Page 25 of Bound By Fire and Magic
She stood, pulling the robe tighter, and stared out the window. “What was Mom thanking him for? I can’t imagine what he would have been doing for her.”
She wasn’t asking him, and since he didn’t know the answer, he didn’t respond. Finally, she turned to him. “Is there anything else you’re holding out on?” Her words came out hard, taut.
“You know everything I know. I hated lying to you, Elle.” He jammed his fingers through his hair. “Hated what Lyra did because it put me in a no-win situation. If I didn’t back her, she would have been arrested for tampering with evidence. But know this: I would never have done it if I thought my father was guilty.”
She seemed to consider those words. “Or is it that sometimes we can’t see what we don’t want to see? Because everything inside me screams that my father would never use Shadow Magick to hurt someone. But the harsh truth is, it looks like he did. Everything inside me screams that we are meant to be together, but the truth is, we have too much hurt between us. I hurt you, you betrayed me, and now it looks like our fathers are involved in a deadly drama. How can we ever get past all this?”
He saw her pain, a mirror to his own. “When something matters enough, you just do.”
The words hung in the air, as thick as summer humidity.
She swallowed hard. “Sometimes you can’t. Sometimes you have to walk away. But I can’t walk away from what my father might have done. I think we should go to Stein’s house. The Shadow Magick blocked me, but that’s only been at the scene of the conjuring. You said his bedroom was tumbled. I want to try sensing what happened.”
Elle knew she’d never sense a thing if she couldn’t untangle her mind from the man walking next to her. Kirin could have kept his secret, but he had shown his honor by admitting something he knew would upset her. And particularly at a pivotal moment in their relationship.
She had her own truths to face. Like how much she still loved him, and how making love to him had sealed her fate in ways she couldn’t yet contemplate. He was giving her time to sort through everything, but she got the sense that he’d made up his mind: they were going to be together, one way or the other. That certainty shook her.
Mine.
Kirin pulled out his key as they reached the front door. “Let me check to see if anyone’s here.” After checking the house, he returned. “It doesn’t look like anyone’s been here recently. Including Lyra, who still hasn’t called me back.”
“Maybe she’s onto something.”
“That’s what I’m worried about. You know Lyra.”
Impulsive. Rash. Elle only nodded and started to walk in. When she touched the door frame a barrage of emotion and images hit her. Her father pounding on this door, her mother’s open journal in his hand. His anger was palpable. The words at the bottom of the page shook as her father held the book open.
I saw the Zensu Deuce today. She confirmed what the test said, the test I was sure was wrong…five times. The fatigue, the flu-like symptoms, and the extra pounds I already didn’t need—I’m four months pregnant! Yeah, the extra weight hid it well, even from me. At fifty, the last thing I would have suspected. I know Crescents age slowly, but this is crazy. And the Zensu gave me the news that it’s a Dragon. Must talk to Stein.
Stein never answered the knock, and her father stalked down the stairs muttering “I’m going to kill him.”
She snapped out of the vision. “My mother was pregnant.” That news hit her with the impact of a cold wave of water. “With your father’s baby.” She told him what she’d seen.
Kirin smacked the wall. “That’s what he wouldn’t tell us. I never believed he would hurt her, but I knew he was hiding something.” He started pacing on the porch. “So she came to tell him, and then what? He rejects the baby, her? I don’t think so. My father had dated no one since my mother’s death. If he slept with Tara, she meant something to him. And by all accounts, they had been seeing each other for a while, so it wasn’t some one-night stand. He learned she was pregnant and wanted to marry her.”
“She refused, and he killed her,” Elle said, joining his speculation. “By accident. His temper flared. Maybe he hit her, and she fell and bashed her head.” She could barely push out the words, “Then hid her body.”
“Or your father found out, and he killed her in an act of rage.”
“Except it appears my father had just found out about the pregnancy, which is what triggered him to create the tulpa.”
Kirin released a long breath. He obviously didn’t want to think his father was a murderer. But now they could be pretty sure Stein had been seeing Tara and gotten her pregnant. Now not only was Elle’s mother lost to her, but so was her half-sibling.
“But in the note, she was thanking him,” Kirin said. “Maybe she decided to have an abortion. Pop supported her, took her somewhere she could get an abortion. Or worse, to some backstreet so-called doctor who messed things up.”
“I can’t imagine my mom doing that.” Elle rubbed the bridge of her nose, a headache blooming there. “I can’t think about that.”
Kirin gestured for them to go inside. “See what you can pick up in Stein’s bedroom. And maybe whatever Lyra found, if she wasn’t just yanking my chain.”
The bedroom was a wreck. Elle took an involuntary step back. “When I think about what happened here, I feel the heaviness of Shadow Magick.” She tried to push past it. “Again, I can’t see what happened. Which means that the tulpa Dad created probably came here.” And most likely had completed its mission.
Kirin took in the room with bleak eyes. “If Pop escaped, we would have heard from him by now. So, it’s probably him imprisoned inside the tulpa.” He wiped the grief from his expression and glanced at the clock. “Can you see what Lyra found?”
Elle pushed aside her distress at what her father had done. How many times could she say she was sorry? Now she needed to do everything in her power to fix it. She turned to the room and sent her magick out again. The vision slowly came together. “I see Lyra kneeling on the floor and then…crawling beneath the bed.” Elle watched Lyra scoot back out, holding something. Her long blond hair blocked the sight of the object as Lyra left the room with it. Elle came back to the present. “She found something, but I couldn’t see it.”
Kirin made another call, and Elle heard Lyra’s chipper message. Kirin rubbed the back of his neck, his jaw rigid with tension. “Call me, Lyra. I’m getting worried.” He disconnected. “It went right to voice mail.”
“Maybe her battery’s dead.”
