It may have been a selfish thought, but all I’d ever wanted was for this ice around me to break apart. I wanted to have control, to think and feel what I wanted to feel when I wanted to feel it. Phoenix could give me that. Everything I ever wanted and more.

I wanted to believe that these fallen souls he was telling me that I had the power to redeem meant nothing to me, that I didn’t deserve to be alone for the sake of their redemption, but the thought of Skylynn saving me when I was a girl came to mind…the thought that if there was no Skylynn or others like her to save people, those who chose the path I had would be lost…utterly alone. I was too grateful for everything Skylynn did for me to ever turn my back on those that fight the war she and Phoenix were in. I would have to find a compromise that I could live with if I chose a different path than letting go.

“I have to believe that you are fighting for souls, though. Would that not mean that I could still fight? I mean, if the souls are behind fire, could fire not walk through that, destroy that?”

His fingertips traced my lips as he spoke. “The fire that you would freeze is so hot that it’s cold. It’s a dense cold, one that only you could bear to get close to.”

There didn’t seem to be any loopholes I could slip through with this, but I had to know if that was his only reason for letting me go. “Were you looking for an excuse not to save me when you discovered what I was meant to be?”

“No,” he said with an agony in his tone as he pulled my body to him. “I was looking for a reason to save you. Skylynn pleaded with me, but the thing is, she didn’t understand that by me raising you I was condemning us all.”

“You didn’t know I was the sister before…she told you that.”

“She told me about the ice, the reasons she led those boys to you. I feared that possibility then.”

“Then what did she mean—what did Guardian mean—when they basically said you needed me for the war you are fighting? That without me you would fail? How can I be both? What changed? Why is Skylynn so eager for me to move on now?”

His hand gently caressed my back as he spoke. “She didn’t realize that you had to have life, that the life of a phoenix would end your power. She didn’t understand the transformation, that it broke you down and rebuilt your energy.” He hesitated as his gaze fell deeper into mine and the life he had without me moved through his stare.

“Guardian and I made a lot of deals, cast a lot of spells, which are nothing more than words with energy behind them. The energy we both used was the desire to find the ones that complete us. Now we have to undo those spells, undo our past, something we always knew would have to happen but we had no fear of it because once we reached the ones we sought, the energy would be stronger. Instead of the desire to find our counterparts, we would have the desire to never lose them, and having them at our side would fuel that. That energy is more powerful than the latter. Guardian still believes—as Skylynn did hours ago—that if I lose you I will have no power behind my energy to undo those spells we cast together. He thinks the loss will hinder everyone, not just those that cast the spell. He doesn’t want me to let you go or follow you into death. I told him I would fight as long as I could but that I may have to leave him. Always the optimist, he thinks we will find another way, that you belong with us.”

I remembered his brother Guardian always being the positive to Phoenix’s negative. Somehow, they were always both right. I had to believe that if Guardian had convinced Phoenix not to follow me into death that he had his reasons. Whether they were because I could be saved or not was a mystery to me. From my memories, I knew those brothers could not part for long. They empowered each other. For all I knew, my death was meant to stop their fate, not me from fulfilling mine.

“I know I was in a deep fog of death, but I could have sworn that Skylynn insinuated that you knew one of the other seven sisters—that Guardian did. Can they not help me? How am I different from them?”

“You are all said to be vastly different. There are seven, but only one is hidden by the veil. That is you. Each of you have your own path that will at some point weave into the others.’ We only have theories on who four of you are at this moment. Two walk with death, save the damned. One has the war of life, to save who is here.”

“The one with life, can she give that to me? Help us?”

He hesitated as he thought over my one and only wish: to be saved. “She would try if she knew, even plot to turn back time to avoid your death. I’m sure of that, but we can’t let her do that because every moment weaves into infinity; one moment relived could destroy a thousand victories. There is only one benevolent choice here: for you to move on and be reborn.”

“How come I hear doubt in your voice when you speak of the seven sisters?”

He stared into my eyes for countless seconds before he finally answered. “The seven sisters, what they would become, have always been myths, stories that we all believed but never thought we’d see the day when they would rise. For Guardian and me, it’s hard to grasp that the ones we share our souls with are meant to take that role. We are fighting Skylynn’s claims and theories because the idea of you and the girl Guardian loves standing up to evil alone is too much to bear. To know that once you fully rise, that you will be taken away is not an idea we can even speak of. Theories. That is what we are calling them as we fight this war.”

“You want me to die based on a theory? Mythology?”

Pain flooded into his eyes. “I don’t. I don’t want to lose you then, now, or in some future. I want us to live a normal life, the life we came to be in. I don’t understand any of this, but I know that if there is any truth at all to any of the words that have been whispered across time, I have to let you go. I know that no matter what, one day I will have to let you go.”

“What makes you so sure that these seven you speak of will walk alone? That what gives them power and protection are not the ones we share our souls with?”

“Seven. Some myths say sisters, some just say seven. Not fourteen.” He let out a shuttered breath. “All the hell Guardian and I have been through, the twists and turns that did nothing but take us further from you…I fear that it’s some higher power’s way of easing us into this painful separation, that someone always knew you would belong to the world, not me.”

“Or they could have been teaching you to make us stronger. If you had not been made into a phoenix, you would not have even had a choice to save me. You have been growing powerful during our separation, powerful enough to protect me now.”

He didn’t offer an argument. I’m sure my positive words sounded like a plea to save my life, and he was having a hard time finding the will to state all the reasons that that would be wrong.

He reached up to trace my lips. “I’m just waiting for you to ask. I know you better than my own soul. If I suggested that we tell these theories and myths to go to hell, you’d have fought me. It had to be your idea.”

“I knew it,” I said under my breath as I playfully squinted my eyes at him. This boy had learned to handle me years ago. That made him smile. It was a warm, playful smile. I was so shocked by it that my eyes grew wide, and that made him laugh out loud.

“What is that look for?”

“The old you was almost here,” I said as I traced the lines where his smile was.

“The old me?” he said, turning to his side so he could see me better.

I reached to trace a smile that I had yet to see in this reality. I was thankful that it surfaced in this dark conversation. “I remember you being so blunt that you were funny. You enjoyed teasing, laughing. Even in the darkest moments, you would find a way to lighten the mood. Your certainty was always there—you always made those around you feel safe, protected.”

He let out a sigh as his smile dimmed. “That is still me…I just don’t have much reason to tease or laugh as of late.”

“I want you to laugh, to tease, to be that protector, no matter what,” I said as my voice cracked. I needed to know that he would protect all those he was leaving me for, that our sacrifice would not be in vain.

He bit his lip as if he were choosing his words carefully. “I’m a fool for you…always have been…it never has and it never will matter what you ask me to do. The answer is yes.”

I had to tell myself to hold in the tears. I knew that between his words he was telling me that he would still change me, that if I asked we would both become the most selfish souls that had ever existed, that we’d take a thousand or so years together for the price of countless warriors.

I was still set on vengeance. And I hated to admit it, but I had some small hope that once that vengeance was met, maybe my body would find the energy it needed to heal itself, that maybe I could find a way to escape death. I wasn’t going to ask him to challenge his fears until I knew I had exhausted every measure I could.

“I know,” I whispered as I let my arm down and curled up against his warm chest. “I don’t think I can grasp what you are fighting, what you think I am, but I want you to be careful because if I’m seeing this the right way, if my life was so easily ended, if I was to only live a normal lifespan in the first place and my time to heal and save was not meant to be eternal, that can only mean that a lot of souls are about to fall.” I hesitated as I thought of the time it would take for me to die and be reborn again, the time for me to grow into a young woman. I had no idea if that was a short or long time in the span of souls. “If I let go, I just hope I’m back in time to matter.”

His arm tightened around me. “Old souls have been reunited. We are stronger now than we have been in quite some time.”

“So maybe I didn’t mess things up by dying. It is odd, though, that it was so easy to end me. I hadn’t even begun. You would think it would have been harder to kill someone who was needed for a not-so-distant victory.”

I could see him weighing each of my words. I was almost sure I saw him doubting himself, wondering if I had a point, if there was some unseen loophole we could fall through. The fading glimmer of the fire in his eyes told me that that hope left as swiftly as it arrived. I was these supernatural souls’ last hope, but no one thought to protect that asset from the unpredictable—death itself.

I lay on my back and stared at the vast ceiling. “I’m so angry. I’ll find my redemption tomorrow, but I will have lost everything in its wake. I had so many plans…”

“Tell me about them,” he said as he pulled me closer.

“I was going to do everything my parents did, and so much more.”

A glance from him beckoned a ball of fire from the fireplace. Like a ball of clay, it hovered over us, waiting for us to shape it.

“I was going to build schools.” The fire began to take the shape of a beautiful building. “Not just any school, but schools that brought out that special spark, that fire I could see in Gavin’s eyes as he wrote his stories, Mason as he played…Wilder as he painted. I wanted to find that spark in everyone, make it grow. I wanted the world to feel the warmth of it.” I watched the building expand as rooms with stages, vast libraries, and endless canvasses were shaped, as eager souls rushed in.

“I wanted to find every soul that had reached its breaking point and pull them back, show them no wish was foolish and that no matter what they had been through, it was over and now they would not only be safe and loved, but they would be the ones giving that last hope to someone. I was going to create a million Falcons.” The school turned into the manor, and the fire expanded, showing every glorious detail of our home. It was as if he remembered building every inch of this manor with his own guided hand.

The room in the center of the home, the one I adored, that held every ball or special occasion—even a few private dances—became clear. I loved that room because of the dome shape it was, for the three spiral staircases that hovered tightly against the walls, leading to every floor. I loved the red and the gold, how it seemed not only to fit a lost time, but every time. I loved how magical I felt in that room.

Phoenix did not bother to create Rasure’s wing-in-fire sculpture, but I knew where it was currently resting, that it all but assaulted the room I loved, how she was able to attach that wing to the core of the home. Only ten feet blocked that wing from connecting to my precious room, ten feet that I had to fight tooth and nail for. I only won because that was the oldest part of the house and an addition to it would rob the room of its unique character.

In Phoenix’s sculpture, there were children—too many to count—running through the halls, dancing and frolicking in that center room.

“I was going to make my parents, my family proud, but instead I crashed into a lake. The money I was going to use to free the world ended me, simply because Rasure wanted that same money for God knows what. I even tried to give her most of it. I just wanted the house and enough to maintain it. I knew at the very least I could open the doors to those who needed a home. I trusted that the money for everything else would come someway, somehow.”

“She fought you for the house?” Phoenix asked as his glance added the trees, the roots that connected beneath the surface.

“From day one, she wanted me out. She tried to have me locked away, saying I needed help with my grief, but Skylynn protected me from that. Since my parent’s death, I have spent every night under this roof. Even when I wanted to run, give in to her, I couldn’t leave. It was mine.” I squeezed his warm hand. “It was ours.”

“I still don’t understand how you moved it here,” he said in awe as the fire image spun above us.

“Is that not in the goddess handbook—moving massive homes for the hell of it?” I teased.

That made him laugh. “No, Love, I don’t think it is. I can’t imagine the energy it would have taken.”

“All for naught, apparently.”

“We have right now…” he said as he sent the fire back to its place.

“Block the doors with fire and tell the world to let us be…at least for now,” I whispered as I rolled to my side to face him.

His hand began to move across my back, ushering me into a deep sleep. “Done,” he said in a murmur. “Rest now. Your redemption and new life are mere hours away.”

“I want my old one,” I said as I closed my eyes and flashes of the life I had with him danced in my thoughts.

“I should be back before you wake.”

My eyes flew open wide. “You’re not leaving. I have never once slept without ice surrounding me in some way. You owe me at least one night of warmth.”

“By the time I leave your side, you will be so warm that no ice will invade your sleep. I don’t have to go yet. I will wait until there is no time to spare, and while you sleep I will fight your demons—only saving the last blow for you.”

“Promise me you’ll smile, tease, and protect others while you do just that,” I said with a sleepy smile as my eyelids grew heavy.

I couldn’t understand why I needed to sleep if I was dead, why I felt so tired, so weak. I was terrified that I would be taken to that lake again, relive that death once more. To fight it, I focused on this house as it was lifetimes ago.

I dreamed, for the first time ever, in Phoenix’s arms. I dreamed the right way.

I walked every floor, every room, letting the memories of my past fill the air. I never wanted to forget all that I had seen under this roof. As if I were called to it by the room itself, I kept finding my soul in the dome room, standing on the top stair, looking down to the beautiful floor.

Over and over I tried to move from that spot, but the smooth stones across the floor, the pattern they had, kept calling my attention back to it. It was a wide circle with triangles reaching out. Inside of that, a smaller one within had the triangles going the opposite way. That pattern repeated until the circles were too small to be seen, offering an optical illusion that looked like wheels turning in different directions…like the insides of a clock.

Before long, the room started to vibrate and I began to see symbols that I thought I knew but could not comprehend. In the dream, I ran down the steps as fast as I could as the pattern on the stones began to spin and a beaming light came from the center of the floor. Before I could reach that light, my eyes flew open.

I wasn’t nestled against Phoenix before an inviting fire, I was in my darkroom. Mason’s phone was vibrating once again, waking us both but the ringing was an illusion. Gavin was at my desk, writing something at the speed of light.

I sat up slowly, trying to reason my way through my dream and figure out how I’d gotten here all at once.

“Where is Wilder?” I mumbled.

Gavin looked up from his work, seeing both me and Mason wide awake now. “I haven’t seen him. It’s well past the point he should have shown up to meet us here.”

“How far past that point?” I asked with fear in my tone. I knew that somewhere Phoenix was in fierce battle right at this very moment. I was terrified I would never see him again, that I didn’t say enough, that he didn’t know that…I loved him.

“I’m starting to think that time is an illusion in death, but I know I woke some time ago, that I have been fighting with these words for what feels like an eternity,” Gavin replied, turning back to my desk.

Mason and I stood to see what he was working on. It was the creed that both Skylynn and Phoenix had recited. ‘To redeem your soul, you must pass through the line of the moons—the flaming sons of the east and the west—to reach the seventh sister, whose touch will destroy the flames of evil that bind you.’

Over the words ‘line of the moons,’ he had drawn what looked like horns, with a line…no, it looked like the symbol of the ram. “What is this?” I questioned.

“Aries. I’d written a short story about symbols that had dual meanings last winter. The Zodiac symbol of Aries means ‘two moons’—at least I think it does,” Gavin said as he drew a triangle. “An Aries is to stand in front of you, with sons of the east and west to your side—you’re in the center. Mason was born in the east, I was born in the west.”

“Was Wilder tested by Skylynn? Does he have fire wings?”

“Never found him,” Mason answered.

“He’s an Aries, though,” I said as I vaguely remembered that.

“Barely,” Gavin said. “He was born on the cusp. What I don’t get is why we died. We were all there. We should have survived.”

“No one knew to protect us. We were meant to protect them,” I said quietly as I thought over my and Phoenix’s conversation last night. All at once, I grew anxious. I wanted to know he was OK, that everyone fighting with him was.

