Page 33

“How long, Bryn?” Jace demanded, his rage barely contained as he spoke. “How long have you been keeping this secret, and what other secrets have you kept from me?”

Sighing, she sat in one of Sage’s kitchen chairs, the mismatched eclectic collection of muted purples and greens from Tanwen usually gave her a sense of calm. One of only two places she could find reprieve in the drab-brown town, the other being the Sanctuary.

Her calm was lost to her at the look of betrayal in her cousin’s eyes.

“All my life, Jace. The seizures, those are when I have visions of people’s deaths.”

Unable to look at his face, to see the betrayal in his blue eyes, she picked at some of the threads of Sage’s amethyst tablecloth.

To see him judge her as others did... it would break her.

“That’s not fair,” he broke into her thoughts as he kneeled before her. “You’re my family, and you lumped me in with all those who judged you. I would love you no matter what, and I would have been here for you if you had given me a chance.” His eyes shimmered, but she knew now it wasn’t his own hurt he was emotional over, or not all of it anyway. “I hate that you lived every day in hell, and there was no one at your side to weather it with you.”

His hands folded over hers, not caring if she pulled away. He needed that connection, and to be honest, so did she.

“What else?” he demanded, though it was a demand built on concern and kindness. “What else don’t I know?”

Bryn opened her mouth, the urge to spill every grizzly detail of how his mother had harmed her, both physically and emotionally when he wasn’t around. The excuses she made so he didn’t know who his mother truly was beneath the surface.

That him being an apprentice to her father, having taken the role her father had promised she would fulfill when she was younger, had made it where he was hardly around in those days.

That in and of itself gave Mallory time for her abuse, which made it feel like it was a cosmic punishment for her own failure as a healer. All hinged on her guilt that he had to take that job so they could stay in Ifreann made it easier to justify keeping the secret from him. That somehow she deserved it because she had let her family down when they needed her.

That was her penance since she was the one who had failed her family because she was broken inside.

It was easy to lie when she thought it would save him from the horrible truth.

“Found it!” Sage yelled out, oblivious to the seriousness of the conversation happening at her dining room table.

Bryn withdrew her hands, giving Jace a small smile. His eyes warned her that this conversation wasn’t close to being over.

But it was. She had been almost weak enough to tell him, to change his relationship with the only other family member he had, and with her. As much as she wanted to share her burden with him, she feared what would happen.

Bryn feared deep down how much it would change their own relationship. He was all she had left.

Standing and turning, she walked into the small living area where Sage already had several books open and was moving between them all.

“She always like this at home?” Jace asked, watching her with a small, infatuated smile. Oh, he was in so deep with her. Bryn almost smirked at the thought before Sage slammed a book shut, bringing their attention back to her.

“I found it!” She jumped, grabbing another book, and running around the couch to sit. Placing the open tome in her lap, she patted both sides of her on the couch in invitation for them to sit.

Taking the order, they sat next to her, seeing a large drawing of a tree taking up the two open pages.

“It’s a tree,” Jace stated, his voice indicating how very unimpressed he was at her revelation.

“The tree of life! So many mythologies have something similar, but this one is specific to Celtic mythology, which of course...” Turning the page as she trailed off, the next one held the words “Tuatha Dé Danann” and the pantheon of the Celtic gods.

There were not any photos, and not a ton of information for them to go on, but there were descriptions of powers next to the names.

Bryn’s eyes caught on Dagda, and it was just as Danu had said. Declan seemed to have a propensity toward the ancient god’s gifts.

“This is all too surreal. None of this makes sense to me, I am sorry. It’s...” Jace stood to start his pacing that Bryn lovingly referred to as Jace’s dance of anxiety.

“It is, but there are not a lot of alternatives to explain everything,” Bryn replied as Sage moved her finger along the page.

“Visions of death. . .,” Sage murmured, and Bryn wished it was all a ruse then. The truth she had sought out was in front of her, andnowshe was scared to grab hold of it. Not to mention how uncomfortable it was to speak about a secret she’d kept to herself for so very long. “The Morrigan!”

“Does she always randomly yell out bits and pieces of what she reads?” Jace asked as he settled into a chair across from them.