Page 36 of Blood & Bonds

“I would have said suggesting but we can go with whatever makes you feel better,” Rainey said. “You can meet us in the multipurpose room.”

Byron shifted his eyes over to me. His lips were pressed into a thin line, and he seemed to be mulling something over. I couldn’t be sure, but it almost felt as though he was trying to gauge whether or not he should leave me alone with Rainey at all. Did he not trust Rainey? Rainey seemed like a charmer, and I was sure most of the female population and maybe even some of the males were in love with him, but he didn’t come across as skeezy. Maybe I was just reading Byron wrong – which was probably the most likely scenario.

“I’m not going to bite her,” Rainey said, flashing me a little smile.

Byron wrinkled his nose, the tips of his canines protruding from his mouth a warning.

What was Byron’s problem? I was ready to ask him just that when Byron turned and left the room.

Once the door closed, I looked back at Rainey, only to find him staring at me. This time, instead of a boyish smile, his brow was furrowed. I was a puzzle to him now.

“Do you have magic?” he asked directly.

I sighed. “I didn’t even know it existed,” I said.

“We don’t know that one way or the other except for the Light Bringers.”

“And yet, here I am.” I gestured at myself.

He cocked his head to the side. “Your arrival here is odd,” he agreed. He reached into his robes and procured a black book. It looked like the pages barely hung onto the brittle spine. How it existed still, I had no idea. “This book is going to lay out a magic trial. Should you fail, the results indicate you have no magic. Should you pass it…” He let his voice trail off.

“Do you think I killed Lucy?” I asked, dropping my voice. “Is that why you’re doing this?”

“Look, kid, I don’t know you,” Rainey said, “but you’re a human, and unless you do have some kind of magic inside of you, I don’t think you killed your mother or Lucy. Especially since I know Lucy would have fought back and you don’t have any defensive marks on you.” He touched the back of his fingers against my forearm and I flinched, stepping back. “Then again, you might be able to magic them away or something. I wouldn’t know.”

I blew out breath and looked down at my upturned palms. “Is there a way to do magic without being aware of it?” I asked, then shook my head. “I saw my mom die. I saw something –“

“What did you see?”

I tried to find the memory, tried to call it back to me. “It was a-a like a shadow,” I said. “I mean…”

HadI seen my mother’s actual death, or just the aftermath of it? I had been in the room - our room – straddling a windowpane. I hadn’t watched…

“There’s such thing as ShadowSide magic,” he said as though it was obvious. “At least from my limited research. And that lets you control the darkness. Shadows are darkness. You could have controlled the shadows that killed your mother.”

I flinched again. I didn’t even want to imagine anyone hurting my mother, especially not me. I dropped my hands to my sides as Rainey flipped a stiff page.

“Why would I kill my mother?” I asked, offended he would even suggest such a thing.

Rainey didn’t even look up from the book as though he couldn’t be bothered with my question. Instead, he lifted a shoulder casually, like he was looking at the menu at some diner.

“I wouldn’t know,” he said. “We all have a ShadowSide, locked away from the world, even from ourselves. It’s not for me to guess what’s in yours.”

“ShadowSide?” This was nonsense.

This time, Rainey did look up at me. He was careful how he held the spine of the book so it wouldn’t close the page he was currently studying.

“ShadowSide,” he repeated. “Your mother was a legacy, wasn’t she? How do you not know about ShadowSides?”

I wiggled my fingers at my sides. How was I supposed to answer that? “It never came up,” I finally said.

He tilted his chin down. Since I couldn’t see his eyes, I surmised he was scanning the text of the ancient tome he had. I shifted, trying to figure out if I could sit down without being rude.

“What am I supposed to do?” I asked, rubbing the back of my neck. Exhaustion teased me once again, and I glanced behind me at the bed. I hadn’t slept well at all last night, even though Adrienne had been present with me. I was ready to try again, even if there was a good chance I was going to encounter my mother’s face or Lucy’s. “With this magic testing?”

“I don’t know,” he said, carefully turning another page. “I’ve never done this before.”

“You’ve neverwhat?” I plopped on the end of the bed, not caring one way or the other how he would perceive it. “You’re telling me you’re going to run tests on me without even knowing what you’re doing?”

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