A month after the London Massacre, Macaila approached me and told me that her parents had invited me over for dinner. Her presentation was awkward, if a little bashful. My response matched her awkwardness, and I agreed. When I informed Sebastien of the development, he was elated. Seeing that joy overwhelm his face caused relief to flow through me. Sebastien had been harassing me lately on my progress in infiltrating the enemy’s camp and wasn’t thrilled with the information I had already provided. He wanted to know when the Resistance planned to attack. He wanted names, whether he had a mole in his inner circle, how large the Resistance had grown, where they were burrowing away in his city, and who the mastermind was behind their renewal. Mostly, however, he wanted to know where the Gates were. His fury simmered underneath the surface every time he called me to his office and demanded a report. He had been quickly losing patience with me until I had told him about the dinner invitation.
Macaila lived with her parents in a row house in the ninth ring. Concerned about my safety in the area, Sebastien assigned Jay to escort me there, much to my dismay. Jay was upset about the assignment; it took away from his time in the champagne rooms at Hellions. He refused to talk during the escort, which was fine with me.
The row house was the second one in from the end of the block. Its stoop had been decorated with fall flowers and small white pumpkins that contrasted nicely with the navy-blue exterior of the home. Broad square windows had been installed over the front door on the second and third levels of the home. Both had dark curtains that concealed the interior. If the exterior was any indication, the Amhersts took pride in their home.
Shifting on my tiptoes and crossing my arms, I stopped Jay in the shadows to avoid being seen. "You can go, you know," I said. "You don’t have to wait for me. I plan on being here for most of the night."
Jay gave me a sideward glance and grimace. "And risk getting into trouble for leaving you?"
"You never were concerned about the consequences before," I snorted. "Your recklessness astonished me sometimes."
"That was before." Jay was short. "Times have changed. The daemeyri could be rallying right now and about to attack the city. I don't want you to be caught up in that." I knew he was talking about that morning's headline that the rest of Astraera had woken up to: Vampire Lord Found Bloodless and Hanging in the Middle of the Street. His body was located in the seventeenth arrondissement, strung up on the cables used by the government to hang propaganda. There had been the expected whispers about who could do that, with most of the blame being placed on the Resistance, and why the vampire lord had even been in the seventeenth ring when he wasn't expected in Astraera in the first place. Neither Sebastien nor the Senate made a public announcement. For such a leader to be killed in mage territory... Sebastien and Jay's concern was legit.
After the Resistance assassination bombings and the death of Andralyn's beast, it took a while for the city to return to a normalcy. Yet, time had healed those memories, and everyone got accustomed to the new changes. To my surprise, Senator Alistair was promoted to chief senator. There were some growing pains from this change, if I read Sebastien correctly. Still, the mages and seraphim were right on track with their paradise goals. The Resistance remained burrowed in whatever hole they had retreated to. It seemed like they had become inactive again... if they were not involved in the death of the vampire lord.
"Jay, the Amhersts don't have any connection to the daemeyri. I'm sure of it." My eyes drifted to the Amhersts’ windows before lifting to the sliver of the night sky I could see in between the towering buildings in the city. "Really, you should go. If anyone sees you hovering out here, it’s going to raise suspicion. I have an assignment to complete, and you and I both know I work better independently." My gaze darted back to Jay just in time to see the uncertainty on his face.
"What if this is a trap, and you need my help? You don't know Macaila's parents. Aren't they suspected of being a part of the Resistance?" Jay protested.
My lips twitched in an almost smile. "I’ve gotten out of dangerous situations before," I reminded him. "I can assure you Macaila has no ill-will against me, and from what she and Cassiah have told me about her parents, nor do they."
"What you’re saying is that my being here is cramping your style?" Jay teased a little.
"Yes.”
"I wish that we could have those earpieces Galileo used to give us during missions. Sometimes, I wish we could go back to being Shadowfire and Spector. Life was much easier then," Jay muttered. Surprised, I stared at him. He almost never mentioned that time with Galileo, and I’d almost believed that he had completely forgotten about that decade in his past. "That way I could leave, but still monitor you. There’s a pit in my stomach letting you walk into the lion’s den alone. What is the chancellor thinking?" Jay shook his head and looked away, frowning with displeasure.
My stomach twisted uncomfortably at his proclamation. Sighing, I placed a hand on Jay’s arm. "I’ll be okay, I promise. Go. Go hang out with your friends. I’ll see you later." He didn't move. "Unless you want to be invited to dinner," I teased, with one eyebrow arching.
"No." Jay asserted quickly.
