind and imagined the lock turning. I jumped in surprise and excitement when I heard the lock click. “Yes!” I turned toward Alan, a wide smile on my face. He didn’t seem amused.
I stepped cautiously into Artemis’s bedroom, wondering if by chance he had some sort of alarm mechanism setup. Nothing happened, though. Alan followed close behind me as I scanned the room, partly hoping to find the location of the Codex, but it wasn’t on the top of my list this time. There weren’t many objects in the room that stood out to me — books, stacks of paper, a telescope, a bronze hourglass — until I spotted the golden chalice with a ring of silver ivy embedded into the metal cup. I pulled the paperweight out of my pocket and set it on the desk and went over to get a better look at the cup.
“That,” I said, pointing at the chalice on the other side of the room, perched on a shelf. “Touch it. Please.”
With a hesitant grimace, Alan reached out to grab hold of the cup and I latched onto his free hand. The pull of being dragged into the vision came over me and I found myself viewing a familiar clearing surrounded by dense foliage, a group of hooded people, and the half-circle rock. It was the same place where I’d received my Mark.
A man with wheat-colored hair and an anxious expression, younger than I now knew him as, stood in the center of the circle half-formed by rock, half-formed by witches. The golden chalice sat atop the lectern, glittering beneath the moonlit sky. He bowed his head, hair falling over his eyes and a pale glow emanating from his chest where his shirt was torn open.
One of the hooded figures approached him, wielding the chalice in his hand. Liquid the color of ocean water frothed within the confines of the cup, sloshing to the side as the holder walked. They stopped in front of Artemis, dabbed a cloth into the liquid and pressed it against the Mark of Luna upon his flesh.
He writhed in pain, trembling at the knees, even as the witch held the fabric to his skin; two other cloaked figures approached from behind to steady Artemis. He screamed into the night, stirring the animals awake in his agony.
“Upon this night of the full moon, we unite to grant this man — this witch — the power, the privilege, and the leadership he has earned and deserved. From henceforth, you shall no longer be merely Castus Arundale—”
The tight grip I’d had on Alan’s hand broke free and I stood, staring and gasping, at the brown-haired boy. He set down the chalice and frowned.
“Has anyone ever even heard what Artemis’s last name is?” I asked, having never thought about it before.
Alan shook his head and sighed, clearly still unhappy being there. “He has always requested to be known simply as Artemis. I’m not sure if that’s typical among Clan leaders, though. Either way … now we know. Let’s just carry on, I guess.”
“How do members become leaders ...?”
“So many questions,” he mused. “It’s a ritual similar to becoming a full-fledged member of the Clan, as you witnessed. I don’t know all of the details. I’ve obviously never been to one as it is conducted by other leaders only, but supposedly it’s even more agonizing than becoming a member.”
“It looked like he was being tortured.”
“Some pain is worth the outcome, Castus Young,” Alan said and, to my surprise, started searching for things along with me.
There weren’t many significant memories tied to any of the items I had him touch. The telescope showed Artemis watching a falling star with a young black-haired boy at his side. I couldn’t help but wonder if it had been Mathias before his gift had consumed the color of his hair.
“Do you think my parents are out there somewhere and seeing this at the same time?” the boy asked.
Artemis stared up at the night sky and scowled, although the boy couldn’t see his expression as he was too focused on the darkness. “I don’t know, Mathias. They could be seeing something completely different, or the same, or not at all.”
“Not at all?” Mathias sounded hurt and finally turned his attention away from the star.
“I do not know the whereabouts of your parents who left you at the orphanage, but I am here with you now, that is all that matters.”
The boy looked sad, but seemed to accept the answer, his gaze turning once again to the night sky.
“That was so sad,” I said and handed him an old inkwell. “Here.”
Alan didn’t bother replying any more, he just let the images play through his mind and I latched on to witness them with him. Nothing emotional had been attached to the item, so we went on to an old leather-bound book. There was a brief glimpse of Artemis and a young brown-haired woman with one arm, but Alan pulled away before I got to see much else. He pushed it aside and said it seemed like it might be too personal for us to see.
I felt like we’d been searching for hours, and we were getting nowhere. I headed for a pile of papers on his desk, hoping that maybe something was hidden underneath it all, when Alan called my name from across the room.
I followed the sound of his voice and was shocked to find that Artemis’s closet held a podium with a dagger resting atop a plush fabric, concealed in a glass case. With nimble fingers, Alan opened the glass case and wound the violet velvet around the hilt of the blade. It was bejeweled with rubies and glimmered majestically even in the unlit room.
“Do you think —” I began to ask, but before I could even finish the question, Alan’s finger ran across the length of the blade and I was once again pulled into a memory that was not my own.
