Page 15

“Mom?”

I stand on the sidewalk outside the house, staring at it. Even just from here, I can see that something is different. The shrubs are well-cared for. The mailbox isn’t leaning, the grass is trimmed, the windows are clean and whole.

Emin is sitting in his truck on the curb. He refused to let us out of his sight. It’s annoying, but I understand, and am even grateful for him being there. After the Grayhide attack at the motel, I don’t hate the idea of having extra help.

“Sorry,” I say to Sarina, swallowing down the lump in my throat and taking her hand in mine. “Come on, let’s go.”

In my pocket is the note from Willow, telling me the camp misses us, but that she gathered up the things she thought we might want from our place as best she could.

In it, she also thanked me for the effort to offer her safety in the Ambersky pack, but that she would be staying at the camp, with the others.

Mentally, I reach her words for stability as we walk up the sidewalk and I ring the doorbell. In my other pocket is the little card from my mother, inviting me to come over and talk to her.

I shouldn’t be here—if I’m angry at Emin for rejecting me, turning me away all those years ago, then I should be furious with my mother for making our family like this. Falling apart after the death of my father and leaving me to deal with the shattered remnants of our family name.

But, for some reason, I can’t hold on to that anger.

“ Veva ,” my mother says, opening the door, looking so happy she might cry. “And you must be Sarina.”

Before, when I saw her outside the pack hall, I didn’t get this good a look at her. But now, studying her in the bright light of day, I can see that my mother looks good—rosy color in her cheeks, her hair brushed back from her face, her clothes clean and wrinkle-free.

“Sarina,” I cut in, giving my mother a pointed look. “This is my friend, Opal.”

Mom’s face shifts as she swallows that down—the fact that I don’t want my daughter to know who Opal is to me. To her. The last thing I’m going to do is give Sarina the hope of a grandmother, then move halfway across the continent.

Or risk Opal being exactly the person she always was for me.

“Nice to meet you, Opal,” Sarina says, holding out her hand, and Opal smiles at her the way all adults do.

“You as well,” she says, shaking her hand, then turning and gesturing for us to come inside.

The house I grew up in is unrecognizable. Clean, for one. The kitchen has all new appliances. There’s a TV in the living room, shelves full of books, which Sarina immediately turns toward.

“I made some lemonade for us,” my mother says, bringing a glass out to Sarina. I watch, stupefied, as she puts a coaster down on the coffee table, underneath the glass. “Feel free to watch the TV, or read anything on the shelf, dear.”

Sarina smiles at her, sinks down into a chair with a book in her lap, and my mother and I move into the dining room together. My hands shake as I accept my lemonade and sit across from her.

“The house looks great,” I say.

She smiles sadly. “Barely recognize it, huh?”

It draws a laugh from me. “No—it’s—you’ve done a lot of work on it.”

My mother stares at me for so long that I’m worried she might have spaced off. Then she gathers herself, swallows, and says, “I wanted it to be ready. In case you ever came back.”

The words hit me like a well-placed blow, making my throat swell up, and I suck in a breath.

“Mom—”

“Sorry,” she raises a hand, looks to the ceiling, then meets my eyes again. “Can I?”

A beat passes, and I nod. She takes another moment, then begins.

“When you left,” she starts, “it took me a few days to notice you were gone. That boy came looking for you—”

“That boy?” I blink at her, and she nods, running a hand over her hair.

“That Argent boy,” she says, softly. “I’d seen him around the house sometimes, and thought the two of you…?”

I glance back toward the living room, though there’s no way for me to know how well Sarina can hear, or if she’s even paying any attention to us. The last thing I need is for her to be asking any questions about why Emin might have asked after me.

Emin asked after me.

The knowledge of that sits heavy in my stomach, and though I try to stop myself, I picture him as a teenager, standing on my stoop, asking about me. What does that mean? Was he trying to find me after that night?

“But he came looking for you, day after day,” Mom goes on, clearing her throat. “And that’s when I realized you had left. I—I had some realizations about myself in that moment. After that day, I didn’t touch the stuff again, Veva. I got clean, I went back to work, and I—”

She stops, looking like she’s trying not to cry. Then a tear rolls down her cheek, and she dabs at it with her sleeve.

“I never stopped looking for you,” she chokes out.

“I had a feeling that you were out there, somewhere. And now that you’re back, I would like—I’d like for us to have a relationship.

