Authors: Brenda Drake
“What is it?” I asked when we were out of view from the others.
“Remove your sword.”
“Why?”
“I want to replace the Chiave with your sword. No one has seen yours or the Chiave up close. They won’t even notice the difference. It’s the only way to keep it safe.”
“All right.”
He took my sword and handed me the Chiave. I slid it into my scabbard and ran a finger over the golden hilt. An intense pain hit my breastbone. I gasped. My hand flew to my chest, and warm liquid drenched my fingers. I staggered into Arik’s arms.
Arik removed my hand from my chest. “You’re bleeding.” He pulled back, examining my wound.
“I think someone shot me,” I mumbled against his shoulder. I buried my chin into my neck, straining to see the wound. My scar was bleeding. I swiped the bloodied mark with my fingertips.
“There isn’t a wound.” Arik paused. “I think your blood is calling you.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I panted, more than a little freaked.
“A calling is used to communicate with spirit seers. They’re seers who have died.” He rubbed his chin. “Usually, a seer cuts themselves and uses their blood with a crystal ball to get a vision from a spirit, but you’re not a seer. So it has to be coming from the other side.”
“Are you saying a ghost made me bleed?”
“Yes, I believe so. I’ve heard about spirit seers trying to communicate from the other side through nosebleeds and bloody tears and such. Perhaps you should try and perform a truth globe with it.”
“That’s just crazy.”
He punched out a breath. “Will you please try?”
“Okay.” I smeared the blood onto my palm. “What do I ask it?”
“Perhaps, you should ask it what it wants.”
I frowned at him. “You know this is creepy, right?”
He nodded. “But just do it.”
My hand twitched as I created a truth globe. The silver sphere struggled to form in my hand. Pain shot across my brain, and I winced.
“What’s the matter?”
“I guess it’s just a side effect of using the globes.” The pain subsided, and the globe balanced on my palm. “What would you like to show me?” I asked it.
I gasped as the sphere’s shape changed. It became a silver hourglass, then the bottom half split into legs and the top half grew arms and a head. When the process was complete, a beautiful silver image of a naked woman perched on my palm. Her thigh-length hair draped over the front of her body.
“It is an honor to come before the one Agnost presaged,” the woman said, sounding like she spoke through a tin can. “I am Agnes, the spirit of the Chiave found. Until all the Chiavi are recovered, this one will serve you well. This sword is a destroyer of all swords. May you fare well, heir of the Seventh Wizard.”
Agnes’s silver body thinned and stretched until it turned into a line of silver smoke and dissipated.
“Now,
that
I’ve never seen before,” Arik said.
“Why am I not panicking?” I lowered my shaky hand. “This is crazy. It’s a dream. It has to be.” My breath quickened.
Arik took my face in his hands. “You
are
panicking. Take a deep breath.”
I gulped in some air. “I have to get to Asile and get Gian’s book.”
“We must get to Couve.”
“No,” I protested. “You don’t understand. The chart is inside that book. It’s on the desk in my room.”
“Calm down,” he said. “No one in Asile knows the chart is in your book. It will be safe until we return.”
“How can you possibly know that? Conemar asked for the chart. It’s right in the open. Anyone can find it.”
“If they knew where it was, he wouldn’t have asked you for it. We can’t afford to lose an ally. It’s imperative we aid Couve. Will you trust me?”
“Yes, okay,” I said with a shaky voice.
“Good.” He let go of my face. “Remember, keep mum about the sword exchange.”
I nodded, placing my hand to my cheek where his had been.
When we joined the others, Bastien met my gaze. His eyes were almost the color of blue ink on white paper. I absentmindedly rubbed at my throbbing scar. “You’re bleeding,” he said. The tender concern on his face made me speechless. Why did this guy seem to care so much when he didn’t even know me?
“It’s not her blood,” Arik lied for me, walking between us and blocking my view of Bastien. “Let’s be on our way.”
