Page 21 of Illusory

“But it’s a start. At least until we come up with abetterexcuse.”

“Alright…so what’s the good news?” I finally asked, finding myself in desperate need of a serious pick-me-up since my usualtwowere currently not on speaking terms with me.

“I think Jackie should do the honors.” Tessa grinned as she turned expectantly to our mother who had been mostly silent thus far. Jaqueline generally chose to stay out of the back-and-forth bickering and overall scheming, so there was really nothing surprising about that. “It’s your find after all,” Tessa pointed out.

Jaqueline hesitated for a beat before finally nodding. Shedidn’t appear to have the same level of enthusiasm that my sister had, making me wonder just how good this “good news” actually was. “It has to do with your Nephilim blood.”

And already I didn’t like it.

“Okay…” I swallowed roughly as I set my coffee mug down on the island and braced myself. “Did you find something that can help us?” If the answer was no, I was walking out of the kitchen on principal alone.

Jaqueline’s gaze slid to Tessa and then back to me. “You can say that.”

Meh. Good enough.

“She has Elspeth’s grimoire!” blurted Tessa like she couldn’t keep the juicy secret to herself for a second longer.

My brows shot up halfway into my forehead. “Wait.Elspeth?Our ancestor?” I vaguely recalled my mother telling me about how she had travelled back in time to find one of our distant ancestors in order to get answers for me. It was only in meeting with Elspeth and witnessing how strong andwell-adjustedshe was that my mother finally had the courage to tell me the full truth about my bloodlines. About who my father really was.

Jaqueline nodded her confirmation. “Elspeth and you have a lot more in common than just your ancestry. She too was Nephilim and even though she was eventually killed for what she was, she did manage to obtain an impressive grasp over her Nephilim abilities during her short nineteen years of life.”

I wasn’t caffeinated enough to unpack the whole ‘killed for what she was’ bit, so I clung to the other half of her statement instead. The part about her having an impressive grasp over her abilities. I wanted more ofthat.

“How did she manage to do it?” I asked, unable to mask the layer of doubt from my voice seeing as it was next toimpossible for us to garner even basic information about the nearly nonexistent breed, let alone about their magical abilities. “I mean, they went extinct for a reason, no?”

“Well, yes, but it was a different time then. While Nephilim were still being hunted by the Angels, there were many of them in existence at that time. Knowledge was passed down from one Nephilim to the other generationally, and sometimes even through their personal grimoires. You have to remember that this was long before the creation of The Order of The Rose. Long before the Order began to curate what magical knowledge Descendants would have access to. The Dark Arts; Demon Summoning. Necromancy. Nephilim magic. These disciplines were readily accessible to all who sought them out.”

Interesting. I supposed that also explained the anarchy and bloodshed of those days and why the Order had been created in the first place. There was clearly a need forsomeoversight if Supernaturals were running amok using dark magic and summoning demons and dead people left and right.

Unfortunately, it seemed that their mission had gotten lost in translation somewhere along the lines. The moment they began deciding who would live and who would die made it clear that their self-appointed power trip had gotten all the way to their heads.

“So, I’m guessing the ‘impressive grasp’ she had over her abilities is highlighted in that book over there,” I asked, gesturing with my chin to theveryancient looking codex which I assumed to be Elspeth’s grimoire.

“Yes, though I haven’t gotten a chance to read through everything yet,” replied Jaqueline as she palmed the front of the book gently, as though its binding were made from a rare, precious silk from some faraway realm. “There’s a lot of pagesto cover and it’s written entirely in Latin so it’s going to take some time to get through it all, but from what I’ve read so far—” Her eyes, an eerie combination of mine and Tessa’s, seemed to brighten with hope and expectation. “I think we may have found exactly what we need.”

“That easy?” A faint flicker of relief fluttered through my stomach, but I couldn’t seem to latch onto it. I already knew not to get my hopes up too high since they had a habit of crash-landing in the mud whenever I did. “What exactly did you find out?” I asked evenly, needing for her to elaborate.

“For starters, she writes about the wings at length. How to summon them. How to sheathe them—”

“Wait,” I cut in eagerly, my heart racing at the prospect. “She could control them at will?”

Jaqueline nodded again, a small smile touching the corners of her lips. “That appears to be the case.”

“How did she do it?” I asked breathlessly, sucking back the hope like an addict that needed one more hit. Up until that moment, the best I had hoped for was to be able to keep the wings under wraps—indefinitely. But summoning them at will? That sounded even better, and way cooler. “Did she use Nephilim magic or is it an innate ability?”

“Well, I haven’t pieced all the details together just yet,” answered Jaqueline as she picked an imaginary piece of dust from the grimoire and then frowned. “Truthfully, my Latin is rusty at best so it’s going to take some time to not only translate the passages, but to also put them into context for us.”

“Right. So…how long are we talking?” I asked tentatively.

Her expression fell further. “Several weeks at the very least.”

And there was that familiar taste of mud in my mouth again. “That’stoolong. We don’t have several weeks,” I said,my voice climbing several decibels as the panic hit me all over again.

“I know.” She exhaled heavily. “But it’s the best I can do right now.”

“Then we need to bring in reinforcements,” I said, feeling the suffocating panic nipping at my heels again. “Someone who we trust implicitly, and who’s strong and willing to go up against the Order with us and…who…also happens to know uh…Latin,” I finished choppily, realizing how abysmal our chances were of findinganyonewho would fit that bill. “Yeah, that’s probably not going to happen, is it?”

“Not likely,” answered Tessa.

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