Page 97 of Ascendant King

Cade nodded dully. He dragged a finger over the spine of one of the notebooks before handing them to me. “There was one house that agreed to research with him and sent an envoy.” Cade looked up. “House Morrison.”

Chapter

Thirty-Two

We searched for more evidence, but other than the corpses and vials filled with the poison, there was little to find. Craig Kaur’s evidence was marked on flash drives that Cade pocketed, but given how Leon had disposed of him, I doubted that his discoveries were any more shocking than what we’d already read.

Jesaiah waited patiently by the entryway, staring straight ahead, mouth going slack the longer he stood. I couldn’t bring myself to try to speak with him again. Guilt ate at me, clenching my stomach, twisting until I turned away from him.

When Cade had collected all the notebooks, he handed half to me, and we followed Jesaiah through the portal. In the warm light of Leon’s house, Jesaiah’s skin looked even worse, greenish, tinged by death. He was a puppet kept dancing on a stage by strange magic that not even Cade recognized.

I squeezed the notebooks in my hands tightly. “Do you think it’s the poison?”

Cade blinked, turning to look at me, his brows pulled together. “What?”

“Do you think that the reason Jesaiah is like this, the reason he’s still up and around despite the fact that he’s dead is because of the poison? Leon said he could use it to control supernatural creatures.” I stopped because we were tiptoeing up to a line that Cade and I had both crossed several times tonight, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to bring him to the edge again.

“Yes. That might make sense. His experiments on Jesaiah were extensive. If he was able to control Jesaiah the same way he could control…” Cade dropped his eyes, swallowing audibly, “your parents, then perhaps even in death he can push Jesaiah’s body to do what he wants.”

“Larissa talked about losing her consort like it was losing part of her soul, losing part of who she was. Maybe it was too difficult for Leon to let Jesaiah go.” I stared at Jesaiah’s back. He had frozen in the middle of the hall, almost as though he heard us talking about him, but he made no move to acknowledge our words.

I wanted to give Leon at least that much credit, at least the grace of having some human emotion for the man who had pledged his life to him. But I also knew exactly what Leon had done.

“Perhaps.” Cade’s voice cracked, and I turned back to him to see the expression on his face broken. Tears dripped from his eyes, although he didn’t raise his hand to wipe them.

I dropped the journals I was holding and wrapped my arms around him as he shuddered, his breath coming uneven. “My whole life… My father did this. It was his fault. If he only had cut off his magic or taken a consort, none of this would have happened.”

I squeezed him tighter. “You didn’t know.”

“I knew enough,” Cade snapped. There was enough fire in it that I drew back just slightly, looking down at him. But his anger was turned inward. “I’m still not sure of the mechanics of it, butI think my father was too greedy. By feeding his magic directly into the ley lines, he created a direct connection. Allowing him to drink from the source.”

I frowned, trying to make sense of it. “But you said that mages collect their magic ambiently. They aren’t able to get their magic directly from ley lines.”

“Exactly. I think—” Cade turned his face into my chest, rubbing his wet eyes and nose on my shirt. I could feel his hot breath against my chest as he inhaled, gasping. “—he was using the ley lines like a consort, feeding it directly, drinking from it directly. Somehow, that caused this poison, a feedback loop, maybe. Either way, he was hurting our house, and he refused to acknowledge it. He let Leon have free rein with it until Leon’s own greed got the better of him.”

Cade exhaled, shivering, the sharp edges of the books he held digging into my stomach.

“I spent so long hating wolves, blaming your family for what happened to mine when the reality was my father’s greed and blindness orphaned both of us. If it wasn’t for my father, your mother would still be alive.” Cade tried to pull back, but I held him tighter, unable to look at his face.

I couldn’t speak because I knew what he was saying was true. The magic of it eluded me. I didn’t understand it, but I had seen the same evidence he had, and I knew what happened under the poison’s enchantment. I had wanted to murder Cade, to tear him limb from limb.

Not even my love for him had been able to stop me. What chance had my mother had to resist the power of the poison when controlled by Leon?

“What happened to our parents wasn’t us.” I kept my words even, ignoring the pit in my own stomach. “And knowing where they went wrong means that we can build a better future with each other. Together.”

This time, I let Cade pull back, letting him meet my eyes. Whatever he saw in them made his shoulders drop. He wasn’t quite able to smile, but the grimace looked less painful.

“If we are going to have a better future, we need to rid the ley lines of this poison.” Cade stepped back, and I bent down to pick up the books I had dropped. “The dryads said it was possible. They said the last time a poison like this was created, they burned the forest to destroy it.”

“How do we do that?” I asked. “The poison isn’t just here. Even if we burned the Bartlett forest, we’d have to burn the whole city of Los Santos along with it.”

The front door opened, and wolves rushed into the house. Nia was at the front, and she jerked to a halt when she saw Jesaiah. Her eyes went wide, mouth dropping open. She reached out with a hand before curling it into a fist. I stepped in front before she could touch what was left of him.

“It’s all right. He led us to where Leon was doing his experiments.” The wolves behind her were panting, clearly ready for a fight.

Nia’s eyes dragged over me before focusing over my shoulder to where Jesaiah stood. I heard him move, his feet dragging as he stepped into another room, pots clattering, a burner turning on in the kitchen.

Nia used both of her hands, slicing back and forth through the air in a gesture I had quickly learned meantWhat?