W
e entered Couve through a secret door behind an antique card catalogue. The tunnel was the same as Asile’s—dark, damp, and musty. Golf carts, tethered to outlets in the wall, waited at the bottom of the stairwell.
I hopped into the front passenger seat of the last golf cart with Demos and Sinead. It was a tight fit. If I reached my arm out, I could touch the wall racing by.
“Hey, there’s only room for one cart in here,” I hollered over the revving engine. “What happens if another one comes from the other side?”
“We die,” Demos shouted from the driver’s seat around a wide grin.
I rolled my eyes. “Seriously?”
“Did you see the red and green lights above the tunnel as we entered?” Sinead said from the back seat. “The lights let the driver know if he can go through or not.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t seen them. I glanced up at the ceiling on our next turn. There were two square lights, and, thankfully, the green one was lit.
The carts buzzed around corners for nearly an hour before the tunnel came to a wide cavern. We stopped at another staircase and plugged the carts back in. The narrow steps were slimy underfoot, so I grabbed on to the railing going up. We stepped into an outbuilding identical to the one in Asile and went through the door.
The castle of Couve sat on the bank of a large lake. The salt-white walls gleamed in the setting sun, its reflection twinkling on the water. Moss crept over a retaining wall surrounding it. We pushed through the gate and walked the narrow cobbled streets snaking through the tiny village at its base.
Bastien’s aristocratic demeanor was gone. His shoulders sagged with the sorrow of his father’s death.
Small gatherings of people lined the interior walls of the castle. People crowded each room off the foyer, and many sat on the wide stairway that led to the upper floors. Bastien moved into the crowd. When the somber people noticed him, they gave him compassionate smiles or whispered their sympathy as he passed by, and his shoulders drooped even more. I wanted to ease his pain, but the closer he got to the entrance, the faster he moved, and I couldn’t catch him.
Bastien returned each smile given him with a warm one. His hand gently patted each person he passed. Witnessing the love his people had for him, despite his anguish, made me admire his bravery. I would have been a slobbering mess, but he spared time for a nod or quiet word.
The crowd slowed him, enabling me to reach his side. He looked down at me, and a faint smile pressed at the corners of his mouth. We ascended the stairs together. Everyone else kept a respectful distance, but I saw him as someone in pain, and I wanted to be there for him. I knew how horrible it was to lose a parent.
We crossed a catwalk and headed toward a closed door. It unnerved me to catch Arik’s tortured eyes on us through the railing of the banister. Was he jealous? The confusion in my heart flipped my stomach.
I tore my gaze away from Arik and focused on the door ahead. Bastien turned the knob and pushed the heavy door open. I stopped, and he turned to face me.
“I’ll wait for you here,” I said.
“You don’t have to. You could go with the others.”
“No, I want to. I’ll stay.” I gave him a warm smile.
He nodded. As he closed the door, I caught a glimpse of a woman with a regal posture kneeling beside a body stretched across a low table and draped with a sheer cover. Candles flickered dim light across her face. She brightened slightly after spotting Bastien.
“
Mon cher fils
,” she said, grabbing the side of the table and pushing herself up to her feet. “
Une terrible—”
The door closed. I sat down on the floor, leaned against the wall, and hugged my knees. The only noise in the quiet corridor was my own breathing. Images of the recent battle haunted me. Nana and Faith facing unknown dangers in Asile terrified me. And whether Pop, Nick, and Afton made it to the shelter safely or not worried me.
I wanted to go home. I wanted things back to the way they were.
I needed Nana and Pop.
Time crept by as I waited for Bastien, and I closed my eyes. But the nightmare of where I was and who I didn’t know I was, strangled my breath. Gia Kearns didn’t exist anymore. She’d been lost somewhere on that first day when the gateway book ripped her from her world, dumping her in a dark hole. A fog surrounded me.
I startled awake when the door suddenly opened.