“But you were in the center,” Gavin argued as he drew a circle around the triangle. “Half of a star; no matter where Wilder stood—whether it was to the north or south—you would have been in a pentagram. That should have kept you safe inside or outside of this house, which rests on the same mark. All of us were together. If we weren’t, it would almost make sense.”

As he traced the triangle, the symbols from my dream rushed through my mind. The floor of the dome room was moving in my thoughts. Fire was all around the staircases, the dome was open, and the stars above were spinning wildly.

I turned briskly and climbed on the couch so I could reach the large stone that hid my journals.

Mason came to my side and helped me slide it back. I reached my hand in the dark hole and felt around until I felt the one journal that I did see flashes of memories with when I found them. They were vague, though, like the journal had sat on something of mine several times but didn’t belong to me. That was half the reason I kept the others in the first place. I wanted to know why they had no memories attached to them.

I squinted my eyes closed, trying to make images appear so I could see the memories attached, but they were too weak. I barely saw any flashes in my mind, and the ones I did see were of candlelight, an inkwell, and a strong hand racing across the pages. I left the others where they were and pulled that one out just before Mason secured my hiding spot once more.

I hopped down from the couch as I started to turn the pages. Most of this book contained some kind of blueprints to the manor, but words in newer ink were added around the drawings, along with more symbols. I turned to the page that had the dome room on it as I laid it down on the desk next to Gavin and Mason came to my other side.

In this image, the marble floor was different. It almost looked more like the working parts of a clock because half of the circles were facing the other way. In the center was what looked like a girl with her legs pulled to her chest and her head down. Just before her legs were seven stars. I could not help but feel some kind of despair coming from that image, like she was trapped by some unseen force…maybe even the seven stars before her.

Just above this image, there were more, in an order that looked like transformation. When seen as one, the images showed the girl rising slowly, the seven stars moving out. Just before where the girl was standing, three birds came to her, one before her and one on each side. The ones to her side had daggers clenched in their claws. The one before her seemed fiercer than the others, without a weapon in its talons.

By the time the image showed the woman standing, the seven stars were outlining the image, the two birds had their swords crossed above the girl, and the third was so bold that it was the background. The girl now looked comfortable, confident, bold, and in control.

“I’ve seen this,” Gavin said as he reached for the words around the images, the tiny symbols.

“Where?” I asked with a gasp.

“Dream,” Gavin breathed.

“I think I have, too, brother,” Mason said. “This is ice,” he said, pointing to the faint triangle symbol around the girl in despair. “I remember the cold…” He pointed to what could only be flames, faint lines around the point where the seven stars seemed to escape into the heavens. “This is fire. This is warmth.”

“And this is both in balance,” Gavin said as he let his long fingertips trace where the girl was standing, just before a flaming bird. Fire and ice.

Gavin squinted his eyes closed like he was trying to remember something—or trying not to. Either way, his mind was clearly racing. “Son of a bitch! We were supposed to die,” he said with a gasp.

“That or we did before,” Mason said as he turned the page.

There, I saw my dream sketched out in a very primitive way. Flames were all around the staircases, and the ceiling looked open with rushes of stars flying by. The floor had more detail, almost like it was falling, and the roots under the house were there, but they looked more like detailed symbols, rings inside of each other, spheres inside of those rings, and one focal point in the center that was made to look like it was shining.

“Sirius,” Gavin said under his breath.

“We moved the house,” Mason said as he locked eyes with Gavin.

I had no idea what was going on. I didn’t like how something was clicking for them, but I was blind as a bat. All I wanted was for someone to tell me that I was that girl, that my seven devils would be set free, that I, the girl made of ice, could stand with fire.

“Explain,” I demanded as I felt my stomach tighten. Where was Phoenix? Why was he not back yet? He needed to see this.

“Does it not look like this goes down?” Mason asked, pointing to the floor that had the most detail. “Like a stairway?”

“It does go down,” Gavin agreed. “That is where they are, either the clocks or the souls—something is down there.”

“New plan, boys…we are not moving on tonight.” I wasn’t going anywhere until both Phoenix and Skylynn saw this and explained to me how what I was going through now was written forever ago. “Call me crazy, but if someone drew this they were probably drawing something they witnessed,” I tapped my finger on the book, “meaning this already happened, and obviously something didn’t pan out right. I’m not dying only to face my seven devils again.”

I gazed down at the drawing, trying to call back memories, hoping some would lead me back to what could have happened in that room. But I couldn’t manage to see the last moments, which told me they had to be agonizing, that my mind was blocking me on purpose.

“I got nothing. I have no memories of anything like this.”

“I think we do,” Mason said, still gazing down at the book.

I went to question him, but Gavin spoke up first. “Skylynn was trying to make it easier for us to remember who we are next go around,” Gavin said. “Last night, she put us in a ring of fire, covered us with some kind of water and herbs, and spoke words over us. She said it was because when we are reborn we may not have time to grow up before we are needed, that we might have to fight as children—she wanted to make that as easy on us as she could. She said whatever she did to us was meant to awaken the soul, to ensure that this life lesson was carried on to the next. All it did was make the dreams we’d had since we stepped foot in this house more real. I’m having a hard time seeing this point, though. When I try, I just see light, spinning stars.”

“It’s having a reverse effect on me, man,” Mason said as he pointed to the dome. “We moved the freaking house.” He locked eyes with me. “We had to. We had to come to help our own. We had to die—seven sacrifices. Seven that bind us until our immortality was born with our death.”

“Seven sacrifices, or seven sisters?” I questioned, gaining hope with each word they spoke.

“To get here, sacrifices. Once you were here, you would rise as one of the seven. The spell was symbolic. It was designed to get you to reach the point we knew you were meant to be at.”

“Is that why the number seven is haunting me?” It truly was. I lost seven souls I loved. I was told that because I was one of the seven sisters, I could not hold the one boy I could not stop thinking about. I could swear he was in my veins at this moment, and now I was looking at an image that had seven stars around a girl.

“No doubt,” Mason nearly fumed. He thought, like I did, that I had been destined to lose my family, that somehow it was planned for me to live through the grief I had endured. And just like me, he could not grasp a reason for anyone to live through that much pain. Something went really wrong long ago.

“There is no way I would have asked seven people to die to get me here.”

“You didn’t. It’s not the same on that side,” Gavin offered. “Time is not the same. You could move through that fall, live a full lives here, died and return, and only a few days would have passed.”

I had every reason to believe what they were saying now. Not only were they using the same words I heard in the North Wing, but they also had the same outlook on how time was perceived in this reality. I heard Guardian say that every minute he stood there, years passed on this side.

Those seven sacrifices could have helped us move here, died, and been back before dinner. Knowing that it didn’t happen that way sent a chill of foreboding down my spine.

“Right,” I breathed, letting them know my memories were catching up to them.

“We did this,” Gavin said. “Our spell,” he said as he pulled the book closer. “I wrote this on the other side.”

“The bright universe, or rather reality,” I acknowledged.

He moved the page and pointed to the roots made to look like four rings, his finger landing on the center. “This divides two realities. This is a wall now, and it should not be. Darkness wants its own rule, as does light…but there must be both, so chosen crested souls were sent to bring balance. We followed to ensure that if they had fallen that they could return home, that our home would know to send more warriors when we did send someone home.”

“You realize this is real, right?” I questioned. “This is not some book,” I glanced at Mason, “some song.” I looked down. “This is our life. Two realities. Phoenix’s. Shadowed souls. Escorts. Light. Dark. Death.” I stood up straighter. “I could never dream up anything this wicked. We need to figure out what went wrong, then. What else do you remember?”

“It’s all about that freaking number: seven,” Mason said. “Seven souls carried us here. They shielded us so the darkness would not know we had come. They were supposed to be set free to go home with our death. Our power was to be dormant until it reached its peak, then our death came, their freedom came. That should have happened forever ago.”

“But it didn’t. Something had to have gone wrong,” Gavin said as his eyes rapidly moved across the page on the journal.

“What if our shield was taken before we gained power? What do you do when you lose seven souls without warning?” I said with a tremble.

They both glanced at me. They knew my wild emotions had moved to the loss of my five sisters and parents. The ice around us was so thick that the journal had been buried. I didn’t reach to squeeze my wrist like I had a million times before. Instead, I thought of Phoenix, my Sebastian, the fire he was, the power he was. The ice vanished at that instant.

Out of habit, Mason looked to my wrist. He lifted the one that had my three watches on it.

“Count down,” he said in a ghost of a whisper.

I looked down to see two of my watches now working. According to them, it was eleven PM.

“How long have they been working?” Gavin asked in a hollow tone.

“They weren’t working just before I knew I was dead. Honestly, I haven’t looked since then.” I mean, why would I look at a watch that had never worked? Checking the time was not even in my vocabulary.

“Midnight. One hour to find the clocks, our daggers, set your seven devils free, and defeat Rasure. One hour to become who we are meant to be,” Mason declared.

“Are you telling me we never needed Phoenix or Skylynn? Is that what you’re saying? If we set my family free—which basically comes with ending Rasure—we are risen?”

“We are raised with the ram. With the fire,” Mason added as he looked at the one watch that was not working, the one Wilder had given me.

“Wilder. Where is Wilder?” I said, trying to breathe.

“He’s not getting near you until he is tested,” Mason said brashly.

“Did you do something to him?” I scorned him.

“Me? No. But Skylynn said to test him. She said any natural fire would show the wings, that we could see them because we were in the veil. She left us to look for him and we woke up here.”

“What if Phoenix is the fire? He has to be,” I said, hoping against all hope in this twisted turn of events that I had found some way for Phoenix to be in my life, found a way for time and circumstance never to divide us again, with or without the threat of this ‘seventh sister’ business carrying any truth at all.

Not to mention if Phoenix was needed to stand with me, one of the seven, that meant the others were meant to stand with who shared their souls. That meant Guardian would stand with the girl I saw him fight so hard to reach long ago.

“When he died and was risen as a phoenix, when was that?” Gavin asked as his sky blue eyes seemed to fill with hope. “For that to be true, at least one of his births has to be under Aries.”

“After we left, apparently…his birthday then was in April. There is a fearless Aries somewhere in him.”

“We left with the snow. That was your power: the cold,” Mason said.

My hope was not gone. I’d seen many cold Aprils. Either way, I was going to make this work. If Wilder were the fire, so be it. I would still not have to move on. “I guess we’ll just have to ask him, right after we show him this. Where is he, dammit?”

“We have a timeline to fight now. Whether they are back before then or not, we have to act. We need to find those daggers, and I would bet those clocks are under that floor,” Gavin stated with a bit of urgency.

“She is nuts. I’ll give you that. But hiding three little clocks under a floor is a little overboard,” I argued.

Gavin shook his head from side to side in an attempt to tell me he was right. “When I tapped into the security feed of this manor, the only room that had more cameras in it than yours was the dome room. She is waiting to see if you will go in that room. Not only that—I never found any evidence of the clocks being moved out, but I did find evidence stating that several clocks had been delivered here. She is storing them somewhere. It’s under that floor. That or the memorial garden.”

“Why the memorial garden?”

“She didn’t want us in there. I doubt this state has any salt left in it. For all we know, that floor leads to the memorial garden. You said yourself this house has more passages than you will ever discover.”

That was true. My darkroom was an example of the little hidden rooms, and others would connect one side of the manor with the other. It was almost like this manor was a manor inside of another; one elegant, one lined with stone.

“OK. Fine. What do the daggers that we need look like? There are more than a few within these walls.”

My father had owned a rather odd collection of knives, ones that he’d said were handed down to him.

“They connect. Silver, heavy, and this pattern of the triangle breaking free into a standing girl is on one side; the wings of the bird are on the other side,” Mason said as he stared forward and his fist clenched, as if he could remember holding one in some distant past.

“They connect at the tip,” I said in a haunted tone as I thought of knives that could very well be those.

“Yeah,” Gavin said, leaning forward as if he were waiting on direction.

“My father’s office, the ceiling...they mock part of an ‘F.’”

“The one by the dome?” Gavin asked.

“The one on the fifth floor that has a spiral stairway that leads to the dome beside it,” I answered as I thought of my dream, the spot I could not move from. “Why are you so sure about the time?”

“Midnight,” Gavin said. “The death of one day and the birth of a new. That is when we must rise. Skylynn said we would have to transition within the next few hours. This is our last midnight, our last chance this go around. If we fail, we’ll have to hope that Skylynn’s magic sticks with us, that we remember all of this.”

“I’m not living through what I have been through again,” I declared as if they were my last words. Silence immersed us for precious seconds. “You know what I don’t get? What is Rasure waiting for? I mean, we know we will end her. We know she has my family. But we didn’t know who or what we were until, like, now. Why would she not have taken us out the first chance she got? What is with the game, with having Cadence toy with us?”

“She must have thought we knew more than we did,” Mason said. “I mean, in a way we were playing with her. You sent those clocks out, made sure she would know you did, and we kept the key. All three of us are side by side. She may think we have already transitioned and were building up to an ultimate showdown. That or she knew we were blind and has something wicked waiting for us. There is no telling what her next play is.”

“I’ll tell you what my next move is: we are going to end this,” I asserted.

 

 

Chapter Fifteen

 

 

Before we left, we secured the journal in the stone wall. Gavin insisted that we act like we knew nothing about this if we came across anyone, that we play the part of weak souls letting go.

I thought it was a pointless warning. I mean, whom would we see besides Wilder anyway? But Gavin was proven ever the wise when we opened the darkroom door and found Cadence waiting on us.

She looked horrible: her mascara was running down her face, her eyes were red and swollen, and her lightly freckled cheeks were bright red. She was still in the dress she’d worn last night.

She looked past me at Gavin, then back to me as tears welled in her eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she said as she struggled to hold back gasping tears.

“For?” I asked.

Gavin nudged me as Candace wiped away her tears. The look in his eye was calm, but alert. He tilted his head slightly. It was a gesture he had given me a million times before, when I was trying to remember my lines, my role when I stepped on stage. It was the look that was supposed to remind me to play my part, so that was exactly what I prepared to do. Instead of ripping her into a thousand pieces and telling her to go hell like I wanted to, I acted like I was in the fog of death, confused, unaware that she had betrayed me on a sacred level.

“Indie, you died…all of you did…and I had no choice. I either became who she wanted me to be, or I would be next.”

I let fake sympathy fill my expression as I reached my arms out for her to come closer. As I held her, I said, “It’s okay. It doesn’t matter anymore…I have to let go. We all do.”

Cadence jerked her head up in shock. “You can’t! I need you.”

“No, you don’t. You have her favor. You always have.”

“You can’t, though. She has Wilder!” she tearfully insisted.

“What!” Mason and Gavin said in a disbelieving tone as the room we were in turned to ice from the fear in my emotions. For a second, I thought I saw a glimmer of happiness in Cadence’s eyes, like she was enjoying the cold, but that quickly went away as she stepped back. “She was right. You won’t save him, save our family.”

Fire boiled through my soul, and the ice vanished instantly. I forgot the part I was playing. I became who I was meant to be: a fearless girl who would bring destruction to anyone who harmed one of my own.

Fear. That was what echoed for a brief second in Cadence’s eyes. “All right, so maybe you will try,” she muttered.

“I’ll do more than that. Where is she? Where is she keeping them—all of them?”

