I’d flown us right back down. It was horrible. All those people were melting into smoke. They screamed and pleaded for my mother to help them, to save them.
“I promise,” she’d cried. “I’ll fix this!”
But she never got the chance.
She hadn’t kept that promise.
Julian got in the way.
Those holographic images flashed into my mind, and I balled my hands into fists. I was glad to know how my mother died, but the knowledge hurt. Ignorance surely was bliss, except you never learned that until it was too late.
Tegan’s magic hadn’t shown me how my father died, but I already knew. Every Coven member knew the story of the Emperor killing Micah Proctor, my father, right in our front yard. But no one had known that he’d met Julian out here to buy my mom and us some time.
And it was that reason that I was still outside.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to relive those moments. That fear. That pain in my father’s eyes as he said goodbye to Hope and me before he raced out the front door to meet Julian, knowing full well he wouldn’t win. I hadn’t understood that back then, but I did now.
As a tear escaped my eyes and slid down my cheek, I regretted coming here. A large, warm hand landed on my shoulder, and I sighed, letting my eyes fall closed.
Kessler, my adoptive father, squeezed my shoulder. “Why are you out here?”
“I didn’t want to do this. Not alone,” I heard myself whisper.
“You are not alone.” His voice was low and rough.
“Not even close,” Tegan whispered and took my hand in both of hers. “We’re right here with you.”
My pulse skipped. “Who else is here?”
“No one. Just us three,” she said softly.
Relief washed through me. I didn’t want anyone else to watch me fall apart. Not anymore than they already had.
“Babe, you don’t have to go in. Not right away if you don’t want to.” She leaned into me, and the warmth of her body thawed out some of the bitter cold in my heart. “But we’ll go with you whenever you are ready.”
I nodded then glanced up at my adoptive father. “Have you been inside since…since…”
He frowned and shook his head. “I… Once.”
For a few long minutes, I just stared at the door wondering if I should go in. I wasn’t ready to face it, but I didn’t think I could feel any worse. And maybe, just maybe, there would be something inside that could help us. Either to defeat Joseph or find my sister. So finally, I gave in and walked up the brick path to the door. It was locked, but one zap of my magic and the door flew open. And as it slammed into the wall, my breath left me in a rush.
It looked exactly the way we’d left it.
I stepped inside, and my heart climbed up my throat. My stomach turned. Hundreds of scents slammed into me at once, and I recognized every single one. Everything looked the same. Our rain boots sat in their spot on the floor to my left, right next to the door and covered in dust and old mud. Next to them were Hope’s broken flip-flops; she’d broken them when she’d tripped and dropped the kite. Past those, farther to the left, our kitchen counters held stacks of books, dirty dishes, and vials. Over on my right, the massive brick fireplace still had Mom’s cauldron hanging over a pile of wood. Mom loved making new potions.
I took a deep breath then walked forward. The old hardwood floors creaked under my weight. I made it a few feet into the living room, and then the flood of memories froze me in my tracks. My chest tightened and my lungs seized. My heart pounded and my pulse thundered through my veins. I choked on a gasp. The world was crashing in around me.
This is too much.
No one had touched a thing in twelve years. Hope’s sippy cup was still on the floor, open with the lid off. Our little plastic dinner plates sat on the coffee table in front of me, the food long since eaten. The remote for the TV was in between, in a perfect, reachable place for both of us. The TV was off, but I wondered if I hit power, if the Disney movie we’d been watching on our VCR would still be playing.
It felt like a time capsule. Nothing had changed. It was like someone had hit pause and forgot to resume play.
The only thing different was the dust.
Even the broken wooden rocking chair was there. The one Kessler had accidentally broken the night before my life was ruined. He’d been playing too rough with me and landed on the chair, and it snapped in half under his weight.
Kessler broke that.
Kessler.
My adoptive father.
The man who raised me since my parents died.
Raw, hot emotions surged inside me like a volcano. I spun around to face him and pointed to the broken chair.