“Je t’aime, Mère
,” Bastien said.
“
Je t’aime, mon fils
,” his mother returned.
I slid up the wall to my feet. “What did you say to her?”
“I told her that I love her. Shall we meet the others in the dining hall?”
“If you want to stay with her, I can find the dining hall on my own.”
His face was heavy with sadness. “She asked that I tend to our guests. As firstborn, I have certain duties to uphold.”
“Such as?”
“Such as making sure you eat something.”
“Seriously? I think that should be the least of your concerns.”
We headed down the catwalk. “In all seriousness, I must, as my mother said, put on a brave face.”
He certainly had the brave face down, all but the sad blue eyes part.
What do you say to someone after suffering a great loss? I decided to make small talk to lift the uncomfortable feeling I had. “How come you don’t have an accent like your mother and Veronique?”
“I spent my youth in Asile training to be a wizard and a few years in the States studying with a Native American witch, affording me the opportunity to practice my English. Veronique trained with a private coach in the French countryside, so her English is unpolished.”
I watched my feet as we went down the staircase. We walked in silence through the lobby and down a long corridor. I couldn’t imagine how he was feeling. The loss of my mother when I was four still stung even after all these years. If I were to lose Pop, I couldn’t handle it.
“All this must be scary for you.” There was sincerity in his voice. Despite the fact that he was beyond gorgeous and somewhat arrogant, there was an ease to him, a welcoming spirit. No wonder his people showed him so much love.
“It is. I just want to be home.” He halted, and I stopped to face him.
He brushed a strand of hair away from my cheek. His touch was soft, caring. “It will never be the same for you, Gianna, but perhaps you will find new relationships here. Meaningful ones. You won’t lose those relationships back home,” he said. “They are your foundation. Your tether to that world.”
It was as if he could see into my soul, and I felt naked. I turned from him and continued walking down the corridor.
What’s going on with you, Gia? Get your emotions in check.
He strolled beside me. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“No, you didn’t. It’s just been a long day.” Why did he make me so nervous? “It’s weird that someone I just met understands me so well.”
“That’s encouraging.” His lips raised slightly at the corners. “I’d like to get to know you better, if you would allow it.”
I understood how he earned his rock-star status. He was the complete package—sexy and sincere, but I needed to stay away from him and his charm. I would fight this betrothal arrangement every way I could. Still, he was hurting, and I refused to be rude. “I’d like that.”
“This is the Hall of Honor for our Sentinels,” he said. Portraits of men and women from ages ago decorated the walls, and bronzed statues of knights stood between each door we passed. “When a Sentinel dies in service, they are immortalized here.”
I read the dates on the plaques nailed to each statue’s stand we went by. “Wow, they all died young.”
“A Sentinel enters service at sixteen and leaves it at twenty-four. If they die after their service, it is usually from natural causes, and they’re buried in their family’s crypt.” Bastien halted in front of a statue of a young woman.
The vision of the woman falling to the ground, a sword stuck in her chest, flashed through my mind. I gasped, my hand flying to my heart.
Chapter Twenty-Three
T
he woman was only twenty-two when she died. Though cast in bronze, I imagined her eyes burning with life, her soft brown hair flowing behind her as she ran, and her willowy body fooling her opponents into believing her weak just before she wielded her sword and each blow she threw was a strong, solid hit. She never gave up. She never lifted her guard.
The vision sped to the young woman sitting on an iron bench, seemingly lost in thought, surrounded by a brilliant array of flowers, with her sword leaning on the bench beside her. She read a letter, and her voice played in my head.
Dearest Cousin,
I know you asked that I don’t risk sending you updates, but I know if it was me, I would want to receive them. I just hope you still check your postal box. Your baby is doing wonderfully, growing strong each day, trying to crawl and keep up with Gia, even. I send you my love and hope you are doing well.
