Page 149 of Twisted Ties
“Those men.”
“Yes, I lost my chance.”
“Then why give it to me now?”
“It belongs to you, Rhianna Blackwaters. It was your aunt’s and your mother’s before hers. I have no business owning what is yours.”
“You knew my aunt.”
“As well as anyone living underground can know another.”
“Do you know why she was keeping me hidden?”
He closes his fist around the necklace and lets his arm fall to his side. “She never told you?”
“Never explicitly. She just said I wasn’t safe with the authorities. I’m sure she would have told me, but she was taken so suddenly and …”
“I suspect she thought you were safer not knowing.”
“Yes, but she was wrong. Not knowing, not understanding, not being able to face whatever danger she feared with understanding, is far far more dangerous.”
He considers me, his eyes traveling back and forth over my face as if he’s deciding what he should do for the best.
“Please,” I say, my voice breaking.
“Very well. I have to say, I agree with you. I think she should have told you from the start.”
“Perhaps,” I say, not wanting to criticize the woman who cared for me with all her heart all those years.
“Your aunt was a talented witch, Rhianna. But your mother, she … she was something else.”
“What do you mean?”
He takes another step closer, lowering his voice, even though there is no one around us to hear. “She was a seer.”
“A seer,” I repeat.
“She could see the future. Read it. Predict it.”
“So …” I say, unsure what this can mean.
“There haven’t been any seers in centuries, Rhianna. And being able to see the future is both a gift, a blessing, a tool in the right hands. And a deadly weapon in the wrong.”
“My mother, she wouldn’t have–”
“No, but there were those who wished to use her gift in their battles, in their wars.”
“The authorities,” I say.
“And the gangs. The leaders in the West. They all wanted your mother. They all wanted her gift.”
“A weapon,” I whisper.
“Yes, that’s right. A weapon to destroy their enemies.”
“What happened to her?”
“That I don’t know. I’m not sure your aunt even did. But she knew that with your mother gone, they’d come looking for you.”