“How did you not know who I was?” I yelled, but my voice cracked.
His eyes were sad and red. “I don’t understand it either.”
“You were our favorite babysitter. You watched us like every other day! How…how did you not recognize me?” Tears burned my eyes. A ball formed in my throat.
His amber eyes filled with tears. He shook his head, and his bottom lip trembled. “I don’t know. I see you now. You look exactly like you— I just…”
“It was part of your mother’s spell,” Tegan said softly. She wrapped her arms around her waist and shuddered. Her black eyeliner was smudged under her eyes like rivers from crying. “She put a glamour on you so that no one would recognize you even while you looked exactly like yourself. She clearly didn’t want anyone else to figure out who you were. Powerful magic. Your mother was crazy good.”
I groaned and dropped down onto my old couch, and dust flew up around me.
My father sat in front of me on the coffee table, then leaned forward and put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “I’m glad it was me who found you.”
My heart swelled with pain, but I felt hollow inside. “I recognized you… When I looked up and saw you, I didn’t remember you, but I felt like I knew you, like I could trust you.”
His lips mashed into a straight line. He shook his head and looked away from me, and his grip on my shoulder tightened.
“Do you—" I cleared my throat and forced myself to ask this next question. “D-do you remember Hope?”
He nodded immediately, a small smirk pulling at his lips, and he chuckled but it sounded pained. “Your mini-me? Yeah. Yeah, I remember her. She always demanded to do everything you did.”
Fresh tears pooled in my eyes, and my vision went blurry. He was right. My little sister had been my shadow. We’d been inseparable. We’d been best friends. She was always insistent that if I could do it, then she could too. And I always helped her prove it. I stared down at her empty cup, and my body began to tremble. I missed her so much it hurt to breathe. I just kept seeing her little face in that raft as she floated down the river away from us.
“Have you seen her?”
My father frowned.
“Now that the spell is gone and you recognize me…can you remember seeing her anywhere?”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. “No. I’ve been going through every single face I’ve seen in twelve years, hoping I had met her without knowing it, but I don’t see her anywhere.”
Tegan cleared her throat. “There’s probably a different spell on Hope, so she may not be free to be seen yet,” she whispered. Her pale eyes bounced around our little house.
I knew she was scanning for clues. And I wanted her to. Because there was no way I was going to see anything but blinding pain. There were too many memories in here. Sure, there were years of great, happy memories, but now it was all tainted by that one night. A few minutes had ruined everything.
That last night… I wished I couldn’t remember it so clearly. I’d been sitting on the floor, right between where my boots were now. Hope had been next to me, as she always was. We’d been watching Beauty and the Beast, because Hope said we were like Belle and Beast. She was a calm book lover, and I was wild and always a mess.
“Tenn?” my father whis
pered and ducked his head. “Talk to us.”
“She’d been teasing me about my hair. Hope.” I shook my head and looked to the dust-covered plates on the table on either side of him. Then I stared at her empty cup next to my foot. “Mom was making me a drink. She used to make all kinds of fun flavored stuff for us. Dad came running through the house with his swords. I— I heard Julian yelling from outside…”
“He was yelling?”
I nodded and traced my Emperor’s Mark on my arm. The Mark Julian had had. “I hadn’t known at the time. I’d asked my father why, but he never answered me. But I get it now. He’d been across the street at his sister’s house, thinking she’d been killed. He was screaming, but it was not in anger.”
Kessler groaned.
I squeezed my eyes shut as the memories replayed. “I’d jumped up and run to the window, and I saw Julian throwing things. I think it was the pieces of the fence out front. Dad— Dad pulled me away from the window then. He hugged me tight and said…”
“You don’t have to repeat it,” he whispered.
“He stormed out the door… I never saw my father again.” I cringed and a tear dropped to the hardwood floor between my boots. “When I turned back around, Hope was sound asleep on the floor. I ran over to her, because it was too early for her to have fallen asleep, but Mom scooped her up and threw her half over her shoulder. She took my hand and pulled me out the back door with her…and then…we ran.”