Everything was hazy, as though the clouds had descended from the sky and enveloped everything around us. Someone screamed. Some of the fog had cleared and I could see a figure wielding the dagger, and someone else was lying beneath them, struggling. The dagger rose and lowered toward the struggling body again and again—
“Oh, my god!” I yelled as Alan let go of me and the dagger both, releasing us from the horrid vision. “What did we just see?”
He frowned and placed the dagger back underneath the glass. “I don’t know. And I don’t know if I want to know. I’m fairly certain this blade was used to murder someone, or something.”
“What do you mean something? Like a vampire?”
He shrugged. “Maybe.” He looked visibly shaken by what we’d seen. “We should stop, Madison. We’re prying into things that we don’t even know what are ... who knows what else we might accidentally stumble upon?”
“No,” I said stubbornly and shut the closet door. “I’m not giving up.”
There weren’t many places left to search. I sent Alan to check the desk again, even though we’d already been through everything on top and inside it. He looked like he was starting to get tired of searching, but continued anyway. I went to Artemis’s dresser and started shuffling through the contents.
“Just clothes,” I mumbled as I went through the top left drawer. “More clothes ... and more clothes. Wait. What’s this?”
Concealed within the third drawer, beneath a layer of neatly folded laundry, I uncovered an ornate wooden box. Carved into the top of the wood was an inscription, bu
t I couldn’t decipher the words. I popped the top open and looked inside. There were a couple of rings, and some necklaces. One of them was a Celtic talisman — a leather necklace with a knotted Pentacle dangling at the end. Observing it in my hand, I turned toward Alan and said, “This one. This is it.”
He looked at me skeptically, his arm still searching through a drawer. “Why that one?”
“I don’t know, but it is. I can feel it. I just know,” I said, wishing it didn’t sound as stupid to him as it did to me.
“Madison,” he said wearily and stood up, “this is enough. There’s nothing here about Mathias. Let’s just get out of here before Artemis comes back and has us both exiled or something.”
A look of horror flashed across my face at the thought. Could he really do that? Would he? I pushed those thoughts aside and refocused on the present.
“No. Please. Just try this one; it will be the last one ... even if it doesn’t show us anything. I promise. Please.”
Alan looked apprehensive, then shut the desk drawer and came over to me. “This is not good for my energy, either, I hope you realize that.”
“I know,” I said guiltily. “I’ll make this up to you somehow, I promise.”
He smiled weakly and looked at the necklace in my hand. The smile faded. “A Celtic Pentacle?”
“I guess? Does that mean something?”
“It’s a symbol for a lot of things ... it can represent the stages of life — birth, youth, adulthood, old age, and finally, death. It also represents the elements,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t ever remember seeing Artemis wearing this.”
“Maybe it was a gift?” I suggested. “It doesn’t really matter ... let’s just get this through with.”
At that, he nodded and laid out his palm. I placed the talisman in his hand, then pressed mine over it.
Artemis — older than in the vision of his acceptance as a Clan leader — was walking hurriedly alongside a vacant street late at night. There was a flush of red in his cheeks and sweat beaded on his forehead, and the Celtic talisman was visible around his throat. He was heavily breathing as if he’d been at this pace for a long time, trying to get away from or to something or somewhere. Somehow, his thoughts filled my mind.
“What am I doing?” he thought frantically, “I can’t do this. No. I have to. I can’t let him have him. I can’t return him to the hospital. His mother is dead ... his father cannot, by any means, have him. Oh, God. I cannot keep him to myself or else he will find out. What can I do ...?”
His feet continued pushing him speedily along the length of the cracked cement, and it was only then that it occurred to me that he was holding something in his arms.
Up ahead was a large building, standing out among the unlit buildings surrounding the edges of the street, a tall tower with a cross on it reaching high into the night sky.
“This … this is a sign. It must be. Why else would I stumble upon such a place as this, in a time like this?”
He stood at the front of the building, his eyes lowered and gazing at the bundle in his arms. I saw then that it was a baby, sleeping cozily and oblivious to what was happening. He appeared hesitant, struggling to decide whether to leave the child or not.
“I cannot possibly ... but I must. For his sake, this must be done,” he thought and finally approached the door. He laid the blanketed child upon the mat and knelt down beside it. With the tenderness of a father, he planted a kiss upon the child’s head and said, aloud, “This is not a farewell, my nephew. I will see you again ... someday. I promise you that.”
Standing and reaching upward, he grasped a bronze knocker and slammed it against the door, startling the child awake. The baby’s cries filled my ears and two brilliant green eyes looked up through the infant’s now-open lids.
My eyes met Alan’s as we both exited the vision; his eyes were as wide as mine felt.
“Artemis ...” he said almost inaudibly. “Artemis is Mathias’s uncle ...?”