“You need the key. It goes into the floor, more stairs will open. She’s under there.”

Before I could say or think another word, heat absorbed me. It was so thick, so dense that I couldn’t even gasp. The next beat, I was standing in my father’s old office on the top floor.

I quickly looked around for Skylynn and Phoenix, but they were nowhere in sight. Instead, I found Mason and Gavin giving each other a proud nod, laced with awe.

“You two. You did that?”

“Skylynn taught us...well, we asked how she did it. She said you focus, and you move.”

“And just like that, you got it?” I said with an exhausted wonder in my tone. Everything was becoming too real for me to comprehend.

“Wasn’t just like that. I was trying from the second we laid eyes on her,” Gavin said with disdain.

“We have to hurry. Is this the right room?” Mason said, glancing to my watches. We had just over a half-hour left if their timetable was right.

I looked up to the arched ceiling that was laced in gold and had paintings of angels at war. In the center, there were two that had their daggers connected in the shape of an ‘F.’ The only reason I knew it wasn’t part of the painting was that I used to hide in one of the corners of this ceiling and watch my father work. From that height, you could see that the daggers were raised from the painting, but I had no idea how we would reach them. There were no beams near that point, and the ceiling was at least thirty feet high.

Gavin and Mason tried to move my father’s desk over to the center of the room, but it was too heavy.

“So you guys can zap me into another room, but a ceiling is too hard for you? What is the plan—build a tower or something? If so, we are already out of time,” I said to them.

They looked at each other as they stopped their struggle with moving the desk, which weighed well over four hundred pounds.

The next instant, they vanished.

I looked up when I heard them laughing. Their backs were against the slightly arched ceiling. Mason was the one whose laugh was the most dominant. “We can’t die, man—this is too much freaking fun,” he said to Gavin.

Becoming more serious, they both reached for the daggers at the same time, and when they did fire came from the handles, moved up their arms, across their bodies, and absorbed into their skin. It happened so fast, I didn’t even have time to freak out. Then, as if they were laced with feathers, they floated down, both staring at the blades.

“Wrong ones?” I said with heavy sarcasm.

Gavin held his out. On one side of the blade I saw an extremely detailed wing. He then turned the blade, showing me the image of the girl in the triangle breaking free, the woman before one bird with two at each side, the seven stars offering a halo.

Mason was breaking into one of the cases on the wall so he could get a sheath for the blades they had. I didn’t blame him; they looked dangerously sharp.

“Here’s the thing,” I said to Gavin, “she’s got Wilder. She has one of us, the one the triangle needs. We have to set him free before we can kill her. That’s why she took him.”

“We are setting the seven free first. Your uncle, too. They bind you with grief, they bind your power. Even if we saved Wilder first, we would still die without that power to raise us.” Gavin put his hands on my shoulders so I would have to look at the intensity in his eyes. “You have to commit a selfless act in order to sacrifice your mortality to become immortal. We shield your power, but we are not your power. You are. Your soul. Your empathy. Your compassion. You have to set our seven demons free so you can move on to save others. No action can come from us without your demand, and it has to be one that we both agree on. I remember that clearly. You need to focus. Play this the right way, or not at all.”

I felt anxiety building in my gut. I felt sick. I didn’t know if I could do this. I had been so bold, so focused on this moment, and now that it was here I almost wished I would have let go, but then I remembered the images of my family that I saw in the hall, the flames around them, the agony in their eyes. No matter what, I had to set them free. After that point, I could debate if I was the girl they all thought I was.

Gavin shook my shoulders, trying to get me out of my obvious stage fright. “Listen to me: when you were weak a second ago, I saw hope in Cadence’s eyes. I know you did, too, and when you were strong she let fear emerge for a second. There is no doubt they know what you are, what you will be. Own it. Become it. Play the part like it is the last role you will ever play.”

“I don’t...” I said with a gasp as I felt my gut clench and the nausea come back. “I don’t think I can.”

The intensity in Gavin’s eyes grew. “You are going to act like you can. That is our advantage. You are going to play this role. You are going to hold your head high and make them think you have already transitioned, that you are already everything they fear.”

“When I see them, my family, I’m going to be destroyed. I will freeze us into the next Ice Age. No acting can cover that up.”

“You’ve made it go away twice since we have been awake. I know you can do it again. Whatever you thought of, hold that image in your mind. Use it as a weapon. You’re right. If they see the ice, they will know you have no control, they will know you are still weak. The transformation gives you control. They’re desperately trying to stop that.”

“They know we are weak because they have Wilder,” I argued.

“For all they know, he’s playing the part, too,” Mason said as he walked over and handed Gavin a sheath for his blade. “Listen, we know each other all too well. We don’t even need words. You just look us in the eye when you get weak, when you need direction. We have to trust each other. You’re going to have to trust us. Gavin is right, we have to follow your demands, and we all have to agree. You will not be alone for one second. I swear.”

Mason tucked his blade behind him as Gavin did the same.

“We are going on stage, Indie,” Gavin said as calmly as he could. “Play this part, and at the very least, we’ll give them something to fear when we return.”

I swallowed my nerves and tried to find adrenaline to hide behind once I thought I was close enough. I turned and went to the doorway. Just outside of it, I was standing where I was in my dream, looking down on the elegant dome room.

“I was there,” Gavin said, nodding to the other staircase.

“I was there,” Mason said, pointing to the opposite one.

“When?” I asked as I struggled with my nerves.

“When we moved the house. This room spun at the speed of light with our energy, and the floor opened and grasped our roots,” Gavin said as he clenched the rail—you’d have thought he was holding on, like the memories were too real to him right now.

“I really think someone would have noticed a house appearing two hundred years ago,” I said, almost to myself. I think I had decided to see this all as some big dream. That soon I would wake up, move through my day, my arguments with Rasure, school, walking through the North Wing, hanging out at the bar, and dream of my two beats.

“It was here before then. I have no doubt. I remember…” Mason said in a whisper that seemed painful. “You had a vision or something. We started plotting to leave as soon as…as soon as Sebastian and Guardian left.”

I looked up at him sharply. As far as I knew, I had never told him Phoenix’s real name, never told him about Guardian.

“We followed them,” Mason said. “We have been here a while. We landed here long before this country was even discovered.”

“One thing is for sure: Sebastian sure knows how to build a house,” I joked darkly. I couldn’t take in anymore of what they were saying. It was too much, and they were making it seem real. The only way I was going to get through this was by thinking it was a dream, or a really extravagant play.

“God, I wish Skylynn had opened our minds before last night,” Gavin said as he stared forward, clearly agreeing with Mason.

“Where have we been all this time?” I asked timidly.

“Trapped, lost. Something stopped us before,” Mason said as anger consumed him, as I felt fire come from his side. “And I’ll be damned if I let it stop us again.”

“Game face on, Indie,” Gavin said to me as we saw Cadence standing at one of the thresholds that led into this room floors below us. It was salted, as were the others. One thing was for sure, Rasure didn’t want us in here. In obvious anger, Cadence kicked the salt line as she rushed past it, still gasping with tears, a wrought iron bar in her hand. I couldn’t tell whether the tears were an act or not, she was just too good at playing roles.

I started to descend the spiral staircase with Mason and Gavin just behind me.

Cadence began to pry out the marble in the center of the floor, and for some reason that made me furious, like I knew she was stabbing a living, breathing thing.

“Cadence,” I said with all the dominance my role called for.

She looked up in shock, maybe relief. “You are going to help him,” she said with a tearful gasp.

“Tell me why the well-being of Wilder has brought so many tears to you?” I said as I continued my elegant descent. I mean, she wasn’t even making eye contact with Gavin, the one boy she did have a relationship with.

“She made me fool him,” she said as she moved her head from side to side in despair. She sucked in a deep breath. “She had me serve him up on a platter to be feasted on and did that because I was terrified, and now they will feast on him for an eternity if you do not stop this. It’s not his fault that he fell for you, that our family drama sucked him in. This is my demon. I killed him.”

“You killed us,” Mason said with scorn.

“Not in the same way. If I had, I would be fighting for you, too.” Her eyes moved to Gavin. “I tried to tell you I was sorry in my own way, to hold you once more, let you know that I was a victim, that she played me from the moment she arrived. She told me she knew my file had been moved, that I was really a runaway and that I had a family that was searching for me.” She locked eyes with me. “I couldn’t go back, Indie, not to that house, not after what my family did to me. I chose the lesser of two fears. The fact that Rasure was less scary than my family has to tell you that I had no choice. I was scared, and now I’m fighting back. I can’t save you, but I can set you free, all of you.”

“Put the iron down,” I demanded.

She let it fall as if my words were a command that she could not disobey.

“Why did you struggle for that key? Why did you take their lives?” I asked with a quick nod to my side. “Why did you take Sophia’s? What did she do to you?”

“How was I supposed to know we would crash?” she yelled in tearful agony. “This was your fault, not mine. They fell for you, so deep and so blindly that they could not see anyone or anything else. They were obsessed with ending Rasure, just as obsessed as you—so much so that weeks before your battle was to be won they helped you stoke the fire of her wrath. You moved the clocks, you threw that in her face. It’s your fault they had the key in the first place, that Rasure tried to kill us all.” She looked down as she raised her arms to her side, like she was being crucified. “I just wanted them to leave it be, for you to leave it be. Stick with the plan. Win your money and kick her out. The human way. The peaceful way.”

“Dear sister. I have never been human. We both know that.” I didn’t even recognize my own voice. It was powerful, confident—everything that I wasn’t.

She let her hands fall as she shamefully raised her eyes to meet mine.

“I thought you saved me, that my divine sister had spared me, but you didn’t. Fate did. I told myself that you would have if you could, that you were not moving on because you didn’t want me to be alone. Rasure told me I was a fool, that you didn’t care about me. I was disposable, damaged goods as far as you were concerned. I didn’t believe her until you proved her right.”

“Exactly how did I do that, Sister?”

Tears welled in her eyes. “You pulled them to you and pushed me away. You wouldn’t let me help you—you planned to let me go and live forever with your ‘almosts,’ the boys that will never know the real you.”

“I pushed you to safety, to peace. That is my purpose. If you knew the real me, that should not be news to you.”

“That is why I’m here. That is why I told you she had him, she had them all, and where. You may never forgive me, but I will fight for my redemption until my last breath,” she said as she balled her fists.

I glanced back to the guys. Neither of them seemed convinced, and I was divided. I didn’t have time to debate my emotions. For the first time in my existence, a clock was ticking. Counting down to my end.

I gripped the key in my hand and gracefully knelt down, thrusting the star point into the center circle.

When metal met marble and powerful volts of energy weaved through my arm, in that instance in my mind I saw this room, the staircases on fire, wind tunneling around at warp speed, the floor opening to the depths of the Earth. I felt a raw power, it was the power of desperate love, a love that had been divided and would not rest until it was rejoined.

It was a remarkable feeling, one I wanted to relish in so I could understand it, so what I felt for Phoenix would be justified, so I would know that I loved him enough to move universes to find him, that I was strong enough to bring our home to him.

But time was short. Once the energy left, the floor did not open beneath us. Instead, the three spiral staircases began to turn. As they did, the floor underneath them fell, opening the way to more stairs.

Without hesitation, I ran to the one closest to me. When I began to descend the stairs that were still appearing, I had no idea how deep I would follow them or where I was going. We turned and turned, chasing the appearing stairs, finally finding the floor.

When I raised my head and stepped forward, I quickly realized I was overwhelmed. “You have got to be freaking kidding me!”

This was a vast room, as vast as the manor itself, maybe even bigger—and in this room, all within a few feet of each other were thousands upon thousands of grandfather clocks.

In the echo of the room, I heard a bellow. I heard Wilder scream in agony. Cadence grabbed my arm and began to pull me in the direction of it, but Mason stopped her, all but jerking my arm away from her.

“Indie! Come on!” Cadence yelled.

“Not going that way,” Gavin said to her as he nodded toward the way he wanted us to go.

I listened to him, but as I walked away I heard Cadence scream, “You are everything she said you were and worse!”

I turned sharply to face her. “Choose you words carefully, Sister. My compassion is in limited supply tonight.”

“Wilder. You have to help me! I’m not strong enough,” she begged as tears spilled down her cheeks.

“I’m setting more than Wilder free tonight.”

She let a look of disgust fill her innocent image just before she turned and ran toward Wilder’s screams.

Mason turned me and began to pull me through the clocks as Gavin led us.

“Tell me you guys know what the freak you are doing,” I said through clenched teeth. The clocks around us began to creak with ice that was forming on them. I could not handle the idea that Wilder was suffering and his only crime was that he knew me, that he tried to love me.

“We are going to the memorial garden. There has to be a reason she wanted to keep us out of it,” Mason stated sternly.

“What if she was just using it as a decoy?” I argued as I looked over my shoulder at the sound of a new scream.

Gavin stopped and pointed to the key that was clenched in my hand. Now with the missing part, it clearly read ‘Falcon M Observatory.’ “I’m not focusing on her, only the signs. Now suck in those emotions and touch these clocks, as many as you can. Tell me if you see anything—any memory at all.”

“What is it with the clocks? I don’t get it,” I said, desperately glancing to the sea of them around me.

“Time. She takes time from the souls. It’s nothing more than symbolic imagery,” Gavin assured me, “and we are going to give that time back, set free what she has locked away.”

I nodded nervously as I unconsciously let my hand reach for my wrist, to the mark of a falcon under my pearl bracelet. I found my warmth and drew in a deep breath.

Mason picked up a fast-paced jog through the clocks as I let my hands run across the wood of each one we passed. Though I felt the energy of a lost past, the elegance of the piece itself, I saw nothing that said they were mine. That brought me little comfort, though. These were only the ones in our path, but thousands were all around us and the clock was still ticking.

It felt like it was forever before it happened, but we reached the end of the clocks and before us now was a stone wall and one dark tunnel.

“What now?” I asked anxiously.

Gavin and Mason reached for the torches beside the entryway; with a glance from them, fire burned through the kindling.

“Now you are really on stage,” Gavin said, nodding for us to move forward.

I could only assume we were following the path to the memorial garden. I felt my heart beating out of control, adrenaline seized my body, and my breathing fading. I kept telling myself that at any moment Phoenix would appear, that he would feel my unrest and come for me.

When he didn’t, I feared the worst. I feared that no matter the outcome of what was before me that I would live on in grief and agony.

Before long, light emerged at the end of our tunnel. As we approached, in the distance across the open room I saw another clock. A few steps later, we were at the threshold of this room. It was rather large. One clock was on the wall before us, another to the right. On the mantle of an enormous fireplace was the other. In the center of the beams that ran across the ceiling, there was a dome, no larger than five feet. The warm, flickering orange glow from it gave the room a wicked ambience, but not as wicked as the overstuffed leather chair that had Rasure proudly perched in it, with two guards behind her.

Chained from the ceiling with his arms above his head and his shirt off was Wilder. His strong, lean body was glistening with sweat, and blood from his wrist was raining down his arms.

Rasure slowly adjusted herself in her seat as a sinful smile echoed on her thin lips. “I assumed you would run to the echo of his screams. I suppose you are smarter than that runaway trash you call a sister.”