My chest rumbled and my eyes burned like flames were pouring from them. A sob ripped up my throat. And I just lost it. I leaned forward until I crashed into his chest. His arms wrapped around me without hesitation. He didn’t say anything as I cried into his shirt; he just held on to me…like he always did. After he’d found me, I’d done a lot of crying in his arms. I hated it. I hated how much it hurt. Even then, when I didn’t understand why I was hurting, I’d hurt just like this. I had no idea how I’d managed to grow so numb to it over the years.
The couch dipped next to me, and then Tegan’s arms wrapped around my stomach. She leaned into me, lying on my back and pressing her face to my body. For a few moments, or maybe it was hours, no one spoke. The two of them just held on to me like they knew I was losing grip.
And then, Tegan whispered against my back, “Hope wasn’t asleep.”
I gasped and pulled back to look at her.
She grimaced and held up a sippy cup. “This was yours, wasn’t it?”
It was my cup. The one my mom had left on the counter when we fled. The one I’d never gotten that night. I nodded and more tears pooled in my eyes. I wasn’t sure why she was showing me this.
She unscrewed the top, then held it up under my nose.
My breath left me in a rush. It smelled like metal and acid.
Then she held it under Kessler’s nose. He sat up straight, and his eyes widened.
“I went and looked when you said she’d been making you a drink.” Tegan nodded and screwed the top back on the cup. “This is a potion, a really, really insanely strong one.”
I opened my mouth then shut it.
She bent down and picked Hope’s cup up off the floor, then lifted it to her nose and sniffed. “Same stuff was in here. Your sister wasn’t asleep. She was under a spell. Your mother must have known what was coming, so she was prepared. But it must’ve happened too soon because she didn’t have time to give you your potion.”
Kessler cursed and scrubbed his face. “I thought it was a drink. God, I didn’t even think about that. No one even checked the contents.”
Tegan shrugged. “I think she designed it that way, a little spell to stop you from doing so. To protect them. That’s why she put the spell on them in the first place. This was supposed to be for you, Tenn. That’s why she had to improvise with the spell by the river. That’s why you still remembered that night. Your sister… She’s under a much stronger spell, your mother’s full strength.”
Tears rolled down my face. I didn’t know how to feel about that, or what to think. It didn’t make any sense. I had so many questions, but I’d never get those answers because the only people who could answer them were gone.
“Can you reverse it?” I heard myself ask.
Tegan grimaced. “Not by myself. I need to talk to Henley.”
Chapter Twenty
Bettina
I shivered and leaned into Jackson’s side. We were back in Headquarters, as Constance ordered. Jackson and I were sitting in front of the fireplace…but I just felt cold. Like deep down into my soul. My eyes throbbed and burned from crying.
I just kept thinking about Timothy.
And his story. Their story. I remember vividly the pain in his eyes and his voice. I’d seen how much he cared for Tenn—a person I hadn’t even realized I’d met yet—and I heard him talking about him. All this time and Tenn was right there, and he didn’t know how much his uncle loved him. All this time Tenn thought he was alone, family-less…and his uncle was right there. That was the part I didn’t understand. What would make Timothy lie to his own nephew? There had to be a good reason. I saw myself how much it was hurting him; no one did that to themselves voluntarily.
“So…do we call him Haven now?” Royce asked in a soft voice. His eyes were red. “I mean, if that’s his name?”
Henley pinched the bridge of her nose. “I think we’ll have to ask him.”
“But for now, we should just act as normal as possible.” Deacon sighed. “Right, Coop?”
Cooper closed his eyes. “I don’t know. I just…don’t know.”
“This is not going to be easy for him,” Hunter said softly from the couch. He hung his head. “For any of us.”