It appeared as if Jay's feet had rooted him to the ground, so I moved first. Adding a curtain of nonchalance to my attitude, I walked out of the shadows concealing us and directly towards the Amhersts’ stoop. When I reached the top step of the stoop, I could hear someone’s quick steps hurrying towards the door. The security door flung open to reveal Macaila. An enormous smile appeared on her face as she struggled with the door handle to the iron screen door. After a couple of seconds of fidgeting with it, she threw it open towards me, and I caught it. "Stupid door," Macaila muttered. "We’re damn lucky no one has tried to murder us in our own house. The stupid door would trap us in here." She rolled her eyes as she ushered me in.
I twisted to look over my shoulder to see if I could see Jay lurking where I had left him. Either he had started walking back to his side of town or he still remembered Galileo’s old lessons on remaining invisible. I put Jay out of my mind and followed Macaila into her home.
At first glance, Macaila’s home was quaint, and very well curated. A set of stairs met us at the front door. To the left, an open area hosting couches, a dining room table, and kitchen invited me in. Cassiah was already in attendance, sitting on a loveseat. He was engaged in conversation with someone who looked to be a younger version of Macaila, with her darkened skin and hair. I took this to be Macaila’s younger sister, although I hadn’t heard about her very much. Whatever she was talking about with Cassiah prompted passion to ooze out of her and chaotic gesturing. Past where the two were on the couch, I saw an older man darting back and forth in the kitchen, stirring a pot here, seasoning a pan there. He was humming a faint melody against the radio's constant stream of music. He seemed to be distracted by his own world. A woman with curly brown hair and a thin build was carefully maneuvering around the older gentleman as she set the table.
Macaila led me to the open area. Speaking over the light music playing in the background, she announced, "Mom, dad, Bria’s here."
The older woman dropped the utensils she had been holding onto the table and darted around it. When she was close enough, she latched onto both of my wrists. "Oh my, I never thought I would be meeting you! Mac has been gushing about you every night at dinner!" Heat flushed to Macaila’s face, and flustered, she hissed, "Mom!" and tucked strands of her curly hair behind her ear. "Oh, I don’t mean it in that way! Mac just hasn’t made a new friend since she met Cass, and that was ages ago. The other students at the Academia either ignore her or bully her." Macaila’s mom paused to take a giant inhale in. She pivoted one hundred and eighty degrees to face the kitchen with me. "Anyway, I’m Montserrat, though you can call me Serra. And Mac’s father is Michael!" Serra was rather enthusiastic, a trait that she had given to her eldest daughter. Serra’s bubbly personality, coupled with her rough accent, was welcoming, and I couldn’t help but be drawn in.
Michael threw me a quick wave in greeting during one of his spins around the kitchen.
Cass and the girl I assumed was Macaila’s sister stood up and awkwardly shuffled to approach me. "I’m Meaghan." Her little sister introduced herself. I smiled at her in greeting.
"Come, I hope you are hungry. We have a fabulous dinner planned!” Serra guided me over to the kitchen island where appetizers had been laid out. It all looked homemade, from the bruschetta to the bacon-wrapped sausage bites and watercress. I felt honored Macaila's family would go to these lengths to welcome me, if somewhat flustered. I had never been a guest of honor until I had stepped foot in Astraera; Galileo had raised me to be humbler than that. Not wanting to displease Macaila's family, I picked up a bacon-wrapped sausage by the toothpick and nibbled on it.
It wasn't long before Macaila's father, Michael, had dinner plated and Meaghan and Serra were moving the platters over to the table. My nose picked up on the delicious smells radiating from the food. Steam was rising from a couple of the dishes. I hadn't realized how hungry I was until that moment. Thin slivers of duck were paired with a creamy, orange-colored sauce. I could hear the sizzling coming from the cheesy potatoes and smelt the baked goodness of what appeared to be cheesy cornbread muffins. Thin spears of seasoned and roasted carrots added some color to the feast. My mouth started watering over the display of the home cooked meal, and only my manners kept me from scarfing it all down.
I was seated in between Macaila and her mother, while Cass, Meaghan, and Michael were seated on the other side of the table. "Mac has told us you believed you were mortal for most of your life," Serra started the dinner conversation. "Your story is rather remarkable."
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Flush heating my cheeks, I glanced down at my plate. "It's probably not that remarkable," I objected meekly with a small shrug. I waited for someone else at the table to lift their forks first. The platters had been passed around. Macaila and her father picked up their knives and forks and worked to divide their duck into bite-size pieces. Relieved, I followed suit.
"Your mother basically flipped off the entire government when she disappeared," Serra declared, starting on her potatoes. "In hindsight, she had probably discovered she was pregnant with you and decided that she did not want to raise her daughter in Astraera."
"Do you know why?" I pressed.