It took every ounce of my strength, but I held in my anger. I held in the cold. Every emotion I had was sucked into that ice rock that remained in my core.

“I am but a servant to my family. I have been told that they are not resting in peace, that you are the reason behind that.”

Her dark eyes gleamed with malice. “And who has been filling your head with such lies? The same souls that have convinced you that you—of all people—matter in the great scheme of things?”

“I’m not convinced. But I figured what the hell. I’d kill you for kicks and giggles, see where that gets me.”

I stepped forward but halted as she stood.

“Well, then. If we are going to play this game, let’s put all the pieces on the board, shall we,” she said coolly.

She sharply turned to her left and walked to the fireplace. With each step, with each staccato echo of her heels against the stones, I felt my heart pound, my control struggling to be set free.

Once Rasure reached the clock on the mantle, she opened the glass face, whispered something into it, and an instant later a light burst from it, connecting to lights that were now beaming from the other clocks. Rasure stepped to the side as her guards came to her and wind filled the room. The floor vanished beneath a dense fog, an intense bolt of energy exploded in the room. It was so fierce, I had to close my eyes and bow my head.

When I dared to look up again, I saw my worst nightmare: my family, my parents, my sisters, and my uncle were suspended in the air as deep blue flames surrounded them. They were silent in their screams, but Wilder wasn’t. He was now dangling, trying to keep his bare feet off the stone floor, which was causing his chains to cut deeper into his wrist. When I looked down, I saw a thin coat of salt along the stone. It almost seemed like the fog had delivered it. The stone floor was darker, almost wet where the salt was.

“You seem divided,” Rasure said confidently. “Is it the salt in the water across the floor, or this?” she said as wrought iron bars rose from the now wet stone floor and blocked my path to my family. “Or is it the fact that you are not who they have told you? Is it not true that you want to leave your adored in agony, your family to the damned—for the sake of revenge, for the sake of satisfying that self-loathing, cold, vindictive soul of yours?”

All at once, Mason and Gavin threw their torches at Wilder, but they barely landed at his feet. Wilder was at least twenty feet from us.

“If I were looking for evidence that you are only playing a part, your adored have graciously given that to me,” Rasure said smugly.

I knew Mason had an aim that was never wrong, that he had an undeniable strength and accuracy in every physical thing he did. Mason didn’t miss. He’d purposely let his torch fall along Wilder’s body, and when he did no flaming wings appeared—telling us without a doubt that he was not part of what we were. That really didn’t solve much, though. I cared about him, enough to save him, to make sure he was safe.

Wilder must not have understood what the guys were doing. He glared in their direction. It was a look I’d never seen come from him, one that was near terrifying. There was no telling what Rasure had done to him. If my Wilder even still existed.

We all knew we would not be able to withstand the salt long, that we had one of three choices: either go after Wilder, my family, or Rasure.

“Tick tock…smart move. Let the clock run out so you will not be forced to commit a sin as you perish,” Rasure taunted me.

I made it seem as if I were looking into the souls of the ones I loved as I surveyed the room, where the stone became wet, how heavy those floating bars that were around my family seemed, how I could do everything I wanted to do with one swift act.

There were only three bars, all horizontal, and there was a beam above me.

I was out of time and out of choices. The only way out of this was straight up and over.

I glanced to my side at Mason. He held his hand out flat, a common gesture between us. He agreed, and he was telling me to go up, that he was planning on thrusting me up.

I let my eyes meet Wilder’s across the room just as I used Mason’s hand to jump up and grab the beam.

There was no room above the beam for me to stand, and barely enough for my hands, so I pulled myself across until I knew I was close enough to swing my body over the iron. I only had a few feet to squeeze my body above them.

My anger, shock, and doubt caused ice to form as I fell to my feet, but that wasn’t a mistake. The ice froze the fire around the souls of my family, but they were still trapped. Before I could think of what to do next, Mason had charged forward, jumping into the air and grasping the top iron bar. He flung the bar at the chains around Wilder, and they went right through the hook. Gavin was already there, climbing up behind Wilder so he could reach the bar and turn it to set him free.

There was only one way for me to break the ice around the souls of my family: from the bottom up. I grasped another wrought iron bar, feeling the jolt of energy painfully surge through me. The bar felt guided by some other force. When I looked back, I saw that that force was Mason. He was behind me, giving power to the swing. We aimed at the floor, slicing through the ice as Mason bellowed, “Rise!” and the iron bar turned to fire in our hands.

The souls of my family struggled in unison upon hearing his command. The combined strength from their struggle caused the flaming iron bar to slice through water, not ice, triggering the flames that had bound them to wash away.

A peace, a warm peace filled my soul. I felt like I was cutting free an anchor—that everything that had bound me had finally fallen away. I watched as the faces of my mother, my father, my five beautiful sisters turned to light and vanished. My uncle seemed lost, disoriented, like he had just woken up in the middle of a nightmare.

I wanted to relish this victory, to stare at the last peaceful glimpses of my family, but this was not over. Rasure. She was still standing. And if she had done this to my family, there was no telling who else she had trapped, who those other clocks we passed led to.

I only knew one thing: she was not getting out of this room alive.

 

 

Chapter Sixteen

 

 

Rasure’s guards charged us, but the instant they moved, the instant I heard Wilder’s chains fall to the floor, I heard Mason bellow, “Betray us, cease!”

Whatever that phrase meant, it was powerful. The overgrown guards halted as their arms violently jerked back and black smoke steamed out of every opening in their bodies, finally ripping them apart as they vanished.

I stared coldly at Rasure as my chest rose and fell with adrenaline. I could feel a raw power swelling inside of me.

After a moment of hesitation, she let an evil smile come across her lips. “You have not yet transformed. You are nothing more than a vengeful spirit.”

“Is that your bet?” I seethed, daring to move slowly toward her.

“It is, dear,” she said with a smirk. “And now you never will. He perished. The flaming bird that is to guard your passage has left his existence.”

No amount of self-control in the world could have held back my emotions. Ice began to form across the stone room as she laughed. What was she saying? Phoenix had died? Let go? That because he had, because he thought that we could never be together in the form we were in, he let go? He lost his battle tonight, and at any moment I would lose mine?

“I don’t believe you,” I raged.

“It doesn’t matter if you do or not. I knew you were still vengeful the second you plotted your way around the salt and iron. Someone of your power would never fear the elements of the Earth. I knew his death was certain the moment he did not come for you. He should have arrived the moment you laid eyes on me, the moment fear came to you. I suppose he didn’t care to be another notch on your bedpost.”

I reached down for the last wrought iron rod, feeling—yet ignoring—the pain of its touch as Gavin came to my other side.

I let a deceitful smirk come to the corner of my lips. “I have yet to have fear for you, therefore, there is no reason for him to come. Whether I rise or fall is none of your concern, for tonight you will pay your debts.”

With that I charged forward, rod in hand, aiming for where her heart would be if she had one—if she were human at all. The second the iron entered her flesh, black smoke trickled out of her body.

She let a slow smile come across her face as death invaded her eyes and smoke seeped from her lips. “You are a fool. And I will have the last laugh tonight.”

Mason and Gavin both pulled their blades from where they were tucked in the back of their pants. In mid-thrust they connected, then pushed into Rasure. I pushed their arms down, causing the blade to divide her, causing thick black smoke to rush out of her body just before she turned to flames and vanished.

Breathless, I let my heart race. The ice built, I let the real, terrified me out.

Just when I thought I had control, when I let myself feel the slightest bit vindicated, iron chains wrapped around my neck. I gasped for air as I felt the strength behind them.

I knew from the cut on the arm that it was Wilder, that he was trying to end me.

“Back away, or this will be over really quick,” he said through a locked jaw to Mason and Gavin.

They only stepped forward and turned so they could see him, so they could figure out their play.

“Glad to see that I wasn’t special enough for you to save, D,” he said into my ear as he tightened the chains. I’m not mad. Not at all. I found someone that was a little more interesting than you. I’ll play with her for now.”

At that moment, I heard the echo of a clap and slanted my eyes to the doorway. There, I saw Cadence clapping slowly as she walked to where we were.

“Well done, Sister,” she said as she positioned herself in front of me.

Something happened right then. I don’t know what it was, but one second we were in this heated moment of shock, and the next a rich smell of mint and honey filled the room. I felt myself wave forward, so much so that I glanced to my side to see a massive hole in the stone wall which didn’t make any sense because I’d never heard those stones fall. What really didn’t make any sense was that the smell of lilies was absent now. Even though Wilder was there, he had no scent. To make things even odder, Cadence didn’t look the same. It was the eyes. They looked more distant, more so than what this revelation would have given them.

Oddly, it felt like this game of life had just been paused and the pieces replaced. Both Gavin and Mason glanced at me, sensing the same shift.

“That was by far the best role you have ever played,” the image of Cadence said. “Next go around, leave the picture-taking be and focus on your acting. Maybe then you’ll be able to fool the master.”

I had already forgotten about that weird, vacant moment and focused on rage. “To fool you,” I said with a gasp. “You’re beneath me.”

“Am I? Or am I the one you have been fighting from day one? The one that took your family, the betrayer that stood at your side while you grieved for them? Am I not the one that orchestrated this entire event? Kept your focus on Rasure, a mere servant to me?”

“Choose your words carefully, they are your last,” I said through broken breaths as I tried to inch my fingers between the chains around my neck.

“Stop your acting, Sister. The best lines could not cover the bruises along your arms, the ones that say you’re a weak, dying soul.” She leaned toward me. “Your eyes are still green, only flickering with a deep blue.” She let a smug grin come to her seemingly innocent face. “No acting can cover up the fact that your very own guards are the reason you are struggling now. They set Wilder free. If they were who they were meant to be, they would not have been so foolish.”

“They’re not fools,” I said with a grunt. “They were waiting for permission.” I swallowed, searching for air, then said, “Permission granted.”

At that moment, Gavin and Mason moved forward at the speed of light, took the chain from my neck, and flung it back, wrapping Wilder in it. Mason slammed Wilder into the ground, knocking him out cold. I’m sure he would have found the courage to kill him in the next breath, but Cadence’s laugh stopped him.

A wickedly sinful expression masked the guiltless person I knew my sister to be. “A fighter to the end. We have been here before. Right when you arrived, and several times since then. I have scattered the souls of your guides across this globe, and I will be damned if they did not all end up under the same roof once again.”

She glanced at my uncle, who was starting to realize who I was, who she was. With a nod, Cadence sent him flying across the room. I heard his body hit the wall and had no way of knowing if he was alive or not anymore.

“You see, Sister, my servant Rasure was correct. She will have the last laugh tonight, one that she deserves after decades of loyal service. Your adored is gone, and now it’s time for you to move on. We’ll pick this up in a hundred or so years.”

At that moment, I felt fire in my legs, in my arms. It wasn’t a good fire, it was an agonizing fire, one that Mason and Gavin must have felt, too.

Cadence began to circle us as we fell to our knees. “You see, the best way to end a vengeful soul is to salt and burn their remains. Your brother has done an extraordinary job of protecting those remains, but money is power. Right now, a nurse is injecting your body with a mix of sodium and sulfur. You will burn, slowly, from the inside out.”

I looked down to see my flesh beginning to break apart.

I was furious, terrified, and in agony, but I was not going to let her see that. I glanced to each of my sides to my guys and nodded up once. As soon as Cadence circled again, we were going to take her out—or die trying.

Right as she stood before us, right as I felt agony in every part of my soul, Phoenix appeared in front of me, us, and took the blades, the arms of Gavin and Mason, and joined them just as they lunged them into Cadence.

Black smoke didn’t come from her. Instead, she flickered like a hologram just as she vanished. I thought maybe I was hallucinating, that Phoenix wasn’t there, that I was just letting go and he was the last image I wanted to see.

I fell forward on the stone floor as the guys did. I barely noticed that Phoenix had picked me up and was cradling me in his arms, that Skylynn was standing over him, yelling something I could not hear.

“Burn,” I made my lips attempt, but there was no sound. “Burn,” I choked out. I raised my wrist with the watches on it for him to see. Seconds, that was it, seconds, and it wouldn’t matter; we would be gone.

Skylynn grabbed my wrist and yelled something at Phoenix but he wasn’t listening, he was trying to hear me.

“Save us,” I said as my eyes locked with his.

You would have thought I confessed an eternal love to him. His flaming eyes grew wide with relief. “I’ve got you, Love. I’m never going to let you go.”

I squeezed his arm with what strength I had. “Leave Wilder.”

And with that, my eyes closed.

I felt a blazing fire and jerked my eyes open, only to see flames coming from Phoenix, reaching out to Mason and Gavin, lifting their now limp bodies into the air.

The next beat, I felt ice and I saw the river. I saw the crash, I felt myself struggle to get out of the car, but I soon realized it was not the car that was holding me under the icy water—it was Phoenix.

The water felt like it weighed a thousand tons, like no matter how powerful, how supernatural Phoenix was that he would not be able to break me free from this death.

My body went limp, succumbing to frigid temperature.

I don’t know if it was an illusion or not, but I saw my family, all of them, floating around me. My gaze met the compassion of my mother, the protection of my father, the wisdom of my grandmother, the life and energy in each of my sisters’ eyes. I saw them in another time, in another world. I saw them stand at my side. I saw them sacrifice their lives to carry me here. I saw lifetimes on this side where they had been tested, divided, silently tormented, imprisoned, unable to go home.

They were free now, and they were lifting me up. They were raising me from the ice, breaking it apart. Their gazes spoke a million words, all powerful, all full of love. They were telling me goodbye. They were rejoicing that after all this time, we found each other, that we’d set each other free.

The cold was past the point of being unbearable. I was numb, disoriented. I felt Phoenix’s arms under my back, my soul soaring up. The water became warmer and warmer, and all at once it erupted into flames.

I saw Mason floating near my head, Gavin at my feet, and Phoenix holding me. The three of them were soaring through the icy lake that had turned to flames.

One. Slow. Beat.

The flames immersed us all, and the next thing I saw was the ceiling of the observatory.

I knew without a doubt that Phoenix had thrust us through that ceiling and broken into the fire pool that centered the room just before the tombs of my family.

As I rose into the air, every part of my soul broke apart. The ice in my core exploded, and what looked like diamonds surrounded us all. Fire reached out for that ice, grasping it and pulling it back to me.

I felt agony. Pain. I felt like giving in, nothing was worth this much pain, this much torment.

I was so cold, I was hot; so hot that I was cold. Billions of images rushed through my mind, ones of a powerful, determined past, ones that showed me how wicked my dear sister was.

Memories that showed me that when no one returned to our true home, our true reality, that the people there had sent the woman that became my grandmother here, my uncle here. They were sent here to assemble the Falcon legacy. Through numerous lifetimes, my grandmother had searched for and found all of us. She prepared us for this war. I was determined not to let her down, not to let any member of my family, of my world, my universe down. Too much had been sacrificed for me to give up now. I screamed at myself to become who I was meant to be—to accept this pain as my power.

With that thought, the pain increased, as if it were challenged and accepted the dare to bring me more misery.

Two slow beats later, the pain stopped and numbness came. I felt flames licking my flesh and smelled smoke, an awful, unnatural smoke.

