Page 75 of The Last De Loughrey Dynasty

Seven families.

There were six of us.

Alderidge, McConnell, Minoru, Berkshire, De Loughrey and Kingstone.

“Who’s the seventh family?” I asked with fear creeping up from the inside of my bones as the image of James began to flicker in my mirror, he was slowly fading. Someone else was involved in this and worse, the person had been right under our noses all this time.

“Kane.”The name echoed through my mind as the mist dissolved and James with it, leaving me alone with an image of my paled frame while the name continued to haunt my mind.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

DOROTHEE

“Professor Kane is one of us?!”Jesse screeched in shock after Archer just walked in here and dropped the bomb like it was nothing.

The same way, he just said so casually that the goddess Hecate was apparently the creator of our abilities until our anchors angered her, and she turned our gift into our very own curse.

“We don’t know for certain. It jumps generations,” I stated, looking at the still-closed diary in my lap. I was so keen to open it, but after Archer had run late and stormed in here like a madman, I tried to hold my curiosity back and listen to what had been so important to be almost twenty minutes late.

“However, a Kane with his abilities fully awake has to walk on earth at this very moment, and it’s damn suspicious that Professor Kane despises me that much,” Archer said, pacing up and down beside the long wooden table.

He was wearing sweatpants and a black shirt, and even though I only ever saw him in smart clothes, those suited him just as well.

Naomi remarked, “to his defence, plenty of teachers despise you.” And though I wanted to tell her to shut up—wherever that might have come from—she was right.

Archer was very rude in most classes we had together. The teacher asked him a question and he simply ignored it. He submitted his assignments at the last minute, and he allowed himself to do whatever he pleased during class. But he usually scored between ninety and one hundred percent on his tests.

He shrugged, visibly not caring the tiniest bit about what Naomi said being the truth. “I was forced to attend this school, you expect me to be overly enthusiastic in classes I didn’t want to attend in the first place? Besides, you’re not any better.” He continued to pace, and I followed his steps with my eyes, growing dizzy by how fast he was going.

“Sit down, you restless mutt,” Jesse said, almost amused as he rested his legs on the table with his notebook in his lap.

Archer stopped, and his eyes darkened a little when his gaze focused on Jesse.

I wasn’t in the mood to waste my time having to hear them argue, so I broke the tension. “Maisie and Jesse are in on the Hecate research, the rest of us keep a close eye on Professor Kane. More we can’t do right now if there wasn’t a diary with essential information we need to decipher…” I grabbed the diary that lay on my lap and let it fall on the table with a bang before I adjusted my position. “Oh look, there it is! Now sit down and hand me something sharp.”

Archer looked coolly at me for a second before his mouth peeled back into the hint of a grin. “So bossy today,” he whispered in my ear when he leaned down to place a pocket knife on the diary.

His hot breath on my skin caused blood to shoot into my cheeks, assuring me that I greatly enjoyed that feeling.

The younger version of me would have been embarrassed, but what is embarrassment when you stop caring about what other people think about you? Simple, it’s non-existent, and frankly, I enjoyed that state of uncaringness my mind was presently in.

Archer placed himself in the chair beside mine. “Go on then,” he encouraged, his full attention on me now.

I turned away from him and picked up the pocket knife that had the initials C.M. engraved into one side, and I guessed it was old from the looks of it. Someone must have hidden it in here, since we hadn’t been allowed to carry any form of weapons in school. My bags had been searched the day I came here, which resolved the loss of my curling iron. I’ll get a new one during winter break.

Maisie had been allowed to own matches since she needed to light her candles for her‘religious ritual’. She was witty, I had to admit.

The diary was still empty when I opened it. Something inside me had hoped otherwise, but apparently I was out of luck today.

I opened it to the first page without content and clipped the knife open before I brought it to my fingers, looking at the blade a little too long which caused hesitation in me.

Get it together, Dorothee, this pain is nothing in comparison to what awaits you if you hesitate.

I sliced the tips of my ring, middle, and index fingers open in one go to assure the diary was fed enough blood to reveal its secrets to us. Blood started to pour out of the cuts and I held it over the page, squeezing my finger until crimson covered the page.

The drops of blood travelled over the papers until they started to form letters. I stared at the diary in awe at what was happening.

“Someone damn pinch me, that’s witchcraft,” Jesse laughed from across the table. “Ouch—I didn’t mean literally, Nao!” he shrieked a second later.

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