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“I am no Hoya, Vivian.”

“Then why are these mysterious people trying to kill you?”

“They aren’t going to kill me. They have it wrong. Killian was wrong. If what you say is accurate, they wanted to take me,” I realize. “I put myself in the Lethe. I can feel it in my bones. I know how to bring the Hoyas back, and I wanted to make sure I didn’t do it. Whoever it is probably doesn’t know the full truth. They’ll keep me alive trying to make me talk. Kate may have believed that this prophecy was a good thing, but I think your mother was right. It’s best to leave it all alone.”

“They will save our people and give them equality,” she argues. I see wheels turning in her head. She lived through the last plague, and it affected her. Viv is open minded and accepting, but I can see her softening to this ideology, and that’s dangerous.

“But what about the rest? Maybe they save our people, but there is always another side of the coin. What about the rest of the inhabitants of the Underworld? We have no idea what the oracle actually said.”

“Maybe it’s about destroying the crown, and the ones who supported things like The Burning. The erosion of Magic. It doesn’t have to mean everyone.”

“You can’t pick and choose, Viv. Prophecies are full of loose explanations that are up for interpretation, and the oracles were the only ones able to do so.”

“Well, they’re all dead, so I guess we’ll never know.” She takes a deep breath. “You need to open the box.”

“That’s easy for you to say when you aren’t the one doing the fucking opening.”

“Remember Pandora’s story?”

I do. Pandora’s idiocy ended up damning the rest of the Universe. The claim is that when she opened it, she let all of the evil out into the world and ended up shutting it, leaving Hope inside. While there’s truth to every story, I’m not about to be the next Pandora. There could be horror in there. Is that a chance we really want to take?

“Say I wanted to. I don’t even know how. What if I unleash the worst thing possible? Shit we can’t even dream of?”

“You just said it yourself that the stories Kate read us from that book spoke truth. Look in there.”

“There is a missing half.”

“What?”

“Half of the book is fucking missing,” I whisper angrily. “When I was looking at it in Aedon’s library, I realized it was gone. The pages were torn right out.”

“Kate?”

“No,” I shake my head vehemently. “When she used to teach me Mondurian it was there. She just never let me read it. The last pages that I was allowed to see were about the disappearance of the Hoyas. I was never left alone with that book. Someone gave it to Aedon, and by then the pages were gone.”

“Who gave it to him?”

“I don’t know, but I intend to find out.”

Chapter thirteen

Josephine

After my conversation with Vivian, I feel lost and confused. If the earthquake and all that shit from that awful night was me, then who am I? I’m not a witch. That feels wrong. I don’t feel some hidden Magic pulsing through me, but I do know there is a space for something I don’t recognize. It’s that piece of darkness that sneaks up on me.

It’s demanding and incessantly hungry. The only time it seems satiated is with blood or with Aedon, even though I hate to admit it. His presence, his existence, feeds it. I feel sort of like a normal person when I’m involved with him. The sex was so damn good I felt satisfied and full. The darkness had receded, but now I can feel it roaring with a vengeance now that I’m sure it’s there. It’s no longer willing to take a back seat.

I lay on my floor under the window smoking a cigarette, trying to ignore it. I hold a book over my face and try to read, but I forget each word the moment I register it. Flashes of that night sneak into my vision. I can feel the dreaded cold seep into my bones. The fear that gripped my soul as frost crawled up the windows.

Of course I care, Jo. I care about you. I do everything for you, Killian’s voice echoes in my mind.

“Stop it. Stop it. Stop it,” I tell myself. I grit my teeth and try to read another paragraph.

It’s me. I can’t exist without you. I’m in love with you.

I do my best to focus with renewed energy. My eyes scan the pages faster, and my fingers grip the edges of the paper.

I told you. I’d do anything for you.