All my best, Marietta *
The woman lit a match, set the letter on fire, and dropped it in the planter beside her. The flame gobbled up the white paper until it was ash. A twig snapped behind her, and she turned. Her eyes widened with surprise when a shadowed figure skewered her with her own sword. My breath hitched as her expression froze when death took her, and she collapsed to the ground.
“Gia,” Bastien said grasping my shoulders. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. This woman”—I read the name from the plaque—“Jacalyn Roux. She died sixteen years ago. Who is she?”
“She was a Sentinel. She died when she was almost twenty-three.”
“How did she die?”
“In the gardens of Couve,” Bastien said. “The guards found her pierced through the heart with her own sword.”
“Why would someone kill her?”
“It isn’t certain. Some think she committed suicide by falling onto her own sword, but those who knew her believed she was murdered.”
“Oh, she definitely was murdered.”
He glanced over to me. “Why do you say that?”
“I’ve been having visions ever since I came to the havens,” I said. “I had one just now of her murder.”
His hand on my arm startled me, and I drew my eyes away from the statue.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s not linger on such morbid events better left in the past.” He ticked his head toward the hallway. “Shall we join the others?”
“Do you know what happened to her baby?”
He gave me a confused look. “She never had a baby.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m certain.” He led me to a door at the end of the hallway, and we eased inside the room. Arik and the others were already sitting at a long table with silver trays piled with sandwiches, fruits, and cakes spread across its center. Their faces were somber as they ate in silence.
My mind spun as we crossed the long distance from the door to the table. Who was Jacalyn? What did my mother have to do with her? And what was up with that letter she read? What happened to the baby?
There must be a connection. I just couldn’t piece it all together. A thought struck me: If Jacalyn had lived in Couve, maybe some of her belongings still existed.
Bastien escorted me to an empty seat beside Demos, and before he left, I leaned toward him. “Are there any personal items of that woman’s around? Like old photographs or letters?
“She was my mother’s dear friend,” Bastien said. “Her room has been untouched all these years. My mother is sentimental like that.”
“Do you think after we eat, you could bring me there? It’s
really
important.”
He gave a slight nod. “Certainly.”
I slid into the chair, and he strolled down to the end of the table, settling in at the head.
Arik sat across from me. His usual mischievous grin was a straight line of disapproval. I redirected my attention to the food tray in front of me, mindlessly adding a sandwich, vegetables, and fruit to my plate.
“You seem lost in thought, Gia,” Arik said from across the table.
“I—guess I am.”
He still wore a scowl. “Not to worry. Since Couve is stable, we’ll join the others at the shelter after our meal.”
“There’s something I have to do before we leave,” I said.
“Do you care to tell me what?”
“Come with me. I don’t want to talk about it here.”
“All right,” he said.
After dinner, he followed me to the French Sentinels’ Hall of Honor. “What are we up to?” Arik asked as we waited in the hall for Bastien.
I walked over to Jacalyn Roux’s statue. “Do you know this woman?”
Arik studied the statue.
I grew impatient. “Well, do you?”
“I don’t believe so, why?”
“She died the year I was born, and before that, she was missing for a year.” I paused to catch my breath.
Arik crossed his arms. “Why does it matter?”
“I had a vision of her. She read a letter from my mother telling Jacalyn her baby was doing well. Jacalyn’s baby. The baby was with my mom. With
me
.”
“I still am unclear of the importance,” Arik said.
“Really?” Frustration boiled inside me. “Why would someone want to hide a baby? And with my mother who was in hiding herself? What happened to this baby? Who’s the father? Bastien said she never had one, so why does my mother mention she had? And even more important, why am I having visions from people I don’t even know?”
“All right. It does sound suspicious,” Arik said. “But I’m not certain we’ll find any answers to your questions.”
Bastien came up behind us. “What questions?”
“The mysterious baby questions,” Arik answered.