“Genevieve!” I heard Phoenix bellow, causing me to thrust my eyes open. When I did, I had no idea where I was. Flames were all around us. Phoenix let relief come to his flaming stare—but only for a second—then he pulled me up. I was lying on a hospital bed. Ashes, a massive amount of ashes, lay where I was.

Phoenix beckoned his fingertips swiftly above them, and in that instant they rose, swirled rapidly, then vanished into his hand. He glanced across the room. Skylynn was raising Mason, calling his ashes. Phoenix pulled Gavin up with a glance and called his ashes before he turned to me. I was still out of it. I could not figure out why everything was burning. I felt like jelly. I was not solid.

“Walk out of here,” Phoenix demanded.

“Where is here?” I asked as I swayed forward.

Phoenix called the flames around us to my body, and when the fire wrapped around me I felt strength come back to me.

“The hospital. They set it on fire. The flames will give you strength. Walk through them, right out the front door. We have to get you home,” Phoenix demanded.

“Then do your whisk thing,” I said as I reasoned that moving was more than I could do at this moment.

“Your family has to know you are alive. They have to see you walk out. Skylynn and I have to get the patients out. Cadence didn’t care who she took out when she took you down,” he argued, telling me I could do this. That he was not my crutch. That I didn’t need one.

I glanced around the room, noticing that as Skylynn put her hands on a bed, the patient and every machine around that patient vanished in that instant. She appeared a second later, moving to the last patient in the room, but surely not the last one in the hospital.

“Trust me,” Phoenix said as he pulled me to his lips. The force and passion behind his warm flesh focused me once more. He pulled away from me, then led me to Mason and Gavin, placing me in the center.

“Walk through the flames—the longer, the better!” Phoenix demanded as he vanished from my side.

Mason and Gavin looked a thousand times stronger than me, and more determined. They each took one of my arms and led me out of the room, purposely walking through the flames in the hall. With each step, I felt stronger, but it wasn’t enough. It was like I’d been dying of thirst, and no matter how much I drank I was still dry.

Firemen were crawling across the floor. Mason and Gavin moved me to the side wall, hiding us behind the flames until they had passed. We slowly walked through the blaze as we descended the stairs that led to the lower floors, floors that were not on fire, which meant the strength the flames were giving me had vanished. I felt Gavin and Mason hold me up as we moved through the open lobby, as firemen came to us and ushered us out.

The parking lot was full of fire trucks, police cars, patients on beds, others standing holding oxygen over their faces. Hundreds and hundreds of people were running in every direction.

As we passed the beds where the doctors were frantically working on the people, I heard, “It was an angel. She carried me out,” and “He was so fast, so strong. He brought me here—he saved me,” from the disoriented patients.

I didn’t have the strength to smile on the outside, but on the inside I was beaming. Emergency workers tried to help us, but Mason and Gavin waved them away as they pushed us through the crowd. We had almost reached the edge of the mass of people when I heard someone scream out Mason’s name. It was his mom, and she charged though that crowd with nothing less than the sheer power of motherhood.

Gavin’s mom must have been near her, heard her cry, because Gavin’s name was screamed next.

They both kept one hand on me as they embraced their mothers. I glanced over my shoulder to see the fifth floor raging with flames, firemen courageously aiming their weapons of water at that floor—hoping against all hope that they could save lives, be the heroes they were born to be.

This was my fault. I was the target, the one that had put the weakest people in danger. I wanted to save them, save this building, and with that thought the flames breaking out through the windows froze. An eerie silence came to the crowd. The only sound was water from the hoses that were now obsolete.

I felt my knees buckle, and as they did the icy flames turned to water and washed down through the building, ending any and all further destruction that the fire could have wrought. I felt arms catch me and assumed it was the guys, but I recognized the cologne, the dark blue suit: it was Ben. He had caught me and turned me in his arms in utter disbelief.

“My God, Indie—how?” he said as his hands cupped my face.

“It was a little hot in there,” I said, trying to mock my familiar sarcasm and appear stronger than I was.

“Indie, you were clinically dead—” Ben said, tracing the lines around my mouth where the tubes that were keeping me alive must have been. “You just don’t wake up and walk out of a fire—you need a doctor!”

That instant, I felt someone turn me and say, “Genevieve, dear, bloody hell! You scared the living daylights out of me!”

It was Phoenix. My face was now nuzzled against his strong chest, which I could swear had flames just under the surface. The heat was giving me composure.

“Who the hell are you?” Ben said in his all-too-protective tone.

“My...my...boyfriend,” I said, looking back at Ben as my arms embraced Phoenix. I guess that sounded more believable than ‘lover,’ ‘soul mate,’ ‘life.’

“Since when?” Ben asked with shock.

“Since forever,” Phoenix said boldly. “We need to get you home, Love. It’s freezing out here,” Phoenix said as his hands rushed across my back, sending fiery warmth through my soul.

“Home? No. Hell no!” Ben argued. “I’m getting a doctor.”

Phoenix reached out for Ben’s arm as he went to pass us. “They have enough to heal right now, Mate. I’ve called the best doctor in the world to come for Genevieve. He is meeting us at the manor.”

“And who is this doctor of yours, boy? Do not play with me. I trust little to no one with the fate of my sister.”

“Agreed there, Mate. Jason Haywood and John Blair are waiting on us. Search their names, and you will see their skills are unrivaled. You will find that John Blair checked in to see all three of them just as the fire alarms went off and that Dr. Haywood has been advising the staff as he traveled here.”

Ben pulled out his phone.

“Call them on the way,” Phoenix said, pulling me closer. “Where is your car? Or do I need cab?”

Ben looked to Mason and Gavin’s families. “Follow us, we’ll make sure they are out of the woods. I’ll have a helicopter on standby if they need to be moved to another hospital.”

I didn’t think either of their families would let them go, but they whispered something to their mothers and came to Phoenix’s side as we followed Ben through the parking lot to one of his SUVs. His driver stepped out and opened the doors as the guys climbed in and Phoenix lifted me. I was too weak to move, and growing weaker.

Once Ben was in and gave the orders to the driver, he turned his attention to his phone, demanding that his assistant find out who Jason Haywood was, how my floor was torched, and that a chopper be sent to the manor.

“Do we have time for this?” Gavin said in a whisper to Phoenix.

I could not figure out why they were stronger than me, why they looked as if they had been through nothing at all.

“All for show, Mate,” Phoenix said as he pulled me on his lap, ensuring that every part of me was touching his body, which was so hot that I could have sworn it was on fire.

Ben turned in his seat. “So, your doctor checks out. I want to know who you are, where you came from, and how you know my sister.”

“Sebastian Falcon, though my blokes call me Phoenix. I am from everywhere and nowhere. I met your sister long ago, and I assure you I will never let another soul strike her.”

“Falcon. You’re a Falcon? A child of a past adopted member?”

That wasn’t an odd question. My grandmother and her mother had both opened their homes to lost children. There may be seventy-seven in the flock Ben and I came from, but the number of Falcons that were created by our parent’s bloodline was in the thousands, maybe beyond that. Our name was freely given to any child that crossed our threshold, and at times that was worth more than the money they left with a few years later.

“The original, Mate. One of the last originals. Genevieve sought me out. We were bonded from first glance, and together we plan to make the Falcon name one that will never be forgotten.”

The dominance in Phoenix’s tone took Ben by surprise. He let his glance move to Gavin and Mason. “You know him? He’s always been around? You trust him?”

“Always,” Mason said, locking eyes with Ben.

I couldn’t find the strength to defend Phoenix. My head flew back against the window.

“That is it. Take us to the nearest hospital,” Ben ordered the driver just as I felt a whirl of wind and a surge of newfound energy.

“Why, Mate? There is a doctor just inside,” Phoenix said, nodding for Gavin to open the door and let us out. Phoenix had moved the entire car to the manor with a thought, completely befuddling both the driver and Ben.

I was in Phoenix’s arms at the front door before I even heard Ben start to make an argument. Once out of view of Ben, Phoenix moved me again. Now he was carrying me into a room that was not mine, but I had imagined that it was more times than I could count: our bedroom in the North Wing.

It was red and black, laced with gold, and a large canopy bed centered one wall. Heavy drapes covered wall-length windows, and gently aged chairs and short couches made up a sitting area just beyond the foot of the bed, before a fireplace. A glance from Phoenix gave birth to a fire there, adding to the dim glow of the eccentric lamps that rested beside the bed. The next beat, I was lying on the bed and he was hovering over me.

“What is wrong with me?” I said in an exhausted tone.

“Your transformation is not complete. I only had seconds, whereas it should have taken hours. I’m starting to think it would not have mattered, that the ice is stopping it, that death is pulling you back,” he said with heavy grief in his silky tone.

My eyes grew heavy. As they closed, I whispered, “It was written. You saved me.”

I could not form the words to tell him that we had not committed the ultimate sin, that he was meant to break the ice around me apart, that he was meant to set my soul on fire and raise me to this existence.

 

 

Chapter Seventeen

 

 

My dreams were heavy, beyond vivid, and they solidified what I had only heard whispers of in the North Wing. I saw this manor. A lost time. My world was on the verge of a civil war. Though we were born of light, born of peace, some of us had become restless, terrified that the natural order had been broken, that darkness was on the verge of an all out siege on us. They wanted to barricade The Fall, the point where souls moved through once their time was complete on the other side. They feared The Fall because the children that were reborn were broken souls, vacant of joy and creativity. It was as if they were damaged beyond repair, as if their past lives were too dark and too damned for them to overcome.

Guardian had always been a powerful speaker. He had a gift with words and the dominance to back up everything he said, just as much as my Sebastian. People from our cause charged them with orders of restoring the peace to our world one way or another. Sebastian accepted the call without even speaking to me about it.

He promised me he would return before the next moon, leaving me with the girl that Guardian had fallen in love with, my guards, and our growing family of abandoned children.

It was the coldest winter that I had ever witnessed. The snow was heavy, imprisoning us in our home.

My dreams, which had been vivid in that life, stopped. Instead, I woke with terror, believing without a doubt that my home was burning. I was not the only one that was losing sanity. The girl that Guardian left for me to watch over began to have violent dreams. And she insisted that there was a dark world that she had to save, that had captured our lovers.

She insisted that we move through The Fall, that she would go with or without me. She said we were divided, that we had to rise. We had to restore balance.

She was vindicated when my guards, who Mason and Gavin were then, began to have visions. When my family began to have visions. At that point, the plot for me to become some kind of supernatural redeemer began to form.

Everyone but me could see some fate before us, everyone knew their roles.

Three moons passed. The snow fell on and on, and there was no sign of my beloved, no word that peace had been restored. That selfish foolishness was behind us. I began to believe the souls around me. I began to take their visions seriously.

We stood in the dome room, each on our own staircase. My family surrounded the circles on the marble floor. Guardian’s lover, Aliyanna, stood in the center chanting words, dark, commanding words. A shadowy energy surrounded her, then a force of energy caused the glass ceiling to explode, showering snow and ice around us.

A beaming glow of light came from Mason, Gavin, and me as the floor began to spin, as Aliyanna raised her hands and lightning, thunder, rain, snow, and wind whirled around us.

Everything started to spin, to turn at warp speed. It was nauseating, and when I didn’t think I could take any more, I closed my eyes and pulled myself into a ball. Several beats later, silence came. Still fearing the power that Guardian’s lover had displayed, I slowly opened my eyes and let my arms fall.

Now standing above me was Cadence. She let a malevolent smile echo in her eyes. “You. You are the one they sent to bring my fall.” She glanced at the marble floor covered in debris, with the bodies of my guards and family. “This is your army?”

Before I could utter a word or understand who she was, the bodies of the ones I loved were pulled up by some unseen force and twisted. The cracks of their bones echoed in the room just before they crashed to the floor. She knelt down to look deeper into my eyes. “You’re a bit early. Ahead of the fire, if you will, which means this is the perfect prison for you.” As she said that, I pulled my legs and arms up, wanting to shield myself, but it was all for naught, she had frozen me into a solid block of ice. I suffocated slowly as I stared into her cold eyes. I welcomed death. I welcomed it because I was sure that if my Sebastian was not here that he had failed, too, that we could only find each other in another life, another time.

Rage consumed me. I had never even come close to feeling something this violent toward Rasure. I didn’t understand who I was or what my purpose was, but I knew that I would not let my family die in vain, that I would not let this cold world that I was thrust into destroy the light I was born into, the peace I was fighting to maintain before fate divided my family, before my soul had sent me into a dark reality, one that I had yet to find my purpose in—that is, until now.

My eyes flew open as I sucked in a gasping breath of life.

A man I didn’t know was leaning over me. I wanted to get away— like, now and after a brisk, warm rush I found myself against the wall, my chest rising and falling rapidly with the beat of my heart. Before I could assure myself I was wide awake, Phoenix was in front of me, pulling me to him.

“Impressive, Love,” he said as he urged me back to the bed, where the older man was still standing. He wasn’t scary or anything. In fact, I felt nothing but peace coming from him. I found comfort in his green eyes. “This is Jason, a doctor,” Phoenix said as he gently encouraged me to sit on the edge of the bed. Jason came around to where we were.

“Do...do...do I need a doctor? Now that...” I didn’t know if was supposed to be playing a part for this man or not.

“He is a very special doctor. He fights with us. With Guardian. He knows what you are.”

“You know Guardian?” I asked weakly in an attempt to seem stronger than I was. Inside, I could feel fire and ice, both fighting for control and it was making me dizzy.

“He is my oldest daughter’s soul mate,” Jason replied.

Slowly, my eyes rose to meet his. “You’re Aliyanna’s father.”

Saying her name seemed to bring shock and joy both to him and Phoenix.

“In this life, she is called Willow.”

“Tell me she is more patient than when I knew her,” I muttered as my dream raced through my thoughts and I clearly remembered how driven that girl was, how she insisted that one way or another she was moving through The Fall. I knew Guardian would never forgive me if I let something happen to her. We all listened to her, created the most wicked spell that had ever existed, only to arrive before the fire, only to become prisoners. I didn’t remember seeing her on that floor with my family, though. Maybe she did make it to the dark world she spoke of, the one she said that she and Guardian had to free.

Jason smirked. “I am afraid not.”

“Did she redeem that world? Est…I can’t remember it.”

“In progress,” Jason said as his eyes carefully moved over me, like he was looking below the surface somehow.

“Must be a slow one. I carried her here forever ago,” I said as I felt a wave of dizziness come over me.

Jason had one hand on my shoulder before I could sway, like he saw it coming. “Nothing worth having comes instantly. It’s the fight, the drive that makes your dreams strong enough to withstand the mark of time.”

“Right, then. Well, tell your daughter I’m here. Apparently, we have a few sisters that are still in the wind and a war of balance to win.”

“Let’s get you better first,” Jason said with a proud grin. He looked down at Phoenix, who was on his knees before me. “I stand by my original advice. Her energy is but half. You gave her fire, but she must be immersed in it. Her soul has to know that you are there for her, that you are forevermore joined. Until it does, inside the ice and fire will be at war. Once her soul believes that you are true, not an illusion, the transformation will continue.” Jason smiled at me once more as he put his hand on Phoenix’s shoulder. “I’ll ensure that no one disturbs you.”

