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Of course, he did.

Panic returned, seizing its cold hand around my throat, and squeezing it shut. I suddenly lost the ability to speak. All I could do was think frantic, rapid, messy thoughts. How was I supposed to tell my father I had lost it? How was I supposed to tell him how exactly I had lost it?

If anyone had the power and the ability to retrieve it, it was probably my father. I had to tell him. I had to rip the band-aid— “It’s gone,” I said, shutting my eyes and bracing myself.

“Gone?” he asked. “Where?”

“I don’t know. I’m sorry. I was drunk and… it must have broken off my chain somewhere.”

I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting him to do next, but the utter silence that followed was the worst possible outcome. He had no reply for what I had said. Instead, I felt the steady pull of the car’s engine as my father squeezed his foot against the gas pedal. I heard the engine roar, and the quiet drive we had been having vanished, replaced instead by a rush of lights and screeching tires.

My father didn’t seem to hit a single red-light on our way out of the city. It was as if the road was his, entirely. Once we’d gotten past Cambridge and put the rest of the city behind us, he picked up his phone, blindly picked a contact, and placed the phone against his ear.

“Persephone,” he simply said, and he hung up. I wasn’t sure who he had called, or why he’d said that word. He clearly wasn’t in the mood to fill me in.

“Dad?” I asked.

He didn’t answer.

I didn’t ask another question. Instead, I sat quietly in the back seat, with a block of ice wedged firmly in the pit of my stomach. Since I had used my aunt’s amulet to get to and from the city, I had no real sense of exactly how secluded our mansion was from Boston proper. Still, the ride didn’t seem long enough.

Before I knew it, we were rolling through a stretch of lonely road with a vista that was all too familiar. My father rocked up to the main gate, which opened for him without any issues. I felt a rush of magic wash over me soon as the car crossed the mansion’s perimeter, and I knew, we were on the other side of my family’s defensive spells again.

By the time we reached the fountain at the front of the house, the mansion’s dark façade looming high against the even darker night sky above and beyond it, the front door was already open… and my mother was standing there.

My father stopped the car. I felt his eyes summon me again, and I didn’t have a choice but to look at his reflection in the rearview mirror.

“Get inside,” he said. “Leave your brother.”

I wanted to ask why, but I didn’t. Instead, I exited the car. I saw my father pull away, then make a left turn around the mansion. He was headed for the garage. I, meanwhile, was left standing in my mother’s long, long shadow. The door to the mansion was open, and she was standing in its light, a shawl wrapped around her neck, her dressing gown pinched tightly closed.

She, like my father, had these intense eyes, only hers were loud where his were quiet.

I walked up to her, with my tail between my legs. She scanned me up and down. “I thought I raised you better than this,” she simply said.

Ouch.

I bit my tongue. I didn’t have a reply for her. Instead, I walked inside, following my father’s instructions. I didn’t go into the main room, or the kitchen, or the study. I headed straight for my room, shut the door, and locked it—not that a simple lock would’ve done much good if they wanted to get to me.

Sitting down on my bed, in the silence and the dark, I couldn’t help but feel like I had failed them. Not just my father and my mother, but Max, too. There was nothing left to do now but shower, and sleep, if I could… and hope my father was able to fix the mistake I had made.

Chapter

Five

Iwoke up the next morning only to find the house quieter than usual. I usually woke up pretty early, but thanks to last night’s escapades, I’d slept in. I had expected to leave my room and find Max at the breakfast table, but the table was empty, and there were no signs of a breakfast having ever occurred here.

The stillness was unsettling, but worse were the feelings of guilt and shame that started to bubble up—my parents were probably still out trying to fix my mess. Instead of letting the worry eat away at me in the vacuous kitchen, I decided to head toward the gymnasium on the other side of the mansion.

The main room, and every other room I passed, were also eerily empty.

There were no signs of life; no family, no staff, no nothing. I felt like I was alone in this massive house, and maybe I was. I hadn’t checked on Max earlier, and I hadn’t exactly gone looking for my father or mother.

In fact, I’d kind of snuck out of my room in my gym clothes, my hair held in a high pony-tail, with the intention of avoiding encounters with anyone on the way down here. I hadn’t realized it was going to be as easy as it had been.

Shaking my head, I continued on my way to our gymnasium, shutting the door once I was inside. The automatic lights flickered on for me once I entered, illuminating a large room filled with enough gym equipment to put even a modest sized commercial gym to shame. Each of the members of my family could work out in here at the same time without encroaching on the others’ space.

I seemed to be the only one who used it, though. I didn’t mind that much. The gym was my place, my special, quiet area I could go to, put some music on, and lose myself in a bit of physical exercise.