“So, you told him.” I detected annoyance in Bastien’s tone. “Sorry I kept you waiting. I had to get the key to Jacalyn’s room. The room was thoroughly searched when she died, so I doubt there will be any answers there, but I’ll take you anyway.”
Bastien brought us to a room deep within the castle. A gust of dusty air punched our faces when he pushed the door open. Arik and I moved into the middle of the room as Bastien switched on the blush-colored porcelain lamps draped in cobwebs.
The warm light illuminated the dust floating in the air. The room was a young woman’s forgotten sanctuary. There was lots of white painted furniture, a light-pink comforter, pink drapes, and white-lace pillows, all seemingly antiqued under layers of dust.
Arik tugged open drawers of the nightstand. I crossed over to the vanity and picked up a hairbrush. Strands of dark brown hair were caught in the bristles. I placed the brush back, making sure to put it in the same exact spot. It wasn’t hard to do, since there was a clean silhouette of the brush in the dust. I eased the top drawer on the left open and sorted through the miscellaneous items thrown haphazardly into the drawer. The middle drawer held hair ties, makeup brushes, emery boards and the like. I sighed. “Find anything?” I asked the others.
Bastien riffled through the bottom drawer of the bureau by the window. “Nothing here.”
“Nor here,” Arik added as he peeked under the bed. “It might help if we knew what you hoped to find.”
“I don’t even know–a diary or something?”
Bastien pressed his face against the floorboards as he peered under the bureau. “How about letters?”
“You found letters?” I dropped down beside Bastien. He smelled good, like expensive cologne. His arm brushed mine, causing my skin to go goosepimply. I jerked away from him.
What the hell was that?
Shaking it off, I strained my neck to see under the bureau. Behind it, a wooden panel in the wall had slipped out of place. Several letters stood in a line within the gap. Bastien and I got up from the floor and pulled the bureau from the wall. I removed the panel and tugged each letter out of the opening, dropping them on the floor.
After plopping on to the area rug, I pulled my legs into a pretzel, picked up the nearest letter, and opened it. Bastien and Arik sat down on either side of me.
“Oh. My. God. This is a love letter from—” I read the sender on the envelope.
“Who’s the letter from?” Arik asked, impatiently.
“It’s from Professor Attwood.”
Bastien picked up a letter and read it. “This one is from Marietta to Jacalyn. She mentions her excitement over Jacalyn’s news and says she and Carrig are hiding out in Ireland. Marietta is twelve weeks along.”
“Does it mention what news?” I asked.
“No, but Marietta finishes the letter—I can’t believe this.” Bastien looked at me. “
Friends in motherhood
.”
“See,” I said. “I told you so.”
Arik stretched his legs out in front of him. “So they both were pregnant at the same time.”
“Listen to this,” Bastien said. “
I cannot imagine how it must feel to give birth alone. I feel it is your beloved’s right to know the father. He will understand your mistake. Dearest cousin, fear not for your baby, for it is my baby with the price upon its head. I shall send for you when I am settled. Always, Marietta.
”
I gasped. “Omigod. What does that mean? And how are they cousins?”
“They can’t be cousins. It must be a term of endearment.” Bastien folded the letter and slipped it into the envelope.
“How about this one,” Arik said. “
We must never
tell of our discovery. A grandfather like ours is one to be admired, and I fear the scandal would bring him shame.
”
“Who wrote that?” I asked.
“Marietta did,” he answered. “She also says she was sorry to hear Sabine was distraught over the news. Who is Sabine?”
“My mother,” Bastien said.
“We should ask her,” I said.
“I always knew she hid letters ’ere someplace,” Bastien’s mother said from the opened door.
“
Maman
,” Bastien said, scrambling to his feet.
She waved him away. “Please sit down, Bastien.”
Bastien obeyed.
She stayed in the doorway as if it was too painful to enter Jacalyn’s shrine. “Jacalyn and Marietta,” Sabine said. “We all met at ze Sentinel’s school in Asile. After Marietta returned to her own ’aven, we all exchanged letters. Zey became Sentinels and I became ze wife of a High Wizard.