Serra shook her head. "After she returned to her family and divorced her husband, she became a hermit. Before, she was all over the tabloids, and the news loved to feature her on the front page. She always had something going on, and the news always had a story that would sell when it concerned her. We couldn't go a morning without seeing what she had done the night before on the morning broadcast. It became rather ridiculous."
My gut twisted. It was difficult for me to describe the mixture of feelings swirling inside of me, as I didn't know exactly how I was feeling about my mother's behavior prior to my existence.
"She had a husband?" Meaghan inquired after she swallowed a piece of duck.
"Yes," Serra said around a small bite of potatoes. After she finished chewing it, she further clarified, "Zane Konstantinos. They met at the Academia and shared a passion for political science and activism."
"Maybe he's your father." Macaila stated exactly what I had been pondering.
"No, he isn't," Serra claimed. She shared a look with her husband, who had remained silent up to this point. I got the sense that theirs was a relationship where opposites had attracted. Serra was used to doing all the talking, while Michael preferred to remain quiet. "Her husband was in prison when Bria would have been conceived."
"For what?" Macaila exclaimed, her eyes wide. We forgot about our food.
Serra's lips pursed. "Treason, I think."
Macaila and I exchanged glances. From how wide her eyes were, I realized Macaila knew nothing about what her own mother was talking about. Turning back to my food, I asked, "Did you know her?"
"No, unfortunately not," Serra answered, while Michael shook his head. "At the time, I had just arrived here on my visa to marry Michael. I'm from Nicaragua, you see, and back then, Michael was working at the senate office. I think his position in the office was the only reason why my visa was granted; the mages are reluctant to allow a lot of mortals into Astraera. Since I didn't have any work lined up, and it was like I had moved to a new country, I spent my days in Michael's apartment. We used to live in one of the penthouse suites in the fifth circle; it was extremely ritzy. I felt like I was a princess swept into a faery tale. Anyway, I spent my time alone trying to find out as much as I could about this new world while Michael was at work. One way I did that was by reading and watching as much of the news as I could. Your mother's story was one of the continuous ones that fascinated me."
"What about you, dad?" Meaghan asked as she speared duck onto her fork.
Michael grimaced softly and shook his head. "I saw her around the castle several times, but never really spoke to her."
I was curious why Macaila and her family now lived in the ninth ring and not in the fifth. However, it was a question best to ask in private and not at the dinner table. Regardless, I still asked something that I knew could upset the table. "Do you think she was ever involved with the Resistance?"
A deathly hush struck the table. Michael and Serra managed their reactions quite well. Michael set his fork onto his plate as if he was done eating. Serra stared at her own plate and didn't dare to meet my gaze, unlike her daughter, who was attempting to stare a hole into my forehead. Her eyes were narrowed. I avoided her stare and struggled to maintain my nonchalance, as much as I wanted to shift in my seat. "Why would you ask such a question?" Michael finally inquired in a toneless voice. "I would have thought the chancellor told you everything you needed to know about your mother."
"I haven't been able to find out very much about her," I admitted the truth. "Just that she was very well known and apparently a socialite. This is extremely different from what I remember of her. With me, she strived for anonymity and fled from the spotlight. She was so righteous and adamant in instilling morals into me I think she would have been enraged by what has happened with the five people who were hung as traitors. It didn't seem as if they got proper trials. I'm not sure if she would have approved of reacting to the hangings by bombing the castle in retaliation, though." Come on, I thought, I gave you some information. Give me some in return.
"She was certainly passionate about her perspective of ethics," Michael muttered darkly into his plate. His hands gripped the table.
"What Michael means," Serra declared, "is that your mother and her little group of friends had a difference of political opinion from the norm. You could say they were rather radical."
My head tilted out of curiosity. "She never really spoke about politics with me. It never really seemed like she cared all too much about government."
"Surprising she didn't try to brainwash you," Michael grumbled.
Serra's lips pursed as she lightly tapped his forearm with her fork. "Stop it. Bria was only a child. A mother wouldn't have done that."
Michael's eyes rolled up towards the ceiling in exasperation. "Madeleine Konstantinos became passionate about politics when she was still at the Academia. During her first several years there, she met a fellow student by the name of Zane Konstantinos. The professors should have separated them the moment they started talking, because the two of them created their own little deranged paradise that they later became determined to implement onto the entire mage society. According to them, the current mage government was so corrupt it needed to be destroyed and reconstructed. It became more important for them to stand on street corners and preach about their idealistic government than graduating. They even had pamphlets they handed out to anyone willing to accept one. Before I was sent on assignment to Nicaragua, everyone thought it was a foolish protest. Their ideas were just too radical."