Phoenix held my stare as Jason left the room, closing the door behind him.

“I know you are here for me,” I said as I reached for his faultless image.

Pain echoed in Phoenix’s eyes. “I was shown the journal.”

I let a smile come to my eyes. “We are not the ultimate selfish sinners. Death had to come.”

“I almost let you go,” he said in a ghost of a whisper. “I convinced myself that I had done something horrid in a distant past, something that had forevermore taken you away from me.”

I moved my head to the side. “You went to bring peace, but the war was not there; it was here.”

Anger came to his eyes. “This whole time, you have been struggling to break free from your prison, and I was struggling to get home…a home you brought with you.”

“I’m not kidding. That Aliyanna girl is no joke. She insisted that we do the spell, and she was driven near insane. It was her idea.”

He smirked. “Trust me, Sunshine is easier to handle when Guardian is around.”

I leaned forward slowly as I reached for his lips. I didn’t know what Jason meant about my transformation, but I knew I wanted to feel the fire of his touch, that I had fought too long and too hard to be where I was, to let my weakness hold me back.

He moved closer, letting his lips frame mine as his arms went around me and he laid me gently across the bed.

“Do you trust me?” he whispered.

I stared into the gray of his eyes, the breaks of fire that raced through them. What I was about to do was going to take more courage, more adrenaline than any car crash, any brush with death, or even Rasure herself.

I swallowed nervously as I held his gaze. “I love you.”

A gasping smile came across his image. “Are you sure, Love? Forever is the commitment of all commitments. Rather suffocating idea to some.”

“Do you want me to say it a million times?” I said as I felt the power behind that commitment.

Phoenix could never suffocate me. We were both too independent, too full of determination, with matching flaming tempers. He would let me fight my war, he would never hold me back, and he only wanted the same in return. He only wanted to know that in-between our passions for life that we would give each other passion, that we would find a home inside of each other.

Slowly, he raised his hand over my chest. Holding my stare, he let his warm touch rest against my skin, then he whispered, “I love you” as his hand pushed through what should have been flesh.

My back bowed as I felt fire explode inside of me, as I saw fire and ice colliding into one, as I felt his soul merge completely with mine. I struggled to get closer to that flame of his soul, to completely hide myself within him.

‘Rapture’ was the only shallow word I could use to explain this rush. This empowerment, this total, absolute feeling of being whole, one with another soul. No rush of passion, no moment that was skin-to-skin could dare match the emotions coursing through us. Complete transformation took control over my very being.

It was the plane that we dared to rise to the last time he held me, that night he had only given me a glimpse of what we could create together. I fought never to leave this feeling, to forget that that world around us existed, that a war was waiting on its warriors and I won that fight for what seemed like an eternity. Hours, maybe days had passed before he slowly pulled his soul from mine, before his eyes met mine once again.

“You are forevermore mine,” he said in a heated whisper.

Words that would have suffocated the life out of me if I heard them from anyone else were now my salvation.

Finding strength and clarity for the first time in what seemed like forever, I let my hands move up his strong arms, which were holding him above me. “Dare I say that I feel sorry for you? I was rather difficult to handle as a human, and as a ghost. God only knows how difficult I will prove to be now.”

A beaming smile spread across his face as a laugh bellowed in his chest. “Bloody hell, woman—truer words have never been uttered.”

His arms were around me, and I was lying on his chest within the next beat. I dared to look up into his eyes, which were slowly taking every part of me in. “Am I cured now? Is this over?”

“It has just begun, Love,” he said as he tucked my long bangs behind my ear. “Your mind will struggle with what you are…you will shock yourself a time or two with your speed. Your emotions may toy with you, and the demons you fought in your life will become your determination, a determination that will seem far too confining to bear…but you will overcome.”

My eyes grew wide as clarity came to me. “The guys. Who’s helping them?”

“They transformed instantly. Skylynn said that must have been part of the spell you cast before, that they had to be risen to raise you, that it was all or none.”

“Why did I struggle?”

“Fire and ice. I believe the spell was cast the way it was so that you would not only have guardians throughout your war, but also as you transformed.”

I pulled myself up on one arm. “Wilder,” I said as my battle with Rasure flashed before my eyes, as I remembered that my own sister had forsaken me.

“He fooled you.”

“What?”

“He is a bigger part of this than you can understand right now.”

“I’m not a fool,” I bit out.

“I didn’t say you were. He is not to be underestimated.”

I didn’t care to think that someone else I had trusted, not right now anyway, had fooled me.

“Cadence?”

Anger engulfed his eyes.

“Did you not kill her?” I pushed.

“No,” he said with disdain. “She was not in full form. Rasure was your distraction. You ended her simply because you set your family free.”

“I don’t understand how I was fooled for so long by Cadence,” I said as I sat up and felt rage boil through me.

He leaned up as I moved, trying to catch me before I fell into my rage. “You were not a fool, you were the Trojan Horse. She had no idea who you were until you refused to die. You masked yourself amongst evil, and you protected our home and set our family free, just as you always planned to do.”

“Are the souls still in the clocks, the ones under this house?”

“Some, I’m sure, but you cannot charge down there and open them. You are going to have to find the spells that bind them, the words to open them. You are going to have to tread carefully, patiently. Evil knows no time. It counts on our impatience to end us, and more often than not we bring our own demise with that fault.”

“What do I tell my family? How do I explain how I got out of that fire? Where you came from? Where Cadence and Rasure went?”

He leaned forward and let his warm lips rest on my forehead. “Your Uncle Jamison is filing divorce papers, told your brother that Rasure and Cadence left the country. Ben found a money trail from Rasure to the people who confessed to burning your floor down at the hospital. Jason and others from Guardian’s world created a background for me, one that your brother believes. The boys are strong. They have moved into this manor with you, declaring that they need to keep you safe.”

“How long was I out?” I asked with a gaping smile.

“Not as long as you think. I promise.”

“What does my uncle remember?” I asked, wondering how I’d lost so much time.

“Nothing. He actually stated that he had no idea why he even brought Rasure here. In his mind, he’s thirty-five. His life with her was nothing more than a nightmare he woke up from.”

I looked down. “One that we all woke up from.”

“That you did, Love.” He reached to turn my chin so I would have to look him in the eye. “Next time, let your fear rise sooner. It calls me. It always has. I came to you the second I felt it, and I was almost too late. Promise me you will never be too stubborn to ask for help again.”

“The boys told me to play my part, and I did. I held the fear in until Rasure said you were gone…out of it all, that was my only fear.”

He let his fingertips move down my neck, my chest. “Now that we are one, that your power is unsealed, what was your curse will be your virtue. You will learn to guide the ice and fire, and you will always know if truth is spoken to you.”

“Truth,” I whispered, feeling the certainty behind what he said, wondering where my life would take me from this point on, which caused me to look back for an instant.

“I want to pay my respects to my grandmother,” I said under my breath, expecting ice to form with my grief, but it didn’t.

He nodded, understanding, then vanished for an instant and returned with clothes in his hands.

“Let’s say we get you out of those death shrouds,” he said with a grin.

Agreeing, and wanting to prove that I was stronger and faster than he thought, I shed the outfit I’d worn for days and pulled on the dark denim, skin tight jeans, black long sleeve top, belt, and unlaced black boots within an instant.

He moved his head from side to side as a sinful smirk came to his lips. “A little faster than I would have preferred.”

I raised one eyebrow as my eyes matched the desire in his. He reached to trace the base of my eye. “Those are the eyes I remember.”

Before I could question him, I was across the room, standing before a full-length mirror with him just behind me. I barely recognized the girl in the mirror.

My skin was flawless, the color of ivory. The slight heat in my cheeks and my flaming red lips accented the shade of my skin. But that was not what took me by surprise. It was the color of my eyes; they were a deep, rich blue. The color that often had warned that my curse of ice was surfacing was now permeated, and behind them I saw a power. I saw a girl who was determined, who had both fire and ice in her soul. A girl who was claimed by a phoenix, who was guarded by two of his sires. I saw the Indie I always wanted to be. The Indie my mother, my family had told me I was. The girl I always was beneath the surface.

I drew in a nervous breath as Phoenix’s fingertips slowly moved down my sides. His lips leaned into my ear as his stare held mine in the mirror. “Skin pure as snow, lips that breathe fire, and eyes that carry the depths of the ocean…I was bewitched the first instant I laid eyes on you. I knew then I would move Heaven and hell to hold you.”

He moved me to face him. “Your soul was frozen by evil, but now the fire is bringing forth rivulets, rivulets that will become raging rivers that enforce change. You are unstoppable, Genevieve.”

“We are unstoppable,” I whispered.

A wicked smile echoed on his lips just before they met my neck, and his arms tightened around me.

Before the moment had a chance to carry us away, there was a knock on the door.

“To be continued,” he whispered as he squeezed my hips and nodded to the door, which flung open.

Jason was there. He looked to the bed, then found us just beside him. He smiled warmly as he carefully looked over me. “I see you followed the doctor’s orders and are on the mend.”

“On, or past it?” Phoenix asked as he squeezed me closer.

“Past the troubled waters. Until you have had a chance to join your energy more times, I would take it easy on testing her powers. I’ll let her brother know she is awake and moving around, that I suggested for her to do just that.”

“Thank you,” Phoenix said as he nodded to him.

Jason looked over me once more just before he bowed his head and left the room.

“So, is that, like, the doctor for the supernatural or something?”

That made Phoenix laugh. “He’s from Chara. Several people from there have gifts that seem extraordinary to most.”

“Where is that?” I asked, wondering how far Jason had traveled to see me.

“One day at a time, Love. There is so much I plan to show you.”

When we reached the hallway before my room, I saw the oval table that always accented this hallway adorned with a breathtaking amount of red roses. Along with the roses, there was a pad of paper, a red ‘X’ taped to a line, and one of my brother’s trademark pens lying beside it.

I was at the table within a beat, and my eyes flew across the words. This was the document that I had dreamed of signing, the one that released my inheritance to me, the one that released the manor to me, the one that gave me the powers to continue my parent’s work.

I signed my name boldly as I felt the victory rush through me.

Skylynn appeared at that instant. “I promised you this day would come, Indie girl.”

“That you did,” I said as I reached my arms for her to come to me. “Thank you,” I whispered into her ear, knowing that she had saved me a million times over, that she had been the blunt voice of reason when I was spiraling out of control.

She extended her arms so she could look at me. “If you ever—and I mean ever do something as foolish—” she held out her hand to block Phoenix’s glare before continuing, “as foolishly brave as you did the other night...” she let her hands fall and bowed slightly, “I request permission to fight at your side.”

“You were there,” I said with a slight smile. “You helped me become who I am. You led me to this day, and I will repay you—one way or another.”

She smirked. “Well, you can start by telling Mason that I have my eye on another drummer and I am not amused by his banter.”

At that instant, Mason appeared at my side as if he had been called. He tilted his head slightly and let his chocolate eyes rain down over Skylynn. “I wasn’t trying to amuse you. Gavin is the funny one.”

I had to smile at that. Gavin was entirely too serious to be considered funny, and as if he were beckoned too he appeared at my other side, letting his steel blue eyes pierce into Mason. “Now I’m the one who’s not amused.”

That made me smile, really smile. I reached my arms out for them, and they both embraced me. With their touch, I felt the heat of their skin, I felt the phoenix inside of them.

“Bad news, boys. You’re now stuck in immortality with me.”

They both laughed as they let me go and glanced at Phoenix. I’d never seen so much respect in either of their eyes.

“We can handle that,” Mason said, nodding once to Phoenix.

Not knowing what else to say, I reached for a red rose and thought of the family tomb, the place where my grandmother’s remains were surely resting. After a rush of wind, I found myself there, staring at her name on the wall.

I kept hearing her last words to me, the ones she spoke when we were both in the veil.

“I did what you said…she is gone now,” I whispered as I kissed the rose and let it fall to the ground.

Silence and calm immersed me for countless minutes as I thought of the woman she was, both in this life and the visions I had of her before…I would miss her deeply.

“I’m sorry you missed the last goodbye,” I heard Ben say.

I turned to see him in the doorway of the tomb.

“I didn’t. I saw her, Ben. She told me I won. She told me to get Rasure out.”

“And you did,” he said as he stepped closer to me. “Now, how you did that I have no idea.”

“Some things shouldn’t be questioned, Ben,” I said, raising one eyebrow.

“Like the angels that the patients at the hospital swear saved them? Like the fact that your boyfriend matches one of those descriptions? Or the fact that Rasure has vanished from the face of this Earth? Or are we just talking about the fact that you came back to life, ripped the tubes from your throat and arms, dressed yourself in the clothes you drowned in, and walked through a fire, managing to not even singe your clothes? That the car I was in was no less than twenty miles from the manor one instant, and the next at the front door? The fact that not only did you do that, but Mason and Gavin did as well?”

I let my gaze fall to the stone floor. I could never explain what I went through or what I was to him, and I knew he would never force me to. We were Falcons, perfectly flawed beings that were taught to bend the laws of conformity and find our own path. I just happened to bend the laws of reality as well.

“Yeah, just like that…someone was watching out for us, Ben. Let’s be grateful for that.”

“I am,” he said as he stepped forward and hugged me tightly. “I felt you in that library. I felt you tell me you needed more time. I’m just thankful I was able to play my part, no matter how human that was.”

I smiled against his chest and squeezed him. “Dare I say you are my favorite brother?”

“I’ll take that as compliment,” he said, letting me go. “I want you to know that I am going to keep looking for Cadence and Rasure.”

“Let them go, Ben. Let the non-humans deal with that.”

His eyes questioned me, not sure how much of my wit had truth behind it. Then he reached in the breast of his jacket and pulled out a photo. “She has your mother’s camera and some wooden box, and your old friend Wilder is on her arm. She can keep your ex. As far as I’m concerned, you have upgraded your taste in companions, but that camera is yours, something Mom and Dad wanted you to have. She made this personal. Not me.” With that, he let his head fall and turned to leave, giving me time to finish my goodbyes to our grandmother.

I gripped the image in my hand, feeling rage swell deep inside of me. Cadence literally looked right at the camera as she walked by. She wanted me to know what she had taken. She was blatantly daring me to come after her.

All at once, the image erupted into flames and fear shot through me. In that beat, Phoenix was in front of me. He took the image squashing the flame as he pulled me to him.

My hands were balled into fists. I was full of rage and had no idea why. I just kept seeing that dream, her killing my family—my guardians—without remorse, her freezing me, trapping me for God-only-knows how long, only to stand at my side in this life and dare to call me a sister.

“Breathe, Love,” Phoenix said as he gently let his hands caress my back. “This is the transformation. Whatever emotions you hold right now will be the center point of this existence. You’re too lovely to live a life full of sickening rage.”

“You don’t understand what she did,” I said as his touch began to usher calm into me.

“I do. The boys told me…you give me your anger, let me carry it.”

“I don’t need you to fight my war. I’m not weak. I am not helpless,” I argued.

Within that beat, we were out of that tomb and standing in the observatory against the forevermore burning fire. He gently pinned my arms behind my back. “Listen, Love. One of us has to be of sound mind, and it is not going to be me.”

