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  “I think my poor life choices have finally caught up with me,” she said, her voice thready and weak.

  I looked over my shoulder to find Oz looming, jaw flexed, lips pressed to a thin line. His unwillingness to speak only stoked my unease. Had I not healed her before?

  “Stay still, Mother,” I said as I laid my hands upon her body—the wounds plaguing her that I could not see. “Perhaps I did not do a sufficient job of healing you on my first attempt.”

  She winced when the healing energy pulsed through me into her, searching for whatever affliction was draining her. After a minute, her pallor dissipated, and she sat up unaided. Her beaming smile met my severe expression and softened it instantly.

  “How do you feel now?” I asked, searching her eyes for any sign of hidden distress. There was none to be found.

  “I feel wonderful. Better than I did after you last healed me.” She moved to stand, and the room full of warriors shifted closer, as though anticipating that she might fall. “Do not fuss,” she said, her cheery tone belying the frustration that was evident in her taut features and narrowed eyes.

  “Explain this,” I said, turning to Kaine.

  His soft countenance hardened as his attention shifted from my mother to me. “All was well in the in-between—at first.”

  “And then?” Oz asked, finally finding his tongue.

  “And then she took ill—”

  “Angels don’t ‘take ill’,” Oz countered as my brothers and I looked on, a fight brewing between the two Dark Ones; my mother’s former second and third in command. “So this is me giving you one chance to answer in a way I find fucking satisfactory, or this dance you and I have been doing ends. Now. And not with you jamming a blade in my back.”

  “Celia was fine,” Kaine growled, “and then she grew weak, and—” He cut himself off and looked at my mother, who now stood at my side.

  “Come with me,” I said to Kaine, heading for the basement door.

  “No! He can say it here,” my mother argued. “I am not a child.” She stepped forward until she was inches from Kaine. “Tell me…”

  He exhaled sharply. “You got this distant look in your eyes, as though you were lost in a memory. Then you began talking, but it was nonsense.”

  “Nonsense?” she asked.

  “Just…semi-coherent ramblings. Random things about Khara and worry and danger. You grew agitated—you seemed confused, until I was able to break through to you. Once I did, your body seemed...depleted somehow.” His gaze shifted to mine. “It continued to deteriorate, so I rushed her here.”

  “Good call,” Drew said, his ghostly form hovering in the foyer, observing. “And she’ll stay here until we know her episode was the exception and not the rule.”

  “And what her warnings meant,” Casey added. “She can have Kierson’s room until then.” He shot our brother a wicked smile after volunteering his lodgings to my mother. “Now, I have business to attend to in the Underworld.” My black-eyed brother strode over to me and rested his hand on my shoulder. “Unless my sister needs me to stay.”

  “Your sister will be fine,” I replied with a smile, “though she appreciates the sentiment.”

  He nodded, then pushed past the others, stopping only to whisper something to Drew as he passed. The latter nodded as Casey walked out.

  “I’ll show you to your room,” Drew said, heading for the stairs. “Casey’s room should suffice.”

  “Am I to have no say in this?” my mother asked, though it was clear from her tone that it was rhetorical.

  “Celia,” Oz said, “he’s right. If something is going on—with your health—then staying here where Khara can heal you quickly just makes sense.”

  She turned her beseeching green eyes to him. “And if she cannot heal me?” she asked, her gaze slipping from Kaine to Oz and back again. Kaine opened his mouth to speak, but Oz silenced him with a raised hand.

  “If she can’t, then we will.”

  My mother’s jaw flexed with frustration, Oz’s answer clearly not satisfactory, but she said nothing else and let the subject go for the time being.

  “Please follow me,” Drew said, ushering her to the stairs. This time, my mother obeyed. As she walked past Kaine, her hand reached for his, her fingertips grazing his palm in a fleeting touch before she rounded the newel post and ascended the steps to the second floor.

  The click of Casey’s door shutting broke the thickening silence