Page 9

Neith

“W e probably should get inside,” Griff says. There is a spark of excitement in his eyes from our conversation. I think they would all like to get to know the dragons a bit better, like the reapers, dragons are notoriously closed lipped about their ways and their home.

I don’t blame the guys. The dragons are awesome. Well, the ones that I know are, anyway. I’m stalling, I want to carry on talking about dragons, I don’t want to go and tell Sully about the voices and risk him abandoning me. The guys took it well, really well actually, but my nerves are fucking shot.

I need a nap.

I grip Betty tighter as I follow the guys out of the van.

As we all push our way in through the front door to Sully’s place, my nerves start to build again. The guys seem to be pretty accepting of my newest crazy confession, but a small and cynical voice is telling me that they are just pretending that they feel that way and that really, they are completely freaking out and thinking of ways that they can get rid of me.

What if Sully just thinks I’m crazy?

Don’t be fucking ridiculous, it’s Sully and he’s family. My inner voice tells me firmly.

“Neith,” Sully greets me happily, giving me his usual hug. When he pulls back, he notices Betty in my hand, and his expression changes to worry, “I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon, has something happened?”

I shrug, “Erm, sort of. Can we go into your office? I need to talk to you about something.”

Sully nods immediately and leads the way into the office, closing the door behind us all. We all take a seat, and Sully looks at me expectantly, his expression worried. It’s not often that I ask to speak with him. I know that we are safe to talk in here, and that no one will hear what I’m about to say, but I take a moment just to gather my bravery again, and I’m grateful that the guys allow me to do this without filling Sully in themselves.

“I’m going to just say it, rip it off like a bandaid. All my life, I have heard voices in my head. I don’t know what they are saying, but they sometimes get louder, and sometimes they react to things that are going on around me,” I explain. I then go into more detail about it and repeat everything that I said to the guys.

The whole time that I’m talking, Sully sits there with this small smile on his face, and I wonder whether he is taking me seriously or if he thinks that I am joking. Sully isn’t the kind of person who is cruel, though, and laughing at me now when he can tell that what I am telling him means so much to me, well, that would be cruel. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if he may actually know something and if I’m not insane after all.

When I finish talking I wait patiently to see his response, the nerves bubbling in my stomach and making me feel sick. His smile is concerning to me, and although logically I know that he is taking me seriously because of how I am telling him, there is a small part of me that is worried that he’s smiling because he doesn’t believe me.

“I’m trying to be really careful how I phrase this,” he says eventually, a look of concentration on his face.

I sit forward in my seat, excitement buzzing through me, “So you know why I hear the voices?” he nods very carefully, so I ask, “I’m not crazy?”

Sully shakes his head, “Oh god, no, Neith. I am so sorry that you even considered that. If I had known that you were experiencing hearing them, then I would have told you that it was normal.”

“Can you at least say why?” I ask.

Sully winces, “I’m not sure that the silencing spell is going to let me tell you,” his eyes widen as he must realize something and his eyes move to Raiden, “You can help her.”

Raiden frowns, “I can?”

Sully grimaces, “Let me try to explain this in a way that is going to make you understand without triggering what I can and can’t say. When reapers come into their magic, before anything else happens, what are they taught to do?”

Raiden frowns, “Block out the voices of the dead,” his eyes widen as he looks at me, “holy fuck, you are hearing the dead. You have been hearing them for your whole life. I can’t even begin to imagine what that must have been like,” he winces, “the dead like to talk, a lot. That had to have been really fucking difficult. I can help you block them out if you want me to?”

I love that he checks in with me.

I nod, “Yes, please.”

He smiles, “Say silentium mortuorum. You really need to put feeling behind the words in order to make it work.”

It seems so simple; I just need to say two words in what I’m assuming is Latin, and then that’s it, the voices that have been with me my whole life will be silenced. I am so completely overwhelmed with what is happening now, that I don’t question him, I don’t ask anything that I probably should, and I just repeat the words. The effect is immediate, and for only the second time in my life, I am left alone in my head.

A wave of emotion crashes over me, and it takes me a moment to find my voice, when I do it’s tight with emotion, “They’re gone. My head is silent. They have all gone.”

“Wait, all?” Raiden asks. “You mentioned something similar earlier, but I thought you were just talking as a whole. How many voices do you hear?”

I frown, “It sounds like thousands, all of them talk over the top of each other, and one never manages to rise above the rest.”

Raiden’s eyes widen as everyone’s gazes ping pong between the two of us.

“How? You should only be able to hear one or two. When you mentioned earlier that you always hear them, I did wonder if you were talking about hearing the dead because the dead are always around, but then some of the other things that you mentioned didn’t make sense. I didn’t want to get your hopes up that I had an answer when I really didn’t.”

