She returned to the present day with a gasp, staring up at the stormy sky. She felt as if she was falling back at first before a pair of hands grabbed onto hers and she was pulled forward. She breathed heavily, trying to process exactly what happened. I saw his mom, but I also saw…Beau’s last memory of her? Or at least the last important memory. Had the spell taken that from Beau to use it?

“Are you alright?” Beau asked hastily, his hands still holding her arms. She finally focused on him and the blood that covered his face. His eyes were wide with fear, as if afraid she had seen something she shouldn’t have, and she did. He decided he wanted me dead all those years ago, and the woman we were looking for had convinced him of this.

She decided to act civil for now. Six years was enough to change somebody’s opinion of another person and besides, she didn’t truly know what went down in that basement, but now she had a basic idea.

“I had trouble reaching your mind. There was some kind of blockage.” She murmured.

Beau looked away with a shameful look on his face. He took his hands off of her and crossed his arms. “I…” His brows knitted in worry. “I have a glamour. On my face. It hides my—my scars. Judas put it on there. He’s good with glamour and illusion spells.”

Of course. It all made sense now. Why he had scars on every part of his body except for his face, why his hair didn’t move even when the wind blew fiercely. He knew it would give her a problem, but he didn’t tell her.

She grabbed the grimoire and knife and stuffed them in her bag angrily. “It would’ve been nice if you told me that so I wouldn’t have to almost kill myself trying to complete the fucking spell.”

“No wait—I just—I was afraid, Ana. I didn’t hide it from you out of—out of malice, I swear. I just don’t like showing my real face, I promise you!” He held his hands out as if to stop her hands from stuffing her items into her bag, but they didn’t touch her.

She looked back at his pleading face and realized he still was covered in her blood. She sighed and reached into her bag again, ignoring the dizzying feeling the sudden fast motions had caused, and handed him a bottle of water and a rag. “Clean your face.”

She turned away from him and let her legs dangle off the side of the rock. She covered her face with her hands and took a deep breath in, ignoring the vertigo feeling looking down at the ground had given her. She had used up magic reserves she technically didn’t have, and now she payed the price. She felt horrible and sick. Blood leaked from her nose, and she did nothing to stop it. Whatever strength and vigor Beau’s spell had given her was now gone, and she suddenly felt like falling asleep on this rock. She couldn’t, unfortunately. There was a man behind her who was eager to see her dead when they were just kids.

She slowly turned around and back to Beau. His face was now clean, the bottle and rag sitting next to him. There were still flecks of dried blood near his hairline, however. He gave her a concerned look, but otherwise didn’t make a comment about her visible fatigue.

“What…did you see?” He tentatively asked.

Ana glared at him, or her best shot at a glare. Her eyes were threatening to close while she was still awake, which she didn’t like. She had to stay conscious until she got home.

“Random things about your mother…what you thought of her. Random shit.” She murmured. She reached into her bag for another rag and held it to her nose. “After that, I was taken to somewhere with a yellow barrier. I couldn’t get past it, no matter what I tried. Then…somebody appeared. I didn’t know who they were, but they…spoke to me before I was thrown back here. Yellow eyes, masculine voice. They smelled like cypress and benzoin, I think.”

Beau appeared to think, scratching the back of his neck. “I don’t remember any demon like that, but I’ve only ever met two. It might be a demon the Creed of Solomon captured a long time ago and have been using for their own will. I know there is a certain sect somewhere in Canada that uses bright yellow as their color, but that’s about it. Solomon likes to use the colors of the demons they capture, as a sort of…mark of pride.”

Ana only half-listened to his ramblings, concentrating hard on not falling asleep where she sat. She reached a numb hand to the incense but missed it by an inch. She quickly tried again before Beau could notice and snuffed the incense stick out with her finger and threw it into her bag, doing the same with the incense holder.

“Ana…you’re father. I’m concerned you’re pushing his patience. He’s going to lash out if you push him too much.”

