White-hot rage surged through me.
“He used her,” I said. “My father used her until she broke.” I leaned over the book, reading.
I realize now that the rift cannot be mended by a single hand, no matter how much blood is offered. I have the will, but I walk this path alone, and a bridge cannot stand on a single bank. I am a flickering candle in a gale.
A soft scuff echoed from the hall, like a shoe shifting on tile.
We stilled, and Lexie got up and went to the sitting room, returning quickly with a jerk of her head.
“It’s nothing. The guards are talking in the hall,” she said.
We hunched together, keeping our voices low, and turned back to the book.
More words appeared.Marlane understands. She’ll finish what I so unfortunately started.
Tears blurred my vision. My mother had known. She’d understood what needed to be done. Had someone pushed her down the stairs before she could do it?
I read the final passage.Blood calls to blood across the boundary between worlds. My daughter carries this gift in her veins, as mayany children she might have. The power to see what others cannot, to touch what should remain untouchable.
“I inherited my abilities from her,” I said, my throat closing off.
“Someone may have killed her to keep her from using them,” Kerralyn said.
Lexie growled. “That would explain why they’re trying to kill you.”
I hid the book in a delicately created room in Syllavar’s library. If the fates allow, my bloodline will be drawn to that area and find these words. Only they can pass through my wards. Everything lies south of Syllavar, where the veil stretches much too wide and the worlds press too close. There, in the place where I first crossed into this realm, my descendants will need to take on the final battle.
“South of Syllavar.” My voice came out hollow. “Where Thorne took Addie.”
I stared at the journal for a long time, sorting through the pages, but nothing new appeared. With a sigh, I closed it.
Everything I’d believed about my mother, myself, and the magic I’d hidden all my life had shifted into a new pattern, one that made terrible, perfect sense.
“We need to find the place Thorne mentioned south of Syllavar,” I said. “If we can find it, we’ll find Addie. Then we can try to seal the breach.”
“And help your sister,” Lexie said. “If veil-sickness is killing her, we need to act fast.”
“I bet your father knew,” Kerralyn said. “Maybe not everything, but enough to fear your mother and use Addie. Enough to want you married off and powerless before you discover the truth.”
A creak from the bathing chamber cut through the silence.
We all turned in that direction.
Mae stepped from the room, her face pale but composed. Her hands twisted in her skirts, and her eyes, usually warm and kind, held something harder now.
“Mae?” My voice came out steady, though my heart floundered in my chest. “How long have you been listening?”
“Long enough.” She closed the door behind her. Her gaze swept over the three of us, the journal in my lap, and Pherin bristling on my shoulder. “I hid when we were tidying the room. I shouldn’t have. I know that. But after last night and the questions your father asked, and after seeing you so shaken, I had to know what you were hiding.”
Rising, Lexie stepped in front of me while Kerralyn drew a small blade from the sheath on her side.
I got off the bed, gripping the journal against my chest. “What do you plan to do with what you heard? Report to my father?”
Mae looked directly at me, and tears shone in her eyes. “I knew your mother, Isi.” Her voice didn’t waver. “I was young back then, but we were friends. There's no way I would've ever betrayed her. No way I’d ever betray you.”
She swallowed hard. “But you’re right with your suspicion. Someone pushed your mother down the stairs.”
CHAPTER TWENTY