"But?" Macaila encouraged her father. Everyone at the table had stopped eating to listen to Michael's historical recounting. There were only two people at the table who had lived it, and from Macaila, Cassiah, and Meaghan's avid interest, I knew that this history wasn't taught in the Academia's classrooms.
"When I returned to Astraera a couple of years later, things were different. No one was snickering about Madeleine and Zane's two-men protest. Instead, people started to follow them and it shifted into something more legitimate. Zane campaigned for the next chancellor election. People fell in love with the ideas he was preaching, with the change he was promising. There was a time I really believed he would become the next chancellor. Madeleine was by his side all the way, so I thought she would be his second-in-command."
"Yet, he was defeated by Raiden Ramiel," Cassiah interjected. Macaila flashed him a look and shook her head.
"I wouldn't say defeated," Michael objected. "Months before the elections were set to happen, Zane was arrested on the suspicion of summoning demons and letting them loose on the mortal population."
I was not the only one whose jaw dropped at the bombshell of information Michael had just released. Even Cassiah twitched from the shock of it. Lost in his memories from several decades ago, Michael nodded to himself and continued. "Madeleine pled ignorance to his mischief. She stated she did not know what Zane was doing down in the basement of their little home; her focus was elsewhere, she claimed. She was adamant that had she known what he had been doing during those hours, she would have stopped him. Then she did what some say was the greatest betrayal of all: she separated herself entirely from him and renounced him when he needed her the most during his trial. She never showed her face in the courtroom and refused to speak on or against his behalf. She had simply fled back into her parents' home and attempted to earn their forgiveness. Some of her political actions had gone against what they stood for. She disappeared completely from the spotlight. She stopped pushing her political agenda, and with Zane incarcerated, there was no one to lead their political movement."
Macaila had her chest pressed against the edge of the table. "Did it dwindle out then?"
Her father met her gaze. "We would not be here if it had."
Serra sighed impatiently, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. "Your father believes that their followers still existed after their demise and were sneaky enough to find their way into the Senate and chancellor's office without it being too blatantly obvious."
"It's just too odd," Michael proclaimed. "Some things Konstantinos and Madeleine were preaching did end up becoming laws. And there is some evidence of the last chancellor election being tampered with. There is proof that forged votes in favor of Sebastien were added, and yet, no one seems to care! Everyone with an ounce of influence just turned a blind eye to the matter. And just like that, the mage government has been infiltrated by the enemy they had sought to defeat."
Cassiah perked up. "Their followers caused the Nocte Civil War."
Meaghan frowned. "The Nocte Civil War?"
"It happened when Konstantinos escaped prison, probably about five years before you were even born. Mac was just an infant at that point," Serra explained. "His followers stood behind him and they established a new country, a new government, with Konstantinos as the obvious leader. What did they call themselves, Michael?"
"The Valeion." Michael's eyes flashed. He settled his chin on his fist.
Serra snapped her fingers and pointed at Michael. "That's it. Their first act was to assassinate the dynasty. The civil war went on for about eight years after that. There were grisly casualties on both sides."
"I don't remember any of this," Macaila claimed. She was pinching her bottom lip as her mind raced. I glanced at Cassiah, who was frowning down at his plate. He had consumed everything he had scooped onto it. From his expression and locked jaw, I realized that unlike Macaila, he had some memories from that time, despite being a child.
"We kept you distracted with dolls." Serra smiled sadly.
"How did it end?"
Serra released a huff of air. "Konstantinos was mysteriously defeated."
"How?" Meaghan pressed.
Serra shook her head. "No one really knows too much about his death. There was an anonymous report sent to the newspapers that Madeleine Konstantinos—the very Madeleine Konstantinos we had believed died many years earlier—defeated him in a one-on-one duel." My breath caught in my throat. I had my suspicions as to who anonymously alerted the mages of the battle. It had to have been Galileo. "She was killed in the battle as well. At first, everyone was astonished by the news; remember, we thought she was dead. However, the sovereign confirmed the accuracy of the information, and Madeleine was honored. For weeks on end, her family's colors were displayed everywhere. And with Konstantinos's defeat, his followers just scattered."
"The movement died out after that," Michael contributed.
"But not if what you said is true and the current chancellor got into office by deceit!" Macaila argued.
Meaghan's thoughts were elsewhere, just as her gaze was. Her fingers tapped against the table. "I wish I could have seen the battle between Konstantinos and Madeleine. It must have been epic. Two magic wielders who once had been intimate, one reformed good and one evil." Meaghan shook her head. "You can't make this up!"
"That's insensitive, Meaghan! Madeleine was Bria's mother," Serra snapped. Her shrill voice acted as the conclusion of the conversation. I felt her gaze on my face and pretended to be oblivious to avoid any further awkwardness.