Chapter Twenty-One
Alan and I rushed to make sure that everything was back in its rightful place before we rushed out of Artemis’s chambers, ran down the hall, and went into my room. Breathing heavily, I flung myself at my bed and stared up at the ceiling. So many things had gone through my mind after witnessing that vision, but I had yet to speak a word. I wanted to wait until we were out of there, away from the possibility of Artemis bursting in and catching us. Alan sat cautiously at the edge of my bed, turned toward me.
“That’s what you thought, too, right?” he asked. “That the baby ... that was Mathias. I mean, I know eyes can change but … that was him …”
“It’s exactly what I thought,” I murmured and put an arm over my eyes, blocking out any and all light. “How ... why would he choose to abandon him at that place? He just left him there on the doorstep … a baby!”
“He was obviously afraid of someone ...”
“But who? And why?”
“Sadly, the visions don’t answer all of our questions. But now we have the answer to one of them.”
“Not the one I originally had …” I moved my arm to look at him.
“What I wonder, though, is why their last names are not the same?”
“Not all uncles are from the father’s side …”
“True. It seems sort of odd, however.”
I sat up and gasped. “You know, I don’t think Mathias knows that he is related to him. He never mentioned it at all. Artemis has been hiding it all these years for some reason …”
Alan nodded thoughtfully and laid back against the mattress, parallel to me. I didn’t say anything or stop him; instead I returned to my resting position and let out a long sigh. What reason could Artemis have had to leave poor helpless baby Mathias at that place? None of it added up.
“He left him there ... only to pick him back up years later?” I said aloud, although I had mostly been talking to myself, trying to sort through my thoughts.
“He was protecting him. That’s the only thing I can gather. Maybe he hoped that after time, whoever he was protecting him from would no longer be searching? They’d give up and when he did finally bring Mathias back, it would seem like he was just another random witch child placed under his watch … not a relative.”
“That makes sense, sort of … I guess …” I turned onto my side to face him. “It’s all just so weird. And we still didn’t find anything out about his condition.”
“Maybe we don’t need to, Madison. If I wasn’t sure of it before, I am now. Artemis is doing everything he can to help Mathias ... for goodness’ sake, the boy’s his nephew. Artemis might as well be Mathias’s dad, and underneath his cool, calm exterior, he’s probably panicking more than you are.”
“You’re probably right,” I said and exhaled. I didn’t want him to be right. I just wanted answers and for Mathias to be free from confinement. “Thanks for helping me.”
“You say that as if you had given me a choice. You’re stubborn,” he said and laughed, “but persistent. I admire that.”
My cheeks warmed and I looked away. “It’s what you do when you care for someone.”
“When you care for someone the way that you care for Mathias.”
A sigh escaped my lips and I turned my eyes toward him again. “I feel ... worried, concerned, afraid, and unprotected. That’s how I feel. Yes, I care for him — more than I do most people ... but that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t do this for any other member.”
“Would you for, let’s say ... Castus Palmer?” he suggested with a twinkle of amusement in his eyes.
I laughed and thought of Noah and his perverse jokes. “Sure. He’s a Clan member, too.”
“Would you have sacrificed all of that time, dedicated all of that effort, and risked being possibly Exiled … for me?”
The amusement left his eyes. All that was left was hope and curiosity.
“I … of course I would. You think I would for someone like Noah but not you?” I stated firmly.
“No ... no. Absolutely not.”
“Then how do you view me?”
I was speechless and unsure. How was I supposed to answer that? I couldn’t just open my mouth and declare that I found him handsome and admirable and intriguing in every way. That I loved the way his dark hair curled ever so slightly at the base of his neck. That I admired his dedication to tidiness and dressing well. That I was fascinated by his unique ability that I had taken advantage of …
“Oh, Alan,” I groaned and ran my hand over my face in dread. “I used you. Your gift, I mean ... all that time in Artemis’s room, all of that energy.”
Alan gazed at me tenderly, his eyes once more holding that twinkle. “It was not time wasted, I assure you. You may have deliberately used me for my gift, but I was happy to help. Perhaps not at first, as I was reluctant and afraid for what might happen if Artemis had walked in on us ... but in the end, I am grateful to have been with you.”
“You have a way with words,” I said quietly, admiring his face and how near to me he was in that moment.
“I was raised by nannies and tutors who were particular about everything in my life. Vocabulary, manners, appearance — these were all things that were drilled into me my entire life. My mom would have had it no other way.”
I carefully took his hand in mine and gripped it tightly. “I’m sorry, that you lost her, and your dad.”
“It is nothing to apologize for. There will be a day where I finally find the item that holds the key to unveiling the truth behind their deaths, and when I do … nothing will stop me from righting it.”
“I hope that you do find it … and that I am there to help.”
He smiled at me, and I was once more aware of just how close we were. Mathias’s face flashed before my eyes even as Alan’s lips crushed against mine with heated desire. I laced my fingers through his hair and pulled away slightly, breathing in the scent of him. I smiled as he closed his eyes and kissed me again, then they fluttered open. He frowned and pushed himself off.