Ana looked up at Beau again as she lifted the bag’s strap over her shoulder. “I know what I’m doing. He’s my father. He can’t hurt me, even if he tried.”

“He can’t, that’s true. He can still hurt the ones around you, though.”

Her hands stilled. She hated what he said. She hated that it made sense, and she hated that she hadn’t considered it before. She was too caught up in her own mind to think that he could harm others as a way to punish her. She was selfish.

She didn’t answer him. She pulled her legs to the side of the rock again and pushed off. She landed on her feet, but her weak body fell to the ground. She placed her hands before her so she wouldn’t hit her face and pain shot up her wrists. She stayed on the ground for a few moments before standing. It felt as if it took all her strength to put her legs beneath her, her muscles screaming as they were put to use. When she was finally standing fully, her vision blurred and her ears rung. She let out a shaky breath and held the sides of her head, waiting for the ground to stop swaying beneath her so she could walk.

Beau appeared next to her, moving as silent as night. He placed a hand on her elbow just before she wrenched it from him. She stumbled away from him, but that sudden motion caused her to fall onto her behind. She grunted and gasped in pain, but did not try to get up again. She squeezed her eyes shut as the dim sky was suddenly too bright for her eyes.

The grass suddenly seemed softer than her real bed, and she wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep for awhile. She couldn’t do that when Beau was near, however. His thoughts from the memory with his mother repeated in her head, and she wanted to curse him away.

“Let me help you,” He murmured softly. “You can’t even stand, let alone walk.”

She glared at him before laying down on the grass. She stared up at the cloudy sky, feeling frustrated when Beau entered her line of sight again. Her mouth formed into a thin line as she thought of all the words she could say to hurt him. Instead, she said one thing that had been puzzling her since she saw that memory.

“What did I mean to you?”

Beau looked at her, puzzled. “What?”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Before you ruined my life. What did I mean to you?” She asked again, her voice barely above a whisper. He just looked at her, looking like a deer caught in the headlights. It was as if the question was too impossible for him to answer, and maybe it was.

Ana didn’t care at that point. She just wanted to rest her tired eyes, and she’ll be damned if some stupid man keeps her from that. She closed her eyes, sighing in content as she let her fatigue pull her into dreamland, the sounds of the forest washing away until a single sound was left.

“….I never knew, and I still can’t answer that.”

—_—

Something cold and wet dripped down onto Ana’s face and she jolted awake. She blinked wearily, pushing the heavy blanket that was on her as she pushed herself into a sitting position.

She was in the barn, in the same corner that she put Beau in when he first darkened her doorstep. Rainwater dripped from a crack somewhere above her and she moved an inch to the side as she gathered her thoughts.

She passed out after the spell and Beau must’ve carried her back here. He couldn’t cross the porch’s spell so he placed her in the barn so as to avoid the rain. He must’ve left after dropping her here, as she didn’t see any sign of him in the dark, cold barn.

She sighed and stood from her spot, brushing off the dirt and grass from her clothes. She left the barn, stopping at the door when she realized just how much it was raining outside. Water slid down her roof in torrents and the pathway to the front porch was muddy and wet. She took a deep breath and braved the rain, running without stopping to the porch. She stomped up the steps and wrenched the door open, a half-drowned cat slinking between her legs to get inside before her. Jazzy yowled her complaints as Ana shut the door and dropped her bag onto the ground.

“I know, I’m sorry. Dinner is an hour late and you’re starving.”

She fed the angry feline and searched through the fridge and cabinets to find herself something to eat. She didn’t have an appetite, and none of the food in her kitchen looked appealing enough to force herself to eat. She still felt exhausted from the spell earlier, but now she could at least think properly.

