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Chapter 25

Irredeemable

~VELIS~

Earlier That Day

In my oldest brother’s bedroom, I collect one of the feathers from a pile and tuck it into my pocket to show Arrik later. I take out my Ray and send him a hasty message:

‘Tied up in something. Keep her busy. I’ll be back soon.’

I don’t wait to see his response.

Beckham’s room looks the same as it has since we were children, meticulously decorated by manor maids to compensate for his lack of hobbies and personality. I swat the pile of feathers aside, checking for anything beneath.

Nothing.

I rip open his bureau, shoving aside hanging suits and old classroom uniforms. A flash of memory strikes—Beckham, smug in these clothes, mocking me in front of pure-blooded cultists.

I freeze.

Then, without warning, blue flames erupt from my fingertips, engulfing the entire wardrobe in a blaze of power. The explosion rocks the room, incinerating everything in its path.

I stare at the smoking remnants, my fingers still crackling with energy.

A snap, and the destruction reverses, charred debris reforming into furniture, as if nothing happened.

Nothing here is useful.

I step back, slamming the bureau door shut.

Whatever game Beckham is playing, it ends today. I can’t be sure if Cal’s luck is still with me, but I lean into his mantra, letting my instincts guide me. My feet carry me toward the door, a surge of purpose pulling me outside once again.

I hurry through the manor, this time letting myself be clearly seen by any domestics I know are under my brothers’ thumbs, hoping they’ll leak my location and lure Beckham back to me.

I reach the gardens, where only a few workers remain, the low sun casting warm light on the back of my neck. I wander past the untended snapdragons, grape trellises, and fields of Wistestria flowers.

Then it hits me—a sudden, intense cluster of emotions nearby. I immediately turn invisible, hugging the manor wall as I sneak toward the wide windows of the ballroom where my coronation was held.

Given the sociopathic nature of my family, they’ve always been especially hard to read—Beckham most of all. So it’s truly unbelievable that the sense of wonder I’m feeling is coming from him . Beckham, sitting in the ballroom, wearing one of those ridiculous beanies from the human realm, with a tiny glass vial pinched between his thumb and forefinger.

Is . . . that the tear he produced?

Fuck. That.

In an instant, I’m through the wall, my hand slamming into the mosaic ballroom floor. Beckham senses me immediately, but not before I send a nymphean electric current ripping through the entire room. He swings his feet out of the way, narrowly avoiding the crackling energy.

He’s like a Maka-damned kobold!

“No, Beckham!” I lash out. “You do not get to marvel over your own fucking tears or sit here and quietly experience wonder and remorse! Not after all the shit you’ve done.”

The vial vanishes from his hand.

“Tsk, tsk. Doubt Master would approve of such hatefulness,” he taunts, still clinging to the delusion that she’s his, despite everything—despite the torture, the manipulation, the cruelty. And that infuriating smirk? I’m going to wipe it off his face for good.

I freeze time, reappearing behind him in a heartbeat, my forearm crushing his neck in a chokehold. He doesn’t resist, but the tension radiating from his body is palpable.

“Fighting invisible, Velis? Kind of cowardly, don’t you think?”

“Ha!” I hiss in his ear, my arm trembling with the effort as I cut off the air to his throat, my other arm locking him in an unbreakable underhook. “I don’t want to hear a word about fairness from you, Beckham. You’ve never played fair your whole damn life! Argh!”

Blood pulses through me, the power of the manor surging into me and making my veins hot blue.

“Where is the journal?” I demand.

“Somewhere,” he gasps out, his cheeks flushed red, eyes bulging as he finally begins to struggle.

“Where is it, Beckham?” I tighten my grip, feeling the spirit drain from him as he fights to breathe.

No answer.

Fine. I don’t need it. I’ll find another way. But I’m not wasting this chance.

Imagine never having to worry about him again.

I squeeze harder, feeling his resistance weaken, putting every ounce of strength into this decision to end my brother’s life, once and for all.

I’ll do it without a second thought.

But then, something shifts. His magic fails, reality bends, and suddenly, I see the truth behind his charm. It wasn’t just one tear; his face is drenched with them, as if he’s been silently weeping the entire time .

What the hell?

I release him in shock, and he crumples to the floor, unconscious at my feet.

“Hey, Beckham.”

My sadistic older brother jerks hard when he realizes his wrists are chained behind his back, secured to a chair inside our favorite linen closet on the fifth floor, where there’s ample padding—for good reason. His shit-eating smirk returns. But the moment he realizes he can’t, as Dolly would say, ‘blip away,’ his smirk falls, and he rakes his eyes around the room for an out.

“ Where’s my magic, Velis ?” he demands through his teeth.

“Do you mean my magic?”

His expression hardens, voice dropping. “What are you talking about?”

“Did you forget? I’m laird of the manor now. I have full access to the estate’s treasury.” I lean in close, my words sharp. “I walked right in.”

His scowl deepens into something lethal, and he tries to bash me with the back of his head. I sidestep, dodging the blow.

“You sealed my account?!” he snarls.

