It was a good question. The council evicted anyone who didn’t have a guild. Where were they? Still in Guild City?
“Most of them are outcasts now. Nearly all have left town,” she said. “He didn’t even care that his own daughter was in the guild.”
“His daughter?” Excitement thrummed in my chest.
“Yes.” Mrs. Birch-Cleve nodded. “His daughter, Evangeline Rasla. His only child.”
“Why does he hate the Shadow Guild so much?” I asked. “And his own daughter?”
Her eyes shifted left and right. “I’ll confess, I found this information in the tried and true way of all housekeepers. I snooped.”
All right then. Fantastic.
“Rasla should have been in the Shadow Guild,” she continued. “His father was the guild leader, you see, and the Rasla family comes from a long line of those with strange magic. But Councilor Rasla himself—full mage. Nothing unique about him, besides his particular talent for manipulating people’s minds. But he’s not so talented that he could lead, and he couldn’t bear it. Neither a member of the Shadow Guild, nor a leader of his own.”
“And that was enough to make him destroy the Shadow Guild?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Not just that. His father was a hard man. Demanding. Not cruel, not quite. But Councilor Rasla had a terrible relationship with him, ever since the moment he could talk. Those two were ever at odds, I tell you. The fights would do my head in. Vicious, so vicious that they seemed like animals.”
“Which one was in the wrong?” I asked. Was Rasla an abused boy or a bastard?
“Both, if you ask me. Neither man was evil. But combined, they brought out the worst in each other. And when Rasla learned he would never be in the Shadow Guild and that his power was a fraction of his father’s? Well…” She shook her head.
“So Rasla destroyed the Shadow Guild as revenge against his father?” I asked.
She nodded. “Once he joined the Mages’ Guild, he began to work against his father. In small things at first, gradually growing larger. It went on for decades, until finally, his granddaughter was born. That was too much for him.”
“Granddaughter?” Was she the woman I’d seen in my vision? No, Rasla was too young to have a grown granddaughter.
She nodded. “His only daughter had a daughter of her own. When she was born, her magic was unlike anything anyone had ever seen. She can touch a person’s soul. Pull it right out of their body, if she wishes.”
“How old is she?” Grey asked.
“Not more than a year, I’d say.”
“She can do this as a baby?” I asked. “Before she even knows what she’s doing?”
“Yes. She’s never harmed anyone. It is more like…an act of love, I suppose. She fills you with such joy that your soul tries to leave your body to be with her.” She shuddered. “It is an odd feeling—good and bad at the same time. I’ve felt it but once.”
“How did you survive?”
“It wasn’t a forcible thing,” she said. “I could feel my soul moving toward her, and I pulled it back into myself.”
“But that magic must be incredible.” I looked at Grey for confirmation that this was strange.
He nodded.
“It is,” the woman said. “And that baby would lead the Shadow Guild one day, no doubt. He couldn’t bear such a constant reminder of his failure. A short while later, the tower disappeared, and everyone in town acted like it was the most normal thing in the world. He used magic unlike any I’d ever seen, combined with his gift for controlling people’s minds.”
What a bastard.
The woman leaned toward me. “You look quite a lot like her, you know. Rasla’s daughter. The spitting image.”
I’d looked a bit like the woman in my vision. Though I hadn’t been able to see her clearly, the similarities had been there.
She had to have been Rasla’s daughter. Which meant we were related. The seer had said to seek my past, and she’d been right.
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