Page 14 of Cursed Evermore

Unlike her, magic flowed through my veins. It was a part of me.

“She must be awake.” My mother's voice on the other side of the door clawed at my spine like thorns.

“Yes, I definitely heard her talking.” That was Grandmother.

Before I could exhale, the door crashed open, wood striking stone as if the force of their worry had physical weight. Grandmother swept in first with Mother close behind.

The air in the room thinned at their entrance, drawing back like the sea before a tidal wave.

Grandmother walked ahead of Mother, her back straight and expression sterner than I’d ever seen in her usually sweet-tempered, quirky personality. Her silver hair was elegantly twisted into a neat coil, and the midnight-blue embroidered gown she wore amplified her unmistakable air of authority.

Mother was dressed in a similar gown. Except the blood red hair I inherited from her that marked us as mages made her look more daunting. Her hazel eyes, so like my own, brimmed with disappointment as she scanned me for visible signs of my turmoil.

The two stopped a few paces away and stared at Emabelle and me, multiplying my trepidation a hundredfold.

The few heartbeats of silence that passed between us were infinitely imposing, filled with the weight of a thousand emotions. Relief warred with worry. Anger with compassion.

In the end, when they appeared to confirm that I wasn’t physically hurt, worry and anger seemed to win.

I couldn’t blame them. I had broken the cardinal rule of protection and put us in danger. Even if Chancellor Blackthorne and Friar Jameson hadn’t done anything yet, they were the most dangerous of men.

“Child, what madness possessed you?” Grandmother’s voice was firm and low but carried the weight of a shout. “You performed the blood spell. After everything I told you? I warned you about what could happen.”

“I’m so sorry,” I rasped, bringing my hands together.

“Sorry? Sorry is not good enough. I told you there were dangers you couldn’t handle from performing such a spell.”

“You said my blood bound me to my father. So, we only had a chance ifIdid the spell.”

“It was too dangerous for you.” She glared at me, making me feel weaker.

“I still had to try.”

In my journals, I had extensive notes about us talking about the Phantom Moon from my last memory reset. That was how I’d known what to do. I left a plan for myself to follow based on all the things I’d learned from Grandmother.

Her frown deepened, and she inclined her head to intensify her stare. “You portaled. Something must have happened for you to do so. What was it?”

The question was like a lash slicing into my already raw conscience, and the sanctuary of my bedroom suddenly felt like an interrogation chamber.

My breath hitched, but I summoned more courage to speak because I knew I had to tell them about the wraith. Now was not the time to back down. “A wraith appeared. After I cast the spell.”

“Blessed Mother and her angels.” Grandmother’s skin turned as pale as the moon as all the blood drained from her face.

Emabelle stiffened next to me while Mother’s back became ramrod straight. She hadn’t said anything to me yet. A tell she was furious. With her, silence was often more potent than the crudest words.

“Tell us everything that happened.” Finally, Mother spoke, and her piercing eyes bore into me.

Every muscle in my body strained, my heart pounding with a triple beat, but I took a deep breath before I told my family about my huge fuckup of a disaster.

By the time I finished relaying what had happened, I’d successfully managed to terrify them all and shock them in equal parts.

I’d never seen Grandmother look scared. And that might terrify me more than the wraith.

Apart from being a powerful mage who’d lived for over a century, Grandmother offered to be my mother’s guardian when she left the Ravenwood Realm to marry my father. Like my mother, she was supposed to bound her powers by the Decree of the Accords so she could live in the mortal realm. But all she did was suppress them for fear that she may need them one day. A day like today.

Yet here she was, spine rigid, panic swallowing her gaze, her eyes so wide the whites stood stark against her green irises. Even the air seemed to hesitate around her, as if, like her, it was bracing for a blow that hadn’t yet come.

“Please say something,” I pled, staring only at her as I purposely tuned out my mother and Emabelle.