“Father believed that after Dolly’s emotion rubbed off on you, you’d be responsible enough to keep your magic. Or maybe he just hoped you’d use it to crawl out of hiding. But then, Dad’s always liked to gamble with other people’s fates. I’m not taking that chance.” I straighten, the tension pulsing between us. “I should have done it sooner. You may have innate talents, but without anything to fuel them, they’re worthless. By the way, did you know Arrik’s line to the estate was severed? When did that happen? ”

Beckham stays silent, his lips pressed together in a calculated smirk. He knows I have the upper hand. “What are we doing here, Velis? Are you going to hurt me?” He leans forward in his hostage chair, a mocking challenge in his eyes. “Good luck with that.”

After everything Dolly witnessed between him and his grandfather, I know physical pain means nothing to him.

“Where’s the journal?”

“Ah, the tricky part about negotiations, Velis. Once you have what you want, the game’s over. Whose journal could it be? Found here at the manor? One you’re so interested in? Could it be our departed lady, Adelle’s?”

I hate hearing her name in his mouth. But there’s one advantage to being the ‘extraordinary empath’ our father recently claimed I was—I can use it as a weapon against him.

I lean in, closing the distance between us, meeting him eye to eye. “Speaking of—I always meant to ask. What did you really think of my mother, Beck?”

“She was a whore?”

A sharp jolt of anger strikes through me, harder than expected. My fist connects squarely with his face, breaking his nose.

Whoops. Low of me to use her like this. But I couldn’t use Dolly. And there are only two women who could have this effect. I wave a hand to reset the fracture, letting the sting of his words and the loss of my mother sink in fully before watching the same emotions reflect back at me.

Through him.

The weepy bastard starts to leak.

“You’re experiencing my emotions, the way you did Dolly’s!” I grab the scruff of his hair and pull his head backward. “ Are you learning emotions from me ?”

The thought alone makes my nose flare, while his face trembles like he’s trying to hold in a sneeze.

I throw his head to the side. “Fuck you! You do not get to learn emotions now, you sadistic prick! Not after making my life a living hell, tormenting Dolly, killing my fox? Oh, and also murdering Arrik’s first human—so that now he’s free to fall tragically in love with mine!” I spit in his face.

With his eyes smoldering red, Beckham wipes my spit onto his shoulder.

“Since we’re on the subject, I’ll kill you for that.” He scowls, looking away, his voice lowering to something almost bitter. “Do you actually think I want this, Velis? This weakness ? This handicap ? It’s cold and dark out there, and these things... fly at me. Memories of things I’ve done. Things I haven’t thought about since the moment I did them!” His jaw clenches. “I can’t sleep. I’ve felt like absolute shit since fleeing the isle.”

“Good. I hope you feel shittier. I hope you feel as shitty as a person can feel.”

Whatever truth he just told me, he slips back into that cocky, smug mode we all loathe so much. “What’s your plan here, Velis? You aren’t crafty like Arrik. You aren’t sharp like Dolly. You’re just a nymph.”

I assume the racist jab means he has nothing else left in his arsenal. I turn my back to him. It sounds like he’s in his own personal hell right now, which brings me the first sense of peace I’ve felt all day.

“And for your information, I didn’t murder Arrik’s human. I just gave her what she desired most in her heart. Which happened to be lots and lots of heroin. I didn’t kill your mutt, either. That was Mother’s handiwork. I simply opened the gate.”

I break his nose for the second time. This time, I leave it. “You are so fucked up in the head. Where is my mother’s journal?”

“So it is hers? Thought so.”

I grip the arms of his chair, the same way he dominated Dolly when they held her hostage, wanting him to feel every iota of my rage as I shout in his face. “Tell me where it is, Beckham!”

He winces like my breath is aflame.

“Stop. That.” He looks disgusted, and it’s not what I expected, but I guess I’ll take it. “Get off me. It’s in the void, where else would it be?”

Meaning I have no way to access it.

But I’m sure there are ways. Father used to confiscate shit from Arrik’s stash in the void all the time. I’ll ask him how to get it out.

I pull my Ray from where I had it stored in my own corner of the void and flip to Arrik’s wavelength. A chill of instant dread washes over me.

“Wow. Something wrong, Vel? That didn’t feel good.”

“Shut up.” There are a dozen messages from Arrik.

‘ Dolly fell ill. I don’t know what it is. Get your ass back here and help me heal her.’

‘Where the fuck are you? I think she may have been poisoned. I thought I heard someone following us. They likely slipped something in her drink.’

‘VELIS. Check your messages.’

‘Fuck it. We’re coming to find you. If you see this, stay at the manor.’

‘At this point, I’m assuming you’re being blocked by whatever this red barrier is. It’s not letting me take her from here, and I can’t get her to wake up and try a wish. I have a few more aces in my pocket. I’ll do my best.’

I feel the blood drain from my face. Beckham’s previously craning, mocking expression falls along with me. “What is it?”

Sounds to me like panic from a sociopath experiencing secondhand emotions as if they were his own.

I have seconds to figure out what to do with him. I can summon myself to Dolly. It’s my right. But to get back here, I’d have to go through the proper channels again. I can’t leave him in this closet. I can’t let him go.

I take the back of the chair where Beckham sits tied up and rip him, chains and all, along with me into the void—noticing for the first time that Dolly feels much closer than she should be—and when we land, it’s somewhere I’ve never been before. A place with a full-windowed view of one of the Makayen uppers.

I may never have been here before, but my hostage has. He takes in the tall ceilings and the Makayen dusk through the drawn entryway curtains, and muses, “My, my, why are we in Jeb’s dwelling?”