Sully grunts, “Neith isn’t a Reaper. She’s taken after her momma, she’s a . . .” the sounds chokes off, and anger fills Sully’s expression. “Are you fucking kidding me? I can’t even tell her that!”

“No!” a voice booms through the room, and everyone freezes.

What the fuck. Who the fuck. How the fuck, all the fucks, what!

Sully’s eyebrows rise, but he has a smirk on his face, and his eyes are full of emotion, “I knew you could fucking hear me.”

“You are rather loud, Sullivan dear,” the voice replies again with affection and this time it’s easy to tell that it’s a woman, but the voice is fading not nearly as strong a presence as it was a moment ago.

Sully’s smile is huge, but he becomes resigned as he adds, “Someday soon.”

A whisper fills the room one last time, “Soon.”

The room remains silent. I don’t know who we just heard, but I do know that whoever it was meant something to Sully, meant a lot to Sully.

“Who was that?” I ask when I can’t possibly keep my mouth shut any longer.

Sully grins, “My wife and your mothers,” he stops and rolls his eyes. “And the enchantress that put the silencing spell on us.”

“Wait, your wife? Why haven’t I met her? Can she take the enchantment off you so that you can finally tell me everything?” all of these questions come bursting out of me at once.

Sully’s expression becomes sad, and I instantly regret throwing so many questions at him. I should have known that there was a reason why I hadn’t ever met her despite how long I had known Sully.

“Unfortunately, she had to stay behind in Trieneliea,” Sully explains.

“What?” Griff asks, his dark eyebrows pull down into a confused frown.

Evander’s expression creases in confusion as he asks the question that we all want to know the answer to, “If she is in Trieneliea, how the fuck did we just hear her?”

Sully’s smile is proud, “She is the strongest enchantress that Trieneliea has ever known. I imagine that’s how we managed to hear her from the other realm. Although that is the first time that I have heard her, so I have no idea if it’s just a one-time thing or not.”

“So she is still there?” Doc asks.

Sully nods again, “Unfortunately, yes. I am hopeful that I will see her again.”

“You haven’t seen her for forty-odd years?” I ask.

Sully nods, “Yes. I was married to her for one hundred and fifty years before that.” My eyes widen, and he chuckles, “No, I will not tell you how old I am. These last forty years have been hard without her or any means to talk to her, but supernaturals live for a very long time, and for the first time in a while, I have hope.”

“I’m sorry, Sully, I can't imagine how hard that must be,” Ransom says. “I can try to see if I can pick up on the magic and reverse it. Maybe I can get through to her?”

“Thank you,” Sully says gratefully with a smile. “I may take you up on that at some point, but for now, I think that it is best to let her be the one to contact me.” He looks at me, “To answer your other questions, no, she can’t reverse the silencing spell because although she was the one who cast it, she was not the one who commanded it to be cast. I know that it is difficult, and I know that is really fucking frustrating not knowing things that you have a right to know, but believe it or not, it’s to keep you safe.”

“Safe?” I ask. “How is not having all the necessary information keeping me safe? Knowledge is power, Sully. You’re the one who taught me that.”

Sully sighs, conflict raging in his eyes, “I did, and I stand by that. If it were up to me, hell, if it were up to any of us, then we would have told you. The spell was originally cast in order to keep you safe, but I agree with you that you should know everything and that it should be lifted. I can’t do anything about it though. We were assured that the spell would lift when the time was right.”

I narrow my eyes, “Sully, how did your wife, who was in Trieneliea, cast the spell over you guys if I wasn’t even born yet?”

Sully’s eyes spark with pride, “The spell was premade and given to your mother and father before they fled the realm,” he pauses, choosing his words carefully, “those who had been there when the prophecy was read and a couple who were always fucking late,” Sully rolls his eyes before he continues, “all took the potion, your parents triggered the silencing spell for all of us when you were born.”

My eyes are wide, and my heart is pounding. That is the most information that he has actually been able to give to me. There’s a prophecy, another one.

“There’s a prophecy about me?” I ask.

Sully nods and manages to get out through gritted teeth, “Yes.”

I roll my eyes, “Fucking prophecies, I hate being told what to do.”

Surprised laughter fills the room at my words, temporarily lightening the mood.

“It’s not really so much being told what to do,” Sully starts and then immediately stops, frowning darkly.

I guess that’s all that he could tell me about that.

Fantastic.

“I don’t suppose it sounded like this: the darkness brews, the light pushed back, the voices whisper, don’t fall off track, pain and sadness, the pressure mounts, don’t lose sight of what counts. Death, death, death,” Raiden asks.

Sully shakes his head, “No, but that doesn’t sound good. Who had that vision?”

“Ty,” Van replies.

Sully pulls a face and then shakes his head, “Ty doesn’t have visions.”