I was almost afraid of him for an instant, but then I saw a pleading in his eyes, almost a fear. Like he didn’t completely trust that what we had done was meant to be done.

“When I came home, found our home—our life—burning, rage consumed me, despair consumed me. I carried those emotions into the life of Phoenix. That blunt humor that you love so much about me barely made it into this personality. Everything was focused on finding you, seeking vengeance on whoever or whatever took you from me. It was natural for me to feel that way. My energy is as dark as the night. Yours, well yours is the sun, as bright as the first snow. You fall into vengeance, and we fall apart. The balance that gives us love, power, and passion will destroy itself. Cadence is counting on that. She knows you all too well.” He let my arms loose and put his hands around my waist as he pulled me to him. “Do you trust me to carry the weight of your rage? Do you love me enough to believe that I will never hold you back, never stand in the way of what you want, that ‘weakness’ is not a word that I would place next to you?”

I knew he was petrified, terrified that this was far from over, that I would vanish from his arms at any moment. Or worse: disappear slowly before his eyes as rage engulfed me.

I wasn’t going to let either of those things happen. “I love you. Forever.”

With that, his powerful lips met mine and his arms embraced me. I felt passion, life, and victory absorb me. I would relish in this now. I would hand my vengeance over to him, but I would not stand idly by in the war of balance. I would face the coldest evil and send the lost souls home. I would win this war of balance one way or another.

 

 

The End for now…

 

 

Where To Find Jamie Online:

http://authorjamiemagee.blogspot.com

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Playlist

Florence The Machine – Seven Devils, Heavy In Your Arms, Never Let Me Go

Genevieve – Sugarland

Born to Die – Lana Del Ray

Almost Lover— A Fine Frenzy

The XX – Hot Like Fire

Placebo – I’ll be Yours

Breaking Benjamin – I Will Not Bow

Ellie Goulding – I Know You Care, Anything Could Happen

Imagine Dragons – Radioactive

Katie Costello – Stranger

 

 

I am still eternally grateful for every soul that encouraged me to write/ publish my debut novel Insight.... thank you once again.

I also want to thank my husband, Lem, for listening to my random thoughts and ideas as each of these stories came to life, he is not only the love of my life but the man who keeps me sane on this insane adventure. I want thank my children who inspire me to become more than I am today with a simple glance, and the echo of laughter and joy that surrounds me constantly.

I want to thank all of my wonderful beta readers : Sabrina Wells, Crystal Meyer, Alysia Kurtz, Jamie Love, Jennylynne D’Andrea, Michelle Dain, and Steffini Walker, Mallory Edwards, Carrie Porter, Amber Catlin, Elke Simmons, Elle Bautista, Heather Schad, Jennifer St Onge, Kristen Allen, Laura Shipp, Linds Kasher, Michelle Farrell, Sabrina Himebauch, Shawna Meekins, Tara Gehler, Theresa Kauffman, Cindy Alexander, and Enrique Rodriguez.

Chelsea Rafferty for suggesting the wonderful name this book is titled

Marek Purzycki has got to be the most patient, talented graphic artist I have every met, thank you for giving my series a face.

GWE along with Todd Barselow for editing my daydreams.

Most of all I want to thank every-single reader for sharing this adventure with me! I love you all and I am eternally grateful for your time and support :)!

 

 

About the Author

 

 

Jamie Magee has always believed that each of us have a defining gift that sets us apart from the rest of the world, she has always envied those who have known from their first breath what their gift was. Not knowing hers, she began a career in the fast paced world of business. Raising a young family, and competing to rise higher in that field would drive some to the point of insanity, but she always found a moment of escape in a passing daydream. Her imagination would take her to places she’d never been, introduce her to people she’s never known. Insight, her debuting novel, is a result of that powerful imagination. Today, she is grateful that not knowing what defined her, led her on a path of discovery that would always be a part of her.

The fun Bio: I’m an obsessive daydreamer. Lover of loud alternative music. Addicted to Red Bull. I love to laugh until it hurts. Fall is my favorite season. Black is my favorite ‘shade.’ Strong believer in the saying: there is a reason for everything, therefore I search for ‘marked moments’ every moment of everyday...and I find them. Life is beautiful!

 

 

SWITCH

By Janelle Stalder

 

 

War makes rattling good history; but Peace is poor reading.

THOMAS HARDY, The Dynasts

 

 

PROLOGUE

 

 

London, 2035

 

They were destroying everything.

Feathers floated in the air from the ripped couch cushions. Broken glass littered the floor, cracking beneath the heavy soles of the soldiers’ feet. Charlotte knelt beside her mother, her eyes trained on the floor while she watched them out of her peripheral vision. They had stormed their home, their voices shouting orders as their hands forced them roughly to the ground. Her mother had yet to say a word.

Where was her father? She hadn’t come to expect much from him over the past years, but surely he wouldn’t stand by and watch their home be torn apart in some attempt to find evidence that wouldn’t be there. She could hear the other soldiers outside, raging through the streets, destroying homes. The smell of burning lumber saturated the air. Would there be anything left of Leigh when they were done? Charlotte doubted it. When the New World army came, nothing survived.

“Where is he?” one of the soldiers asked, turning to her mother. Charlotte kept her gaze glued to the scuffed hardwood floors.

“I don’t know,” her mother said firmly. “I’m not my husband’s keeper.”

Charlotte glanced up at the man to see his reaction. He wore the customary uniform of the New World army. Black cargo pants, with tall, heavy black boots, and a tight black, long-sleeve shirt with a thick vest overtop that had a star on it, signifying he was the squad leader. Charlotte could see the definition of the man’s muscles beneath his shirt. Everyone knew that the young men of the army were well trained. This one looked not much older than her sister, Bridgette. His face reflected utter distaste as he glared at her mother.

“If you think you can hide him,” he said slowly, “think again. We know your husband is involved with the rebels. We will find proof here, and then you and your family,” he continued, nodding his head at Charlotte, “will be nothing more than dirt under my feet. I can help you and your daughter if you give me your husband’s whereabouts.” He waited, letting his offer lay between them. “I’ll tell Roman you knew nothing of his dealings.”

Rebels? That’s what this was about? Charlotte was well aware of the resistance movement – those who were bent on destroying the New World government and returning the world to its former glory. They were all idiots in her opinion. How could they possibly try to fix something that was so broken it could never be put back together? More than half the world’s population and land had been destroyed. What was there to save?

She looked over at the other two soldiers that were methodically tearing apart the room. The house she had grown up in looked nothing like it had only moments before, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to feel outraged about it. What did that say about her? This was how the world was now; you had something and then you didn’t. Charlotte had learned long ago to be prepared for this. What she wasn’t prepared for was the possibility that her father was a part of the rebels. The two of them had no love for each other; a sentiment lost a long time ago along with her sense of security in this hard, new world. As her father drifted away emotionally, so had she. What was the point anymore? Things like this happened, and when they did, it would only hurt more to care about the loss. She was done hurting. She was done watching everything be obliterated before her eyes. Nothing horrified her. At sixteen she had seen more loss than she could have ever imagined. It just didn’t register anymore.

Ludwig Tenebris and his New World order. The one man who had succeeded in bringing the world to its knees with just a flick of the switch. Communications across the ocean were non-existent, so it wasn’t known if anyone survived in other continents. There was no more television, or internet and computers. Ludwig had managed to cut off everyone’s eyes and ears to the outside world.

What did these rebels really think they could accomplish? Not only did Ludwig have his own clearly destructive army, he also had strategic ties to getting bombs and guns. He had more ammunition at his fingertips than anyone else in history. They were doomed. Charlotte understood this. She only wished everyone else did too, so situations like the one she was currently in didn’t happen.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” her mother replied, snapping Charlotte out of her thoughts. She turned to look at her mom for the first time since the soldiers arrived. She’d never met anyone as stubborn as the woman who brought her into this foul world. It was one of the things that Charlotte equally hated and respected about her. Seeing her, spine straight, chin lifted errantly as she met a soldier’s glare with one of her own, Charlotte realized that, even now when things were quite possibly at their worst, her mother had no intention of backing down. Bad idea. The New World army had the authority to kill whenever, wherever, and whoever they wanted. You didn’t piss them off – number one rule.

“Like hell you don’t, woman,” the soldier said. “If you won’t tell me, perhaps you’ll be more cooperative with Roman.”

Where the hell was her father? Could it be true? Was he a rebel and she just never realized it? Would he sit by and just watch his family be destroyed while he stayed protected? The fact that her instinctive reply to that question was ‘yes’ left a sour taste in her mouth. When was the last time he had done anything to help this family? Why start now? She needed to find out the truth.

Closing her eyes, she let her mind clear like she had done so many times before. This was her biggest secret, one her parents continually stressed to keep within the family. No one understood why Charlotte could do what she could. Her mother suggested it was a side-effect from the radiation in the atmosphere. A lot of people had gotten sick that first year after the initial waves of bombings. Babies were born with deformities and health issues. It seemed logical to assume her new ‘gift’ was caused by an outside source. Her grandmother, however, had always held that Charlotte had been touched by God.

“He gave you a special gift so you could use it to help find your path in life,” she’d say. That was right before she passed away a year ago. At that point she had been nothing but skin on bones. Charlotte hated to think of it. She always tried to remember her how she used to be before the cancer took hold. When she had been bright and vibrant. That was the last time she remembered feeling sad about anything. After, it was like nothing could touch her behind the walls she had built. It was the only way to survive now. Be strong, or be killed. She chose to be strong.

Charlotte focused on her mother, reaching forward with her mental hands stretched wide, and grasped onto the thoughts now flowing through her mind. She cringed from what she heard there. Her mother’s thoughts were frantic despite her calm exterior. Charlotte knew without a doubt her father was involved with the rebels. She tried to search deeper, to figure out the exact extent of his involvement, but hit a wall. She opened her eyes to look at her mother. She was blocking her out. She must have known Charlotte would search her, and she was intentionally keeping her thoughts hidden. Her mother turned, meeting Charlotte’s eyes, and very subtly shook her head.

Charlotte’s heart sank. Normally she would have never read her mother’s thoughts. Long ago, she promised herself and her family members that she would never invade their privacy in such a way. To be honest, she hardly ever used her unusual gift at all. Reading another person’s thoughts felt so wrong, the deepest sort of intrusion. Charlotte looked away.

Now that her mind was open, she was bombarded with the thoughts from the men around them. She flinched under the assault, trying her best to push away the vile voices and images. The bald one was already planning their deaths, the dark skinned one was acutely aware of Charlotte’s sixteen year old, blossoming body, and the other was now outside on the phone with who Charlotte assumed was Roman.

She was well aware of who Roman was. Ludwig’s second in command had made quite a name for himself over the past few years. No one messed with Roman Adamson. She actually admired that about him. If people looked at her the same way they did him she wouldn’t be in this stinking mess.

“Where’s dad?” Charlotte said.

“Shh,” her mother replied. And that was all. No explanation, no reassuring words. Nothing. The second most dangerous man in the New World was on his way to their house, and her father was completely MIA. Charlotte reached out to search her mother again but found only the wall, as if his safety was more important than their own. She was covering for him, willing to take a bullet if it meant he was safe. Charlotte fumed.

“Tie their hands and feet,” the squad leader ordered as he came back inside. “Roman is five minutes away.”

Charlotte tried to struggle as the dark skinned one grabbed her. His hands brushed the sides of her breasts then hesitated just on the top of her backside as he tied her hands together, stretching her arms painfully back. He let his own hands trail down her legs to her feet before binding them as well.

“You don’t look so smug now, do you?” the leader said, spitting on the floor in front of her mother. Charlotte kept her eyes down. There was a noise outside and then heavy boots sounded in the doorway. Charlotte glanced at those boots but not at the face they belonged to. She could hear his thoughts as he took in the scene before him. He looked over the ransacked room disinterestedly before turning his focus to them. Walking over slowly, his footsteps echoed like the gentle rhythm of impending doom. The air around them tensed, like even the house was holding its breath to see what he would do.

“Emily and Charlotte Hatcher,” he said, his voice deep and smooth. “Wife and youngest daughter of a Douglas Hatcher.” He stopped just in front of them, his boots close to their faces, the same ones all the rest wore. “There is also an older daughter, no? Bridgette Hatcher, also currently missing.” Charlotte heard him crouch down. “You’re missing half your family, Mrs. Hatcher. Care to tell me where I might find them?”

“I don’t know,” her mother maintained. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

He made a clicking noise with his tongue. “That’s unfortunate,” he said. “Am I to assume your opposition is because of your rebel affiliation?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” her mother answered. Lie. Charlotte cringed, hearing the falsehood of that statement loud and clear.

He chuckled. “I’m sure you don’t.” He stood up again. “Perhaps the daughter knows.”

“I don’t,” Charlotte said.

There was a pause before Roman spoke. “Pardon me?”

“I don’t know where he is,” she said again. Although she wished she did. Perhaps she’d have no problem telling these men where to find Douglas Hatcher. Why have a sense of loyalty to a man who had practically forgotten about her for the last decade of her life? He was cold and apparently working toward a goal that was idiotic at best. Charlotte looked up for the first time, her breath catching in her lungs. Dark eyes looked down at her curiously from a young, handsome face. Long, dark hair hung loose and damp around his face to just below his shoulders. He was huge, broad shoulders making the uniform look even more intimidating than usual. His eyes narrowed at her. She looked down again, sensing for the first time her mother’s renewed distress. Charlotte just started to turn toward her when she cried out.

“Wait,” her mother said, her voice panicked. A loud shot pulsed through the room. Charlotte fell to the side, her ears ringing. The sounds around her were muffled now as she blinked slowly, her face pressed to the hardwood floor. Two hands grabbed her roughly, placing her back on her knees. A warm wetness soaked through the knees of her pants. She looked down beside her, a chill washing over her entire body. Even if she had wanted to scream, she doubted she could against the tightness in her throat.

On the floor lay her mother, the back of her head now a gaping hole. Charlotte couldn’t see her face, and for that she was glad. Blood pooled around her. She choked back the urge to vomit. Her mother was dead. A bitter taste filled her mouth. They hadn’t been close, but no daughter should have to see this. Charlotte wasn’t even sure how to begin to process the sight before her. Emily Hatcher was gone and her lying, spineless, coward of a husband was nowhere to be found. He left them to this, and now Charlotte’s life would end before it ever really began.

“Where is he?”

Charlotte looked up, resentment filling every ounce of her body. “He’s not here,” she said. But I am, she thought. And there was no way she was leaving the way her mother had. She’d do anything to stay alive so that one day she would be able to face her father again and tell him how he had failed them all.

Roman crouched in front of her, a smile playing on his lips. “Do you realize, little girl,” he said, Charlotte instantly taking offense to the way he addressed her. Roman could be no more than twenty, not that much older than her. “That I haven’t spoken a word to you since I entered? Did you know that?”

Charlotte stilled, realization slamming into her like a wrecking ball – her mother’s sudden distress made sense. Jesus, she cursed. She had answered Roman’s questions thinking he had said them out loud, but he hadn’t. For years her parents stressed the need to keep her ability a secret. She was in deep shit. Her mouth was dry and cottony.

