I glance up at the clock. I last saw them three days ago and have heard nothing since they told me to leave. Last night, it became too much. I crept back out to the cabin, but when I waited at the barrier—even when I called him—Sam didn’t come. And something told me he wasn’t there.
Have they run? Did they take my advice and get the fuck out of Phoenix Falls?
The thought makes me both happy and sad. I want Sam and Nova to be safe. I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the others, but I want those two safe. Happy. Together. At the same time, though, the idea I might never see them again makes me want to punch a hole in the wall.
I’m about to do just that when my mother appears in the doorway. She looks exhausted, like she hasn’t slept in days either. Her skin is stretched thin over her angular cheek bones, and she has dark circles beneath her eyes.
“It’s happening tonight,” she says, taking the coffee from my hand and downing it in one gulp. “It’s finally happening. Tonight.”
Icy fingers of dread grip my spine. “What will happen?” I sink down onto one of Mack’s wooden chairs.
“At midnight, Eve will perform the ritual.”
“To bring Elena back?” I ask, swallowing hard as Sam’s face—and the way he looked when I told him our father was planning to resurrect his mother—fills my mind.
Mother shakes her head. Lowering her voice, she sits opposite me. She’s cradling the empty coffee cup, staring into it as if it contains tea leaves that might give her a whisper of hope about the future. “Eve’s ritual will open a portal. The Shadow King will appear. Ragnor will give him Nova’s name and tell him where she is. Then the King will bring Elena back.”
“And then…? The King brings his demon friends to play?”
My tone makes my mother flinch. “This isn’t a game, Nico.” She grabs my hands and clasps them tight between hers, her knuckles whitening with the pressure. “The King will have Nova killed, then he will return for his ascension.”
“Have her killed?” I take back my hands, rubbing them to bring back some feeling. “He won’t do it himself?”
Mother sighs and buries her head in her hands. “Does it matter?” she mutters. “Does any of it matter? When she’s dead, the ascension can begin. When she’s dead, all of this will be over.”
Her tone of voice makes me shudder. I dip my head to meet her eyes. “Do youwantit to be over?” I ask her.
There’s a noise in the hallway. Footsteps, followed by Ragnor’s unmistakable scent. Sitting up straight, Mother rearranges her features and smiles. “I want us to take our rightful place, Nico. With the King. Supers and demons ruling the earth together, while humans languish in pain and torment for the rest of their sorry existence.”
Her tone tells me she means what she’s saying; it’s the same tone Ragnor uses. Defiant, vitriolic, dripping with hate. But her eyes tell me a different story—her eyes say she’s just as scared as I am.
35
NOVA
When we wake, the atmosphere in the tent is strained. What we saw yesterday has brought us closer, but it’s also weighing heavily on our shoulders. Kole, especially, seems more distant. Something happened to him in the forest before we got here, and something happened when he left to speak to his mother. We all know it, and the fact he’s not sharing it with us is creating a strange unspoken tension.
“Seers have their own rules,” Mack tells me as we eat bowls of stewed oats and drink hot sweet coffee. He shifts uncomfortably as he talks, his shoulder still painful after his self-flagellation in the forest yesterday. “Some are a little more relaxed these days but communes like Foresight—people like Kole and Thessaly—they take their obligations very seriously.”
“What does that mean?”
Mack glances over at the empty space where Kole should be sitting. Instead, he’s disappeared once again to speak to his mother. “It means there is a limit to what they can share with us. There are things they can’t tell us, even if they want to.”
I press my lips together. The oatmeal has settled like lead in my stomach. I put my bowl down and stick to the coffee instead. Back in my regular clothes, I feel a little more like myself. The coffee is helping, too.
“It’s nuts.” Sam has eaten everything in his bowl. He’s now sitting cross-legged, shaking his head. “The whole thing. Who made these rules?”
Mack offers him a wry smile. “Remind me and I’ll give you a lecture on it someday. Right now, we should try to be satisfied that Kole has told us all he can.”
There’s a pregnant pause before Sam, looking down into his coffee, says, “What about me?”
I frown at him. “What do you mean?”
“The five of you have magick. The Original Six unleashed magick on the world. We’re supposed to use their energy to defeat Ragnor, right? Only, I’m not a mage. I’m a werewolf. So, what about me? What’s my role in all this?” He smiles a crooked smile at me. “I guess I could be your therapy wolf. Ease your stress with some belly rubs and long walks in the forest. But I’m not sure that’ll help fight the big bad.”
I’m about to reply when I realize I have no idea what to say. Sam’s right; he doesn’t have magick. Trying to paint a light-hearted smile on my face, I tell him, “Maybe you’re supposed to bite me again. Unleash my rage.”
“I could bite you,” Sam counters. “If you want me to.” He raises an eyebrow, then puts his coffee down and crawls over to me. Planting his arms either side of me, he nips at my neck, and I fall back into Mack’s lap, laughing.