Page 53 of Cursed Lifeline

“Thanking?” I grit out as I struggle against my mother’s magic. “Never!”

Rising, the fae shakes her head and circles me on the dais. My being restrained has obviously made her more daring. The fact only spurs the anger feverishly raging through my veins into an uncontrolled inferno that threatens to end both their lives once I am unleashed.

“Esme’s spirit lives,” the fae says authoritatively as she slowly pivots around my left side. “Her body, however, has unfortunately passed away.”

Still struggling to break free of my mother’s spell, I grit out, “Tell me something I don’t know, princess. As one royal to another, I suggest you get to the fucking point.”

She stops before me; her glare deepens as she folds her arms over her chest. “Her spirit is suspended in purgatory.” Hell is a nicer place, I think, as the fae pauses for a moment and waits for her words to register. But I’m too full of animosity to catch any hidden meaning. “There, she’ll wait until her next life is ready for her.”

“Next life?” my nostrils flare as I push with all my might against my mother’s bewitched hold. “There is no life after death, princess.”

“There wasn’t,” my mother suggests, “Until now.”

My eyes flash to hers, and I grow eerily still. I stop fighting. I wait for her to elaborate. When she doesn’t, I demand, “What do you mean?”

With a heavy sigh and a pleasant smile, my mother explains, “Evangeline has a gift.” My gaze drifts back to the fae. She smiles sweetly and gracefully takes her seat next to my mother. “Throughout the centuries, there have been very few of her kind. Necromancy is a hard gift to come by. I have only known one other in my time, and their life was unfortunately cut short for fear of what they might be able to do if their power ever came into full fruition.”

“Necromancy?” I ask, feeling a little of the anger leave my body.

I hang desperately on the word, wanting to know if this is real or another cruel joke.

“The ability to control life,” Evangeline smiles confidently. “It’s an art of redistributing life forces, communing with the dead, manipulating the once-living.”

“I know what it means, princess.”

My mother rolls her eyes at my tone, but doesn’t reprimand me before she says, “Evangeline can manipulate the souls of the livingandthe dead.”

My eyes grow wide. All my bitter anger, which propelled me here earlier, begins to slowly fade. My mother notices, and finally releases the hold she has on me. I drop to my knees at their feet and try to steady my now hopeful heart.

I tell myself not to read too much into this as my wishful gaze lifts to meet theirs and I ask, “Are you saying that Evangeline can bring Esme back to life?”

“Technically, she won’t,” my mother says, and my heart sinks. “You held that power, Felix.”

“But,” I stutter as I search my mother’s eyes, then Evangeline’s. “That’s impossible.”

The fae reaches forward and extends her hand. I study it momentarily, before placing my gloved one in hers. She turns the glove over and runs her finger across the prick in the leather where Esme’s blood mixed with mine a few weeks back before my touch seared a heart-shaped promise into the back of her neck.

“A loophole to the curse,” the fae whispers, “Your mother called upon me when she realized the spell her family cast took. Because it’s not just life that I’m manipulating, but magic as well; I had to fight it from both ends.”

“Your gloves,” my mother says as the fae leans back in her seat. “Evangeline cast a spell on them the last time you were here. That’s why I insisted you take them before you stormed out of the house.”

“It was the only way I could be where I needed to be,” the fae shrugs. “To intervene if everything lined up just right.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, rising to my feet.

Evangeline leans forward and smiles, “If your blood mixed with Esme’s while you were wearing the gloves, and you both gave into the way you felt for each other simultaneously, a loophole would be created.”

“What kind of loophole?”

“One that would bring Esme back to life in the unfortunate circumstance that she lost it to any of us,” my mother says.

“But that doesn’t break the curse,” I argue. “It doesn’t take away the fact that we’re destined to repeat the sins of our parents. If not in this life, then our next.”

“No, you’re right, it doesn’t,” my mother says as she sits forward in her seat and begs me to listen. “But it buys you time.”

“Time for what,” I scoff. “Time to watch her come back to life to be hunted all over again? To be killed at the hand of my kind once more?”

Anger, bitterness, rage, they all rush me at once.

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