“That’s what we said,” Ransom replies. “We figured that he either had a one-off vision or someone very powerful was using him to speak to us.”

Sully’s eyes light with knowledge as he taps the side of his nose, signaling that Ransom is on the right track.

“Do you know who?” I ask because that seems like an important question to ask.

Sully shakes his head, “It could actually be a number of people, so there’s no way of knowing for sure which one it was.”

My eyes widen, “A number of powerful supes could have given Ty the vision?”

Sully nods but doesn’t say anything else, and the room falls silent for a moment while we try to wrap our heads around what we’ve found out or rather not found so far. Wait, my parents triggered it when I was born. That’s what he said.

“So, my parents are, or were here?” I ask. I know logically that they have to be, I’m not forty odd years old, so I wasn’t born in Trieneliea, but it’s something that I feel the need to ask.

“Yes, they were here,” Sully replies, frowning heavily.

“Are they still around?” I ask because I can’t quite bring myself to ask if they are dead.

Sully shrugs, “I honestly don’t know. They had togo into hiding.”

I frown, “Hiding?”

“Is that why Neith was put in the care of my parents?” Evander asks. “Because her parents had to go into hiding.”

Sully nods but can’t seem to get any words out as his lips become a flat line, and he narrows his eyes. Okay, so that’s clearly something else that he can’t talk about.

“Why can’t I remember anything from before then?” I ask.

Doc interjects and looks at Sully, “Nod if you can, if I’m on the right track.” He continues, “I would imagine that it was for safety reasons. If they needed to hide, then we can assume that someone was after them. If the someone who was after them caught them and used magical means to find out about you. You would be much safer if they could categorically say that you knew nothing.”

Sully taps his nose again, signaling that Doc is right.

I nod. “Yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense. There is no point questioning someone who you know doesn’t know anything.”

“Exactly,” Sully replies. “There are ways to ensure that someone is telling the truth as well, so if your parents were questioned, it wouldn’t be a case of just taking them at their word. Whoever questioned them would know for certain that you didn’t know anything.”

“I understand the secrecy a bit.” I reply, “I mean, I understand why it was needed when I was younger, but I don’t understand why I can’t know now. I also don’t know why I can’t know what kind of supernatural my mother was.”

Sully frowns, “You really should know.”

He gets up and starts to walk over to the bookshelf behind his vast desk. Every step he takes looks like he is wading through treacle, and when he reaches his hand up to the spines, he has to use his other one to push it forward.

Reed jumps up and rushes over to him, moving his hand to where Sully is trying to push his one forward. He asks, “This one?”

Silence from Sully, who is clearly fighting against the spell right now. Reed’s fingers move across the spines as he keeps a close eye on Sully’s expressions. Sully is clearly fighting hard against the spell. He’s fighting so hard that he seems to be locked into place, his muscles tight, his jaw clenched shut, and his eyes determined.

Reed must see a change in Sully’s expression because he picks up a book off the shelf. Even from here, I can tell that it’s really fucking old, the spine is pretty thin as well. It’s not a giant tome. I’m not sure whether that’s a good or not .

Reed frowns at the cover and then reads it out for the rest of us, “Extinct supernaturals.”

My eyebrows rise, and my mouth drops open as words flee me entirely.

“Are you trying to tell me that Neith’s mother is a creature that is supposed to be extinct?” Ransom asks.

Sully winces, “Kind of. Fuck.”

He bends forward, groaning in pain.

“It’s okay. You have already told me way more than you should have, and I really appreciate it. It’s not worth seriously hurting yourself,” I tell him.

He nods and barely makes it to his chair, where he slumps, clearly exhausted.

“Thank you,” Reed says.

“We can figure it out with this book,” Raiden adds. “We are at least closer than we were.”

I nod enthusiastically, “They’re right. Is that why I need to be kept safe? I’m supposed to be extinct.”

Sully nods and then frowns, “Partly.”

“There’s more than one reason why I’m not safe? I suppose that shouldn’t surprise me at all, given my track record,” I joke.

“When you do your research, remember everything that we have discussed in this room,” he pauses, “Neith is not a reaper.”

Raiden nods, “I hear you.”

“You guys should probably get going. I have a meeting in twenty minutes, and I’m going to need to get my strength back before it,” Sully says, not so subtly dismissing us.

I grin, “You got it, Sully.”

“Come and give me a hug,” he says, and I immediately move over to him as he stands up and then wraps his arms around me. “I’m sorry that I can’t tell you more.”

I shrug, “You have told me loads, and besides, life would be boring if everyone told you exactly what you want to know all the time.”

Sully chuckles, “That it would.”

We all say goodbye and then head back out to the van. No one says anything as we head home, and in actual fact, it’s not until we are all in the kitchen with hot drinks in hand that I break the silence.