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Chapter 25

Annie stared at me in blind shock. Gran looked like she was in physical pain. I felt a moment of nasty satisfaction that soon melted into guilt. I wasn’t built for that kind of vindictiveness. It cost too much to keep it going, and it hurt me as much as it hurt Gran. I looked away. Annie recovered her equilibrium first.

“Where’s my sister?”

“Follow me, child. I’ll take you to her.”

Gran stepped back from the door to let Annie inside. I vacillated on the porch for a few seconds before I slunk in after them. I didn’t look at anything as we walked, unwilling to risk a blast of memories that would make it harder to hate Gran. I’d have turned around and left if Jessie’s condition wasn’t all my fault. I could stick it out until Annie was satisfied her sister wasn’t going to die. Gran didn’t speak to either of us again. She just took us to the door of what had been my bedroom for years and opened it. Annie stepped into the room without a second glance at Gran. I went to follow her, and Gran rested a hand on my arm. I stopped moving and resisted an urge to slap the hand away. I met her eyes. She looked away first that time. I was being petty, sure, but she wasn’t innocent in the situation.

“After you see to your friend, we should talk,” she said.

I took several deep breaths, determined not to snap something at her in blind, wounded fury. “It’s too late for that. You had years to talk to me. Why should I listen now?”

Gran's eyes were focused somewhere past me. “The thing your friend fought, Pierce Carter, he’ll come here.”

I shrugged. “Probably. I knew he’d figure out how to track the hole I left in the world. Or he’d figure out a way to track Jessie. She’s too powerful to hide from someone who knows what they’re looking for. He was always coming here.”

Gran sighed. “It’s more complicated than that.”

“Everything’s complicated with you,” I muttered. “Maybe we wouldn’t be in this situation if you’d made things simple before. Fine, we’ll talk.”

Gran nodded and let go of my arm. She retreated down the hall like an elderly shadow. I had another moment of doubt. Was she even old or did she just choose to look that way? There would be advantages to looking that way. As camouflages went, there were few as effective as age. Who looks twice at a woman in her late sixties? I had no way of knowing the truth for sure, at least not without doing something she’d notice. The very notion of prying like that struck me as a very bad idea with very uncertain consequences. Gran had power of her own. It was power I’d never tested. Just because I’d never seen her do anything dramatic with her power, that in no way meant that she couldn’t do something terrible to me. In fact, I would lay a large stack of cash on the table that Gran could probably take me, Bill, Jessie, and Annie at the same time if she put her mind to it. I had no evidence to back that up. It was just an intuition not to be a moron. No, I would not be prying.

I shook my head and walked into the room. Annie sat on the bed with a single hand resting on her sister’s head. There was a visible glow surrounding the two women. I blinked to make sure I wasn’t seeing things, but the glow remained. Whatever kind of magic Annie was using, it was completely foreign to me. I didn’t know its source or recognize anything about what passed for its structure. I assumed it was meant to heal, in some fashion, but the mechanics were lost on me. It felt wild, uncontrolled, and dangerous. Rule-bound, Jessie had called me, and I was beginning to grasp what she was getting it. She and Annie had a wholly different relationship with magic than I did. I discovered that didn’t bother me in the slightest. I wouldn’t want to work magic the way they did, which seemed a lot to me like wandering around with a loaded and cocked gun. I had to think my magic through, decide to use it, and then call it forth. I’d take my way any day.

I remembered Gran’s frustration with me when she was trying to help Jessie. My fear and nervousness were permeating the room, disrupting the subtle ebbs and flows of magic that I understood, intellectually, were necessary for healing. I forced myself to lean against the wall and take steady controlled breaths. I buried myself, my concerns, and my fears beneath the discipline of mindful breathing until there was nothing left but air in motion. So deep was my concentration and distant my waking mind that it bordered on a trance. Annie had to say my name repeatedly and give my arm a hard shake to bring me out of it. I blinked at her a few times before it all came rushing back, landing on me like an unbearable weight that threatened to crack my bones beneath it. I lowered my face for a moment to push that weight away and get some semblance of control over myself. When I looked up, Annie was peering at me with a little tilt of her head. It gave her a perplexed appearance that seemed wrong on the woman.

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“Well done, that,” she said. “I wouldn’t have known you were even in the room.”

“Thanks,” I said, mostly because I had to say something. “I take it she’ll survive, given that I’m still breathing and everything.”

Annie nodded. “Whatever happened to her wasn’t pretty. She’ll live, though.”

I looked past Annie and watched Jessie for a moment. She looked peaceful, as though she was finally resting.

“You should take her and go,” I said. “The asshole who did that is heading in this direction already. Gran told me. Jessie might not get so lucky next time.”

“So chivalrous,” said Annie and shook her head. “No, I won’t take Jessie anywhere. At least, not until she’s conscious to agree to it.”

“I’m surprised you came,” I said.

I don’t know who that statement surprised more, me or her.

“Why wouldn’t I have come?” Annie demanded.

I fumbled for a way to explain that idiot statement. “It’s just, that is, you didn’t seem to be on good terms.”

“I don’t approve of everything Jessie does. It doesn’t mean I want my sister dead.”

I wanted to get off that topic as fast as I could, so I asked what felt like an innocuous question. “Are you married, Annie?”

Her eyes went a little wide in surprise, then she gave me a wicked smile that made her look a lot more like Jessie. “Why, Jericho Lott, are you proposing to me?”

“What?” I stammered.

“You’re quite young,” she mused, a finger on her chin, “but any failings that come with youth can be taught away.”

“Wait. I didn’t mean,” I started to object.

Annie stepped a little closer. “You’re handsome enough. Plenty of power. In fact, yes, power to spare and then some. Frankly, I’m surprised that Jessie hasn’t claimed you for herself already if only to get mother off her back.”

I made some inarticulate noises as Annie reached out and ran a fingernail down my cheek.

“No, Jericho, I am not married. But, I think you’ll fill the position of husband quite nicely.”

The whole situation had just spun completely, utterly into madness. Had I just gotten engaged somehow? I didn’t know what to do. Running away seemed like a solid strategy. Annie leaned in and I thought she was going to kiss me, but her lips bypassed mine and landed next to my ear.

“I, I,” I said, but nothing else came out.

“Jessie and I have different last names because we have different fathers.”

The abrupt change in topic left me spinning again, and then she compounded the confusion by catching my earlobe between her teeth and giving it a little nibble.

“I think I just might keep you,” she whispered in my ear, before taking two quick steps back.

“Keep me?” I murmured.

“You met my father, you know,” said Annie. “I can sense his aura all over you.”

I struggled to find some solid ground in the ever-shifting landscape. “Your father? Who is he?”

“I don’t know what name he’s going by these days. You must have made a good impression on him since he didn’t snap your neck or tear out your soul. He’s a big man, favors trench coats, fedoras, and dimensional shifting.”

“That guy! That guy is your father!”

“Dear old dad, the very definition of an absentee parent. To be fair, though, all mother cared about was power. She found the most powerful men she could to sire her children. After that, she didn’t care if they stuck around or left.”

“So, who’s Jessie’s father?”

“I haven’t the vaguest notion, fiancé mine. I’ll want a ring, by the by.”

“Ring?”

“You must stop repeating every other thing I say. Her father was never around. At least mine took an interest, however infrequent. I remember he turned up once at a dance recital. God only knows how he found out about it. Scared the other parents to death.”

“I feel for them. He’s not exactly a people person.”

Annie smirked and then stepped close to me again. “There’s debate about whether he even is a person anymore, as we understand the term person. You know, you really should cop a feel or something. Otherwise, I’m going to think you aren’t taking this engagement seriously.”

“What? You want me to,” I just stared at her, confused, and more than a little overwhelmed.

“It’s easy,” she said, grabbing my hand and planting it on her breast. “Now, you give it a little squeeze.”

“Stop messing with him,” said Jessie, her voice weak. “He doesn’t do frivolous.”

I started to jerk my hand away, embarrassed, but Annie caught the hand and put it back.

“Who’s messing,” said Annie, looking straight at me. “I’ve decided. I really am going to keep him.”