“A few summers afterward, Marietta’s mother died, and Jacalyn went to Asile to console ’er. Since Marietta’s father was expired as well, it was up to Marietta and Philip to sort through zair mother’s belongings. They discovered the unpublished memoir of Marietta’s grandfather, Gian. He admitted to ’aving an affair with Jacalyn’s grandmother, and conceiving a child from zat union—Jacalyn’s mother.”
She sighed. “I did not realize zat Jacalyn and Philip fell in love. I wish I knew—”
“Wouldn’t that make Jacalyn and Professor Attwood cousins?” Arik asked.
“No,” Sabine said. “Marietta and Philip share ze same father and ’ad different mothers. Jacalyn is related to Marietta through her mother.”
My legs were falling asleep, so I adjusted them. “Did you know about Jacalyn’s baby?”
Tears pooled in Sabine’s eyes, and she left them there, until she blinked, and they fell onto her cheek. “No. I do remember seeing ’er a few months before she disappeared. She hardly spoke. If she’d ’ad a baby, well, I did not know. My poor Jacalyn—”
Sabine pulled a lacy handkerchief from her bodice and dabbed at her eyes, then continued, “Jacalyn ’ad spent time training Sentinels in Esteril and met her betrothed, Conemar, there. ’E was obsessed with ’er. After realizing how evil ‘e was, she brought her case to dissolve their betrothal promise to the Wizard Council. I believe ’e murdered ’er because of it. But it could not be proven.” She covered her mouth with the hanky, muffling a sob.
Bastien jumped to his feet. “I should see my mother to her chambers.” He turned to me. “You should come with us.”
“No. I have to hide the letters.”
“With the recent attack, I don’t want you to be alone in the castle.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “Arik’s here.”
Bastien looked from me to his mother, then to Arik. “All right. Will you guard her?”
“I kept her safe before you were in the picture,” Arik said, sounding irritated.
Bastien ignored Arik’s statement and steered Sabine out the door.
Arik hopped up. “So there’s wedding bells in your near future.”
“Really?” I shoved him lightly before picking up a handful of letters. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not engaged to him.”
As if.
No one is going to make me marry anyone. Besides, I’m only sixteen, and there’d be time to figure that crap out.
I glanced at him gathering envelopes with one hand and dragging the other one through his hair. He caught me staring, and the corners of his lips lifted. He had the hottest smile I’d ever seen. But we were friends, and it was all we could ever be.
Sirens went off somewhere in the castle. “What’s that for?”
“I’ll see what it is,” he said, dropping the letters in his hand and pulling out his sword. “You stay here and hide the letters. Lock yourself in.” He stormed out the door.
I shut the door and bolted it behind him.
Back and forth I went, snatching up letters and slipping them into the opening in the wall. When all the letters were back, I secured the panel, moved the dresser into place, and waited for Arik to return.
The window flew open, and the drapes rose like pink airfoils in the wind. Between the flapping of the drapes, a dark shadow crouched on the windowsill.
“Wh-who’s there?” I stammered.
“A Sentinel with your skills should not fear the shadows, Gianna.” A young Latin man with extremely long legs, a broad chest, and a thin waist hopped down from the window and sauntered into the room’s light. He wore a dark suit with a white T-shirt under the jacket and his dark hair slicked back from his forehead. “Do not fear me,” he said as he neared.
“I’m not afraid of you,” I said, gulping my fear back and standing my ground, though I desperately wanted to back away.
A smooth smile spread over his lips. “You’re a horrible liar.”
“Who are you, and how do you know my name?”
“I am Ricardo.”
“Faith’s ex?”
“She spoke of me?”
I drew the Chiave from my scabbard and held the blade high for him to see. “Don’t come any closer, or I’ll decapitate you.”