Devon slammed her hand down on the back of the couch behind Hunter. “None of this makes any sense!” She cursed then started to pace, shaking her head the whole time. “For twelve years, we’ve seen him, talked to him, tended to him, and not one of us recognized him? Kessler found him in the damn woods that are walkable for us. How did we not put this together?”
Hunter shook his head. “There are a lot more questions to this than we even realize. I just hope we somehow figure out the answers. For his sake, at the very least.”
“So his real name is Haven…” Chutney frowned. “What’s his last name?”
“Proctor,” Hunter said with a sigh. “Haven Proctor.”
Jackson sat up straighter, his grip on my hand loosening. “As in…Kenneth Proctor?”
Deacon narrowed his eyes.
Emersyn shook her head. “Wait…Proctor…as in Myrtle, Saffie, and Leyka Proctor?”
Cooper’s face fell, and he stood straight.
“Yes.” Constance sighed and rubbed her red eyes. “They were all related—”
“Wait, what?” Royce tugged on his hair. “HOW?”
Smoke billowed up from the hardwood floors, and we all gasped and jumped up—and then Tegan appeared.
“Bloody hell, woman,” Jackson mumbled and sat back down.
I put my hand over my racing heart and looked up at my best friend. She was an absolute mess. I’d never seen her like this. Her eyes were red and puffy. Her black eyeliner was smudged all over her face. Her black and purple hair looked like a tornado had ripped through it. She grimaced and clutched something to her chest.
He is NOT okay, Tegan said into our minds. Her pale green eyes were wide and darting across the room. Just act normal. Be cool, or I will portal you into the Unseelie realm. GOT IT?
Everyone nodded.
She sighed and ran one hand through her tousled hair. Then I saw it. The object clutched to her stomach. It was a blue sippy cup.
I frowned. What’s the story there?
The front door flew open, and Kessler filled the doorway. If possible, he looked even worse than Tegan. It was the haunted expression in his golden eyes that rattled me. He frowned and nodded, then stepped inside. A dark wave of energy rolled in behind him, and then Tennessee slowly walked through the door. His long black hair fell in his face, and it was wil
dly curly and tangled in knots. He held himself tight. I saw it in the tension of his shoulders and felt it in the magic radiating off of him.
My bottom lip trembled and my throat burned. New tears pooled in my eyes. I glanced around, but everyone else seemed to be holding themselves together. I was the only one about to fall apart all over again. But I couldn’t help it. Tennessee had always been a picture of calm, confident strength since the moment I met him—even back at The Gathering. But his skin was too pale. His fingers trembled. His footsteps seemed too hesitant. He didn’t seem like him at all.
I didn’t know why this was affecting me so much more than the others. They knew him longer, so shouldn’t they have been falling apart more? Or maybe that was why they weren’t. Jackson’s warm fingers laced with mine, and then he tugged me back down. As soon as my butt hit the stones, he pulled me flush to his side and wrapped his arm around me. I sighed and leaned into him, then buried my face in his shoulder. His Christmassy scent filled my senses.
The room fell silent.
And then the hardwood floors creaked so loud it made me look up.
Just as Cooper crossed the room. “Screw normal,” he grumbled then fisted Tenn’s shirt and pulled him into his chest. His big, muscled arms wrapped around Tenn’s shoulders tight.
I couldn’t see Tenn’s face, but I did see him lean into Coop.
And that was what did me in. My eyes lost the battle, and tears poured down my face. Goddess, why am I falling apart so much? I didn’t want to upset Tenn, so I turned and buried my face in the crook of Jackson’s neck. He reached up with his free hand and cupped my face. As his lips pressed to my forehead, I felt my pulse slowing back down.
I took deep breaths and counted down from ten. By the time I got to one, I felt a little more in control of myself. But I knew that had nothing to do with breathing and everything to do with Jackson’s arms around me. I would’ve been a mess without him.
I pulled back and looked up just as Cooper stepped away from Tenn. Hunter stood behind them with one hand on Coop’s shoulder and the other on Kessler’s. Golden mist swirled over Tenn, and his breaths evened out.
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