I’d like for you to give me a chance to make up for the way I let you down.

And, if you’ll allow it, eventually, I’d love to have a relationship with Sarina, too. ”

I don’t realize I’m biting my tongue until the hot, metallic taste of blood blooms in my mouth.

Too much time passes, but she’s patient, waiting for my answer.

“I…” I finally manage to choke out. “I don’t know just yet. I need some time to think it through.”

“Sure,” she says, though I can still hear the disappointment in her tone. She plays with the damp sleeve of her shirt, rolling and unrolling it. “Of course. Take all the time you need, dear.”

***

This day has already been too long, but I promised Dorian I would start on the project as soon as I had my things from Willow.

This morning, after Emin handed them over to me, I used my growing energy to cast on them, hiding them in that guest room so he couldn’t find them unless he had his own powerful caster on his side, looking.

Now, I’m in the pack hall again, following the caster with the red hair as she leads me through the building, scanning her badge on various doors. Emin trails behind us, still insisting it’s safer for us if he’s here.

“You’re looking better,” the caster says, as I try to remember her name. “The swelling has gone down quite a bit. Did you notice a dip in your power while healing?”

“Yes,” I admit, though I don’t want to, especially not with Emin behind us. She nods and pushes through a final door, delivering us into what feels like a different world.

While the rest of the pack hall looks straight out of 2003—all beige walls and old, patterned carpet—this room is lush with leather furniture. A large stone fireplace is on the other wall, and the far wall is lined with books that even from here, I can tell are magical tomes.

“Wow,” Sarina says—and I finally remember the caster’s name.

Claire’s cheeks redden, and she shrugs, practically brushing away the compliment. “Dorian said I could decorate how I wanted.”

“This is…” I nod, pressing my lips together.

Emin laughs, “Well, you should do the rest of the place.”

Claire laughs, too, then gestures for me to follow her back through. Touching Sarina’s shoulder, I say, “Don’t touch anything.”

Sarina nods, but keeps her head on a swivel, taking everything in.

“Right back here is where we’re working on our project,” Claire says, and we come up to a table in the corner of the room, strewn with various black gems and rocks.

While some of them look somewhat similar to Amanzite, anyone familiar with the stone can easily note from first glance that none of them are the real thing.

Amanzite is a smooth rock, and most of the items on the table look more like crystal, jagged and cutting, almost like a rock candy rather than a real stone.

For many of the other attempts, the color is off. Either too transparent, or too opaque. The wrong shade, more blue or purple than black. From the sheer amount of attempts on this table, it’s clear that the casters have been working on this for a while.

No wonder Dorian was willing to get my things in exchange for my help. All this magic must have taken a lot of power, and surely they need their casters for other things.

Claire shows me their current process, and we work on trying to cast a few. I haven’t used generative magic in a while—making something from thin air—and I find myself breathing hard, pushing my hair out of my face, feeling bad for mentally making fun of their attempts so far.

“It’s a whole thing,” Claire laughs, when we work together for twenty minutes and only manage to produce a strange, squishy blue lump. “I’m confident we’ll get it. But, sooner would obviously be better than later.”

“Synthesizing something from magic is rough,” I agree, slumping down in a chair and uncapping a bottle of water. Sarina sits to the side, curled up, solving math equations on one of her worksheets. Emin is in the chair beside her, a book open on his lap. I have to tear my eyes away from them.

“It’s my worst area, actually,” Claire says, then, seeming to think about it, changes her mind. “No, binding. Is generative your worst?”

“Casting? Sure,” for the first time in a while, I think of my grandmother’s gift. She passed shortly before I started seeing Emin. Since the day she passed, I haven’t had time to do anything with it.

“What do you mean?” Claire looks puzzled. I don’t know what it is—maybe the fact that we’re both casters, maybe the fact that I’m so tired I can’t stop myself, but I tell her.

“My grandmother was clairsentient,” I say. “And she passed her gift to me when she died. I’ve never even had a premonition, so that must be my worst area. I really don’t even know much about it.”

“Wow,” Claire says, shaking her head. Then, she moves quickly, grabbing a pad of paper and scribbling on it. “Here—this is the information for a psychic in town. If you want to work on that.”

I take the paper, stare at the name, then fold it up and tuck it into my pocket. I don’t have the energy right now to think about it.

“Alright,” Claire says, already back on her feet. “Ready to give it another go?”