Page 109 of Soulbound
"You’re confusing me. What does Quentin Farshaw have to do with you being the black queen?"
She picked up the book, flipping through it swiftly before reading: "A notion that has constantly plagued me has been a curiosity about why I see the future and the past with such clarity, when other sorcerers can barely glimpse it. Where do these dreams come from? Why does time seem to part around me, when others cannot even see the individual threads? I think the demon is in me."
A light fluttering began to swim through his gut. "What does that even mean? He was possessed?"
"No." Cleo took a deep breath. "Sebastian, what’s the one creature with the ability to time-walk? The one creature who can see through time, and manipulate it?"
A demon.
"Every act of sorcery can be learned, even if one is never very good at it. Consider myself with telekinesis, for example. But not.... Divination is a gift that cannot be taught. One either has it, or one does not."
"What are you saying?"
She cradled the book to her chest. "What if the gift of Sight is not a gift, but something in one’s bloodlines? I’ve been… researching. The first time a demon was called through from the Shadow Dimensions was in 1497, according to our records. The very first recorded seer showed up some twenty years later. And what do demons do when they get here? They possess a body, but they require the energy derived from sex and blood in order to survive. What if there are children born of such couplings? Children with their parents’ bloodlines, but a hint of the demon inside them too? Maybe it leaves a mark, a stain on the soul? Maybe—"
"You think there’s some part of a demon in you? Cleo." He crossed to her side, kneeling at her feet, and rubbing his palms up her silk-covered legs. "You’re the very opposite of a demon. There’s a light inside you even I can see. That I’ve always seen. You wouldn’t even begin to know what true darkness was."
A tear slid down her cheek. "The night of the Ascension Ball you and Madrigal pulled me from a dream about the past. My father was fascinated with demons too. After he, Drake, and Morgana created the Relics Infernal, and they betrayed him, he turned to darker arts. I saw my father the night I was conceived. He was at his altar, and he summoned something into him, before he went to my mother."
Sebastian froze.
She could barely continue, the fall of her hair covering her face. "I’m human, Sebastian, but there’s something of the demon inside me too. Something from the Shadow Dimensions. And I think it’s starting to wake.
"A stain, Sebastian," she whispered. "Something dark that whispers to me at odd moments. I can feel her, even now. I’m the white queen, but I think the black queen is inside me too. I think I am… both. And I don’t think you’d like her very much."
He stared up at her, hating the doubt he heard in her voice.
"Quentin Farshaw said I had to make a choice between the Light and the Dark," Cleo continued. "I don't know what he means. Do I have to choose to be the white queen? Or the black queen?"
"Farshaw said quite a lot," he muttered. And she hadn't told him any of it. "Come here."
Sebastian dragged her into his lap, where she finally succumbed to her tears. The bond between them was shielded, and maybe this was why. Maybe she’d begun hiding her thoughts and emotions from him the moment she realized something was amiss within her.
The very way she clung to him told him something else though. She hadn’t wanted to tell him. Doubt, perhaps, that he would deny her. Or cast her aside. Sweet mother of darkness. A growl of fury vibrated in his throat, and he crushed her close to him.
"What did you think I was going to do?" he whispered, capturing her tear-stained face and tilting it up to press a kiss to her lips.
"You were leaving," she said in a ragged voice.
"You didn’t know that. Not until you found the ticket. You've known all this time, or suspected there was something dark inside you."
"Well, you weren't there for me. You wouldn't reply to my letters." She pressed her face into her hands and sobbed. "You didn't want to see me. You've never wanted this marriage."
"You're right," he whispered, cupping her face and tilting it to his. "I never wanted this marriage. I didn't know what to do with you, or how to be a husband. But I want this. I want you. Let me be your husband, Cleo. Be my wife in truth. No matter what we face."
And then he kissed her, knowing that this time she needed him to fight for her.
Chapter 24
The Shadow Dimensions are gray, lifeless planes where creatures of the Void exist. They constantly hunger for life, and yet it is denied them, so of course when they are summoned through into this world they crave the light and life and wonder they see. They wish to absorb it, to drink it down, to glut themselves on sex and blood and energy—and to destroy the Summoner who called them. For when summoned, they wear a leash. And it chafes….
—Lord Gilderoy in Of Demons and Imps
* * *
"GOING HUNTING?" SEBASTIAN asked, as he poured himself a cup of tea the next morning.
Bishop paused in the act of sliding his black leather gloves on. "Verity's going to use a lock of Drake's hair to try and track him again. We had no luck the other day, but he's got to be somewhere out there. I'm going with her."