“Can you hear my thoughts, Charlotte?” he asked, looking closely at her.

Her eyes went to her mother’s dead body then back to him. Anger at her for letting herself die over this, and anger at her father for putting them all in danger to begin with, raced through her. Above that, the desire to stay alive pulsed loudly in her veins. “Yes,” she answered.

A pleased smiled spread across his face, taking it from scary to breathtaking in one small shift of his lips. “How interesting,” he said. “Tell me, did your mother know where your father is?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “She was blocking me out.”

Roman watched her for a second before nodding his head slowly. “I believe you,” he said, shocking her. “And I can see the anger in your eyes. You’re mad at him, aren’t you?”

“He’s a selfish prick,” she said without thinking.

He laughed, throwing his head back. “Excellent,” he exclaimed. He stood, looking over his shoulder at the other three soldiers standing there. They suddenly looked nervous, their eyes glancing anxiously at her. They were scared of her. They knew she had heard all the things they’d been thinking since they got here. Her eyes met the one who tied her. He quickly looked away, his face paling. Never in her entire life had she felt as powerful as she did then, even as she knelt in her mother’s blood, her hands and feet bound behind her.

“Untie her,” Roman ordered. “She comes with me. You continue to look for signs of the rebels. Don’t return until this whole place has been searched and burned.”

“Yes sir,” they said together.

The squad leader stepped forward, cutting the ropes. She stood shakily, stretching out her aching limbs. Her eyes went back to her mother’s body, a mixture of anger and remorse washing over her.

“Come, Charlotte,” Roman said from the doorway. “I have someone I want you to meet.”

 

When Roman had entered her house, Charlotte could feel his presence. Some sort of intangible force surrounded him, demanding respect. He had nothing on Ludwig Tenebris. She was led into a large office, the floor to ceiling windows across from her bathing the room in a misleading warmth. Ludwig stood behind his desk, dark eyes watching her intently as she approached. He hadn’t said a word, and yet every hair on her arms stood on end. A shiver ran down her spine at the cold, calculated expression on his face, the power he exuberated with just the way he held himself.

“What do we have here?” he said. Charlotte swallowed against the dryness in her mouth. If surviving meant going along with whatever Roman had planned, then she was all for it. Dying was not an option. She would survive, and in time, she would grow to be strong enough to break away, find her sister, and get the hell away from London. Now, as she stood before the New World leader, she wondered if she’d ever make it out.

“A special treat,” Roman replied. “One I think you will rather enjoy.” A hand landed on her lower back, pushing her forward. She stumbled closer, her eyes locked on Ludwig.

“What’s your name, girl?”

“Charlotte Hatcher.”

Eyebrows shot up in surprise as Ludwig glanced at Roman questioningly. “Think of a number,” Roman said.

“Pardon me?” said Ludwig.

Roman laughed. “Ludwig, trust me, would you?”

The New World leader looked between the two of them doubtfully. “I’m starting to wonder if that’s such a good idea anymore,” he said.

“Humour me at the very least. You won’t be disappointed.”

“Twelve,” Charlotte said immediately. The second he had thought of it she heard it easily. His eyes shot to hers, widening in surprise. “Eighteen. Sixty two. Eighty nine.” God, Charlotte thought, how long is he going to do this? “Two thousand, five hundred and six.”

“How is she doing it?” he asked.

“She reads minds,” Roman said from behind her. Charlotte could hear the smile in his voice. Ludwig sat down behind his desk, his gaze never leaving her face.

“A girl who reads minds,” he said slowly. He leaned back in his chair, hands clasped loosely over his stomach. “My girl, I do believe you will be my greatest weapon yet.” The smile that stretched across his face made her stomach turn, but she kept her expression blank. They stared at each other in silence for a moment before he looked over at Roman. “And the father?”

“We didn’t find him.”

He nodded, looking back at her. “I bet he’ll be looking for you though, won’t he? Have a room prepared for our newest addition to the New World order.”

Her ears began to hum, their voices fading against the buzzing sound. Had she seriously just joined the New World army? It’s just to stay alive, she told herself. She could handle being around them for now. She’d been forcing herself to deal with shitty circumstances all her life. This was just simply new surroundings and different people. Her wall would stay firmly in place, and now she would have the opportunity to grow and ensure a future for herself. She would stay until she found her sister, and then she and Bridgette would leave everything and everyone behind. This was just one more stepping stone in the right direction. She could handle it. She had to.

“She needs a new name,” Ludwig was saying as she gave herself a mental shake and focused on the conversation around her.

“A new name?” she said, her voice shaky.

He nodded. “I can’t very well have everyone calling you Charlotte, now can I? Your father will know exactly where to find you if I do. A new name, a new life.”

A new name. A new life. A new identity, she thought.

He looked at her through narrowed eyes, thinking. “Dinah,” he eventually said, sitting forward. “Yes, it’s perfect. From now on you will be called Dinah.”

And just like that, Charlotte Hatcher was dead.

 

 

CHAPTER ONE

 

 

5 years later…

New Berlin, 2040

 

The man slumped to the floor, tears streaming down his face. Dinah looked on in disgust. She hated tears. They were a sign of weakness and served no purpose. She stood behind Ludwig’s chair, to his left, like she always did, Roman on the right. This whole scene was frustratingly familiar, as if she were living the same day over and over again. People were brought in, suspected of being rebels. More lies and, inevitably, death. She could tell from the way this one was blubbering that they wouldn’t be getting much out of him.

“Lottey,” Roman whispered.

She looked over, annoyed. “Stop calling me that,” she snapped. She hated when Roman called her by her old name. Charlotte meant free man. Her father had been molding her into a rebel right from the beginning, and she didn’t like to be reminded of that. Dinah, meaning justified, felt more natural to her now. It fit, considering she now served as Ludwig’s judge and jury. She’d been going by it for five years and yet Roman still couldn’t manage to call her by it.

She threw him a hard look, even though her mouth quirked up in a smile. He wouldn’t be able to see it anyway because of the mask she wore. Another of Ludwig’s changes for her. Dinah was required to wear a similar uniform to the men, but with a slight change – a light black shirt with a hood that went over not just her head, but her entire face. There was a thin opening for her to see through, but everything else was covered. She always thought she looked like a ninja – but way cooler, of course.

“A necessary must, I’m afraid,” Ludwig had said when he first brought the clothing to her. “If anyone realizes you are a woman, they will start to doubt your strength. We can’t have that if you are to be my third in command,” he explained. He didn’t say it, but she knew he also wanted to keep her hidden from her father. Not that she knew if he was even alive. No one had seen her father in years. He had literally dropped off the face of the earth.

Ludwig was still convinced he was alive and that if he knew where she was, her father would try and get her. Dinah doubted it, since he left her to her demise to begin with, but Ludwig wasn’t to be swayed from his belief. She didn’t mind anymore, even if the hood did get hot now and again. It added a sense of mystery to her, and she knew how unnerved it made people when they saw her. Ludwig’s “Weapon X,” they liked to call her. Of course, they had no idea she was a girl. She hadn’t been blessed with overly feminine curves, so the ruse was complete.

“X,” Ludwig said before she could find out what Roman wanted. He thought the nickname for her was funny, and adopted it himself.

She stepped forward so she was directly beside his chair. It amused her to see him sitting there like some King on his throne. The interrogation room was a large, dark room inside their main headquarters in downtown New Berlin. There were no windows – on purpose. Ludwig wanted anyone inside to feel completely disconnected from the world outside. Dark grey stones tiled the floor, stained from repeatedly spilled blood. Along the walls were sconces that lit the room in a dim glow, casting dancing shadows to unnerve the prisoners. There was no furniture except for the chair he sat in. It wasn’t necessarily a fancy chair by any means. Solid wood, carved with his crest at the top, and a red cushion for him to sit on. But still, she thought of it as his metaphorical throne.

She waited in silence for him to address her again. She never spoke out of turn. After five years of being his third in command, Dinah knew exactly where her place was.

“Is the pathetic excuse for a human telling the truth?” he said, as if asking what the weather was currently like outside.

“He knows little,” she answered. “He’s more scared of what you will do to him after. His thoughts aren’t coherent.” She kept her voice low, only loud enough for him to hear.

“Pity.” He frowned. “Nothing of use?”

Dinah turned to look at the man kneeling on the stone. He watched her nervously, visibly shaking under her cold stare. She searched deeper, shuffling through the useless crap she didn’t need to know. What is this? She thought, narrowing her eyes. Interesting. She pushed harder.

“He has a wall,” she said simply.

Ludwig leaned forward in his seat, his face hardened. “Another one?”

Dinah didn’t look away from the prisoner, but nodded in reply. This was the third this week. It hadn’t happened before then, well, except for her mother that last day. The fact that it was happening often now was concerning. Someone was teaching these men how to block her out.

“Break it down,” Ludwig ordered.

Dinah pushed forward hard, breaking down the wall as if it were nothing but sand. It crumpled in her mental fingers, revealing everything hidden there. Oh yes, she thought, there it is.

“There is a bar in the eastern ghetto,” she said. “A meeting is planned there for tomorrow at midnight.”

Ludwig snickered. “Midnight. So dramatic.” He sighed.

The man’s eyes burned, furious. “You cannot stop us all!” he shouted. “No matter how many of us you strike down, we will only rise up again – stronger!”

“I’m sure you will,” Ludwig answered dryly. “Anything else, X?”

“Nothing useful,” she said. “He’s not in the inner circle. He knows little.”

“Very well.” He nodded. “Roman.”

Dinah watched dispassionately as Roman stepped forward, pulling his gun from the holster beneath his left arm. He raised it level with the man’s head.

“You are all going to hell,” the man said, the fear in his eyes at war with his words.

Roman smiled down at the man, mercilessly. “Looks like you’re going to beat me there. Let me know how it is.” He pulled the trigger, the man’s brains splattering across the floor. The soldiers manning the periphery moved instantly, dragging the body away, and preparing to clean the mess. She didn’t envy the task.

“I want you both at that bar tomorrow night,” Ludwig said.

Dinah looked at him in surprise. “Even me?” she asked, louder now that no outsiders were around. All the soldiers in the New World army knew she was a girl so she didn’t have to be as careful around them.

“Yes, you too,” he said. “I need you there, Di. If anyone is going to be able to uncover these rats, it will be you.”

“If the meeting is going to be there, Ludwig, I’m sure me and my men can handle it,” Roman said.

“It’s not enough. I want her there. Just make sure nothing happens to her,” he said pointedly to Roman. Ludwig hardly ever let her out on these raids. He was constantly worried something would happen to her, even though she was hard to beat in a fight. The fact that she could hear her opponent’s move before they made it made beating her difficult.

The truth was, Ludwig relied on Dinah too much to risk losing her. The fact that he was letting her tagalong for this raid was surprising. She knew Roman’s reluctance was him just being overprotective as well. Between the two of them, it was a wonder she was allowed out of her room each day. Not that she really fought to get out. Over the years she’d been here, she found herself hiding within those four walls like it was the only world in her reality. Like the world outside wasn’t the same as the one she had to live. She was slipping further and further away from everything she used to be before joining the army.

“Bring me back information I can use,” he said, getting up from his chair. “These rebels are a constant thorn in my side. I want them wiped out, and I want it done now.” He stormed off, four soldiers breaking away from the rest to follow him.

Dinah stood with Roman, watching Ludwig as he retreated. “He’s getting impatient,” Roman commented.

“Gee, really? What was your first clue?” she replied. Roman turned to her with an appreciative grin.

“You’re getting mouthy in your old age.”

Dinah rolled her eyes. “I’m only twenty,” she said. “Hardly old.”

“Actually, you’re twenty-one,” he corrected. “Happy Birthday, Lottey.” He pulled out a small package from a pant-leg pocket. Dinah was speechless. It was her birthday? How did she manage to miss that? She looked up at Roman, amazed he’d actually remember a thing so trivial.

“You got me something?” she asked. He stood with the small present between them, a sardonic expression on his face.

“No, Lottey,” he answered. “I’m just standing here with a little box for no reason. Just take it”.

She narrowed her eyes, still not reaching for the box. “Stop calling me that. How many times do I have to tell you?”

“I do it because you keep telling me not to,” he said. “You should have realized that by now.”

“You’re annoying.”

“I know.” His smile stretched wider. “Are you going to take this, or am I going to hold it out all day?”

With a sigh, she reached out and took the small gift. She hesitated for a second before lifting the lid open to reveal the delicate pair of earrings inside. They were a beautiful blue stone set in white gold. Jewellery was a privilege of the upper class. Very few had such luxuries, and although she wasn’t part of the lower class by any means, Dinah had never owned anything like this. She had no idea what to say.

“They’re aquamarine,” he said. She looked up, still speechless. He shrugged uncomfortably. “They reminded me of your eyes. I always think of that stone when I look at you.” She blinked. It never occurred to her that Roman would notice anything about her. Despite the fact that she knew he was attractive, she swore to herself that she would never get too close to someone. Plus, the two had always been more like siblings. She didn’t get the sense that this was his way of hitting on her, more like a genuine observation of his that he wanted to commend in some way.

“They’re beautiful,” she finally said.

He smiled, accepting this statement as her way of saying thank you. “Perhaps when you’re alone you can put them on.”

“I will,” she replied sincerely. “I’ve never owned anything like these.”

“They’ll look even more beautiful on you than they do in that box.” They smiled awkwardly at each other before he cleared his throat. “Well, I guess I will see you tomorrow night for our big outing?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be ready.”

He took a step back. “I will see you then.” He turned and left, leaving her in the middle of the interrogation room with blood at her feet, a pair of beautiful earrings in hand, and a dumbfounded expression on her face.

 

Dinah entered her room, turning all three locks as soon as the door was shut. It didn’t matter how well the building was protected, she never trusted it enough to leave her door unlocked. There were enough men in the New World army with seriously questionable morals that she was often on guard, even at home. She turned and looked at the small room she occupied and frowned to herself. Home. Perhaps that was a bit much to describe the single room and bathroom – the only space she could call her own. It wasn’t a lot, but knowing how most of the population lived, it was definitely better than some. The roof didn’t leak, and there was actual heat. That alone was more than most could hope for.

She started her nightly ritual of disarming herself. Considering the amount of weapons she wore on her at all times, this was quite the exercise. She removed the two M1911 pistols from the double shoulder holsters, the desert eagle from the holster strapped around her thigh, the dagger in her boot, and the compact semi-automatic Smith and Wesson tucked in the back of her pants. She pulled her shirt off, shaking out her long, black hair. Taking a deep breath, she let it out slowly, enjoying the feeling of air on her face.

Sitting down on the edge of her bed, she took off her boots then headed for the shower. It was only eight, but really, what else was she going to do? She didn’t have friends, so even if she had wanted to go out, who would she go with? And where? She knew nothing of the city she lived in for five years now. It was just as unknown as it had been the day Roman brought her here. Sighing, she stripped down and got into the shower, letting the hot water wash over her. Tomorrow would be a long day anyway, she told herself. A solid night’s sleep was always a good idea before she had to deal with searching a large group of people. She just hoped they knew something worth her time.