The spell didn’t work like she thought it would, and now she was beginning to think she wasn’t skilled enough to perform these kind of spells. Beau’s glamour also was a problem. If he had told her from the beginning that he had the spell on his face, she wouldn’t have exhausted herself trying to get the spell to work. Despite the glamour’s attempt to stop her, she did get the spell to work and it showed her a multitude of things she still couldn’t make sense of. Beau’s mom made some mention of her core and his, but it also shed more light on what happened before the incident and why it happened. All those pieces had left her memory a long time ago, and it felt so strange to have them back. It was as if they were there in the back of her mind the whole time and she just simply chose not to be aware of them.

Lightning bathed the dark kitchen in light and Ana felt her body tense just before a boom of thunder made her heart race. She never liked thunderstorms, and it seemed to get worse over the years, like her brain knew something that she didn’t.

It was ten o’clock at night, which was enough of an excuse to go back to bed. As far as she was concerned she didn’t have to work tomorrow, which meant she could sleep in and ignore the world for as long as she wanted…or until Marchosias decided to pay her a visit.

—_—

Two days. Two days for him to show up after she sent the summons. She would’ve been dead by now if it was an actual emergency.

She felt him searching for her, using his mageia to locate hers. She was in the field of her dad’s statues, kneeling next to his grave when the hair on the back of her neck raised.

She sighed and looked at her dad’s grave, placing the fresh flowers down. “Do you still think I’m doing the right thing? I pushed myself too far last time.”

She didn’t expect an answer, but it still felt nice to speak to someone, even if they were six feet in the ground.

The crunch of sticks and leaves was the only sign she got that Marchosias was there. She turned around and looked up at him. He still wore the same black shirt and pants he always wore, his hair parted the same way. He never changed, it seemed.

“Nice of you to show up.” She stood from her spot and faced him.

“I was busy. What did you need?” He asked bluntly. No sorry or at least a petty excuse from him.

“Busy doing what?” She crossed her arms.

He raised his head and narrowed his eyes. “Searching. What did you need?”

“Nothing now. I did that summoning ritual two days ago, you know. How did you just now arrive? What if I was in danger?”

He looked her up and down. “You appear in good health. I’m not concerned. Don’t summon me unless it’s absolutely important.”

Ana scoffed and turned away from him. “Cool. You don’t care if I’m in danger but you’ll scratch fancy spells on my porch to keep people away.”

“That was for your safety. Need I remind you that there are Motloes running loose?”

She turned back to Marchosias. He was looking at a statue of her mother, an old project her dad had made when they were still together. Her father looked up at it, his head slightly tilted. What was he thinking? “You’re pretty paranoid if you think they would just…walk into my living room. They probably know I’m still in contact with you.”

He didn’t respond at first, but looked around at all the other statues. He had been here before, but never paid much attention to the statues. His sudden interest was strange to her. Why wasn’t he focused on our conversation? Did he even care?

“The man who raised you is pretty pretentious if he decided to bury himself surrounded by all of his mundane art projects. I knew a thousand men in Italy and Greece who could sculpt better than him.”

Ana narrowed her eyes at him, the insult hitting her like a punch to the gut. “My dad may not have been Michelangelo, but he did a lot of things better than you ever did. Parenting, for one.”

He finally turned to her. His gaze searched her face, but she didn’t know what he was searching for. A lie? She wasn’t lying. Her real father wasn’t present in her childhood, and he didn’t seem to feel guilty about that. He did, however, did seem insulted that his own daughter preferred a dead human man over him, her own flesh and blood.

He looked down at her balled fists and his eyes locked down on her left hand. She looked down too and noticed that her hands were still bandaged. She meant to take it off and heal it with her mageia but had forgotten.

He calmly walked over to her, his feet not making a sound. Ana stood in her spot, knowing if she backed away it would confirm to him that she was afraid of him, and she could never admit that. He took hold of her wrist and ripped off the bandages, holding her palm to the morning light. He examined the cuts on her palms before turning his purple gaze to her, his eyes full of questions.

Ana grounded her teeth together. Don’t lie. Don’t lie. “I was doing spells.”

“What spells?” He quickly replied.

