Page 51 of Vicious Little Vows
“I barely even remember my dad from back then. You took everything.” I hadn’t realized until that moment that I was still bitter about it. Knowingwhyshe ran couldn’t change everything.
“I thought if I left, and if I left you thinking you had little power, you would have no reason to seek out other magical beings. At the very least, I’d hoped you would be an adult before you went beyond the boundaries and realized it. At leastthat small thing went as planned. I couldn’t have you drawing attention before you were ready. I acted rashly. I was afraid.”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter now. The Bogs just gave us a vortex all hopped up on wild magic. We can use it to beat him.”
“My little Evelyn, it’s not just him. He has recruited many who wish to regrow the pathways. They don’t realize what they will unleash.”
“The shadow things,” I said. “I saw them.”
“You saw a fragment. In whole, there is enough to destroy entire realms. Ithasdestroyed entire realms. But it is scattered. It cannot regroup without the pathways.”
“But what is it?” I asked.
She gazed into the distance as she took a long breath and let it out. “I cannot say for sure, only that it was not always there. When we first created the pathways to be traveled by those without celestial blood, it did not exist. Either it was attracted to the magic, or it was created by it.”
I furrowed my brow. “Created by it?”
“We displace the cosmos with our movements. There is always a price. Where we create stars, we move darkness.” Her gaze had gone distant again, like she was listening to something I couldn’t hear. “I cannot linger here.” Her eyes whipped to mine. “You met a female angelic. I have spoken with her. You will seek her out in the Silver Quarter. If my grandfather wants to fight with an army at his back, then so will we.”
This was all moving far too fast for me to follow. “An army?” I choked out.
“Those who wish to stop this foolishness. The vampires, werewolves, and many others.”
“Um, the vampires want to kill me.”
She waved me off. “I have spoken to Elizabeta. She understands now what is at risk, and what must be done.”
“So you’ve been all over the city and you only now revealed yourself to me?”
Her expression crumbled, just for a moment, but she recovered quickly. “I could not lead him to you, Eva. But now someone has told him exactly where to find you. He realized he might actually lose, so he is no longer biding his time. You must understand, his first attack on you was just a warning. Something to scare you and get you out into the city where his minions can reach you. He has survived so long by being cautious. He will not risk a direct confrontation knowing the power you have. Instead, he will threaten everything and everyone you care about until you make a mistake.” She looked upward. “I have to go.”
“He took Marcie!” I blurted, suddenly remembering that important detail. I felt guilty for almost forgetting about her.
She smiled softly. “My allies took Marcie. You were already running to the Bogs, and that was where I wanted you while we finished our preparations. But I needed her. If my grandfather had taken her, everyone with her would have been dead.”
Okay now I felt less guilty and more stupid. She looked up at the sky again.
“Wait!” I gripped her arm. It felt so surreal to actually be touching her. “Mistral can’t leave the Bogs to go to the Silver Quarter, and without him, we’re vulnerable.”
She hesitated, once again glancing up at the sky. “I heard what you were talking about. About Mistral’s contract.”
I shook my head, wondering how much she’d spied at other times, when she was able. “What about it?”
Her eyes lowered to mine. “Ask Mistral to tell you everything. Things he once told me, in an effort to learn what he wanted to know.” She gently pulled free from my grip. “Do you love him?”
My face burned with embarrassment. Maybe it was a normal thing for a mother to speak with her adult daughter about, butI had missed all that, and in some ways, I still felt like the little girl she’d left behind. But hey, if we all might die soon, I could be honest. “I think I love each of them, in different ways.”
She watched me for a moment, then nodded. “Then you’ll do what you need to protect them, just as they protect you.”
I stepped back as she turned into a bright flash of stars, then was gone. I wanted to be pissed, but knowing that our grandfather was trailing her changed things. She was keeping him busy to buy us time.
I turned to hurry back to the guys, wondering what she’d meant about Mistral’s contract, though part of me already knew.
Maybe there was a way for him to leave the Bogs…
If only I’d pay the price.
TWENTY-ONE
