Page 52 of Torn Ivy
Mum’s expression doesn’t change, but her eyes narrow. “Miss Hammond. Good to see you again.”
“Again?”
“When I killed your father,” Ivy says, not taking her eyes off my mother, “there was a woman there. Watching before she disappeared in a cloud of purple power.”
“The advanced mage Tate reckoned was there,” I grit out. “It was you.”
“The pieces were already in motion,” Mum says calmly, brushing it off as if discussing the weather rather than her presence at my father’s murder. “Certain things had to happen in a specific order. Your father’s death was a necessary catalyst.”
“The question is why? Why did you want him dead? Why reveal these bloodline secrets now?”
Mum straightens, and for a moment, I glimpse something ancient and terrible in her eyes. “Because Death is not the only one playing a long game. The Syndicate thinks they’re the puppet masters, but there are older powers at work.”
She gestures at the scattered documents, each one shining with centuries of carefully woven magick. “Look at the pattern. The Hammond line crossing with chaos practitioners in 1742. The dark magick infusion through the Smith marriage in 1823. The binding of elemental power through the Thorne alliance in 1901. Every generation, every union, carefully orchestrated to create the perfect vessel.”
“The bloodlines,” I say, pieces clicking into horrible place. “You’re not just sharing information. You’re part of whatever’s been engineering them. Part of the organisation that’s been manipulating supernatural bloodlines for centuries.”
“Smart boy.” Mum’s smile holds secrets within secrets. “Though perhaps not smart enough, if you haven’t figured out why your father really had to die.”
“Explain.”
“Death’s vessels aren’t chosen,” she says, tapping the ancient family trees. The magickal lines respond to her touch, creating new patterns in the air. “They’re created. Through centuries ofcareful breeding, magickal bindings, and...” she glances at Ivy, “precisely timed removals of certain obstacles.”
“My father was an obstacle?” I ask, feeling the irony. He was definitely an obstacle to me.
“He discovered too much. Started asking dangerous questions about old families and older magicks.” She traces a particularly complex binding in the floating pattern. “He was going to expose everything. All the careful work of centuries, undone by one man’s greed for power. We couldn’t allow that.”
“We?” Ivy demands. “Who exactly is we?”
Mum’s smile grows sharper. “Now that’s the real question, isn’t it? The one The Syndicate should be asking, instead of playing their little games with ultimatums and power plays.”
She waves a hand, and the magickal projections reform, showing new patterns, deeper connections I hadn’t noticed before. “Every major supernatural event in history, every rise of power, every fall of an old family, every seemingly random tragedy are all part of the pattern. All moving us toward this moment.”
“What moment?” I demand, but I see it now in the bloodlines. The way they all seem to converge on this point in time. On Ivy.
“Evolution,” Mother says again, but this time, the word holds weight. Power. Promise. “True evolution of magickal ability. The Hammond line was crafted to be more than just Death’s vessel. It was designed to change Death itself.”
“You know what?” Ivy snaps. “I’m getting really sick of that fucking word. No one uses it again, or I start kicking arses.”
Mum looks at Ivy with something like hunger. “You’re feeling it already, aren’t you? The way your power is growing, changing, becoming something new. Something more than Death ever intended. We orchestrated your entire existence. Centuries ofcareful breeding and magickal manipulation, all leading to you. The perfect vessel for what’s coming.”
“What’s coming?” I ask.
Mum gathers the ancient documents with a sweep of her hand, and they vanish, her smile holding centuries of secrets. “The old powers are stirring. The barriers between worlds are thinning. And you, my dear children, are standing at the crossroads of history.”
She looks between us, and for a moment, I see something vast and dark behind her eyes. Something that makes Death’s power seem young in comparison.
“The question isn’t who I am or what I’ve done,” she says. “The question is: when you finally understand what’s coming, which side of history will you choose to be on?”
We glare at her, speechless.
“Choose wisely, children,” Mum says, turning to leave. “The dance is only beginning.”
She disappears in a cloud of power, leaving us with nothing but questions and the crushing weight of revelation.
The truth settles around us like falling ash:
Nothing is what we thought.