Shit. Shit. Fuck. “Well, you can’t seem to do your job, so I have been doing location spells…on the Motloes.”

He was angry now.

He wrenched her wrist away from him and leaned down. “Do you realize what you’re doing?! You can’t do any of those spells. You’re too weak! Besides, what are you going to do once you find them, huh? They have been trained by their father since they were small children, they are far more powerful than you! Do you want to get killed?”

She was silent, not answering him. She didn’t trust herself to not lie. She didn’t know what else to say. He assumed she meant she was trying to find the brothers, when in reality she meant she was trying to find Emily Motloe, the mother.

It seemed she didn’t need to answer him anyway, as he looked at her and knew she found something. “What did you see? What did the spells tell you, Ana?”

She didn’t answer. He grabbed her shoulders with both hands, not hard enough to hurt but still a strong enough grip to hold her in place. “Analiese Kravens! What did you see?!”

Her mouth drew into a thin line and she drew her brows together. Her heart pounded, and Beau’s comment from yesterday repeated in her mind. He can hurt others around you.

“If you’re so set on finding them,” She whispered, “Why don’t you do the location spell yourself? Why haven’t you found them yet, hmm?”

His mouth twitched, the smallest sign of his current emotions, but it was enough for Ana to know she had gone too far as she always did with Marchosias. He shook her shoulders violently and she closed her eyes, her vision becoming dizzy.

“Tell me, before I dig up that pathetic man’s grave and show you his skeleton! Would you like that, hm? His skull as your mantelpiece? I bet he wouldn’t mind seeing how much of a failure you have become!”’

“Stop!” She cried, and he dropped her to the ground. She fell on her side, but quickly stood on her legs as he backed away from her.

“Tell me what you’re hiding from me. Now.” It was his last warning, Ana knew. But how could she tell him that she made a deal with Beau Motloe? How could she tell him that she knew why they tried to kill her in that damned basement?

“I don’t know where they are,” She seethed. That was the truth. She didn’t know where they were at this current moment. The motel? Out of town? Five hundred miles away? Who knew. Not her. “You know what I did see? Beau and his mother talking in the past. They were preparing for my death. You know what that means?”

“They wanted you dead. They’re bad people.”

“No!” Ana exclaimed. “You had time to save me! You had time to get me out of that hellhole, but what you were doing?! Nothing! You knew they lived across the street from me! You knew they were dangerous and you did nothing!—”

A statue next to her imploded, and she screamed. Marble and dust went everywhere, covering her in shards and crumbs of a roman warrior. Another statue imploded before it was followed by another, shattering one after the other. Her dad’s work was being destroyed, all because a demon couldn’t control his anger and hate he had for his own daughter.

“Stop!” She cried, just before witnessing the statue of ravens looking down at her dad’s grave were destroyed, just before the gravestone was shattered too. She let out a sob, tears streaming down her cheeks as she inhaled the marble and clay dust that now filled the air. She looked at the chaos around her, all the statues gone except for one. Her mother.

Marchosias approached her again, and this time she backed away from him. With lightning speed, he grabbed her arms and pulled her towards him. He looked furious, his purple eyes glowing with malice and hate. This wasn’t her father, but a demon. She had almost forgotten that part.

“Remember who saved you. Remember who got you out of that basement. Remember who has protected you these last few years. I think you’ve forgotten all of those things along with your memories of what happened. Remember where your loyalties should lay, or I will leave you to the wolves.”

He left, leaving a cloud of purple mist behind. Ana sobbed, her lips quivering as her hands reached out and grabbed onto a marble hand. She couldn’t repair this damage. She didn’t know how. She wasn’t sure there was a spell to fix all the broken and shattered statues, but what was the point? Marchosias would just come and destroy it again to teach her another lesson.

With blurry eyes, she turned to the statue of her mother, the only one left standing. Below it was a piece from another statue, a label that read memento mori. Remember you must die. If only Marchosias knew how. That’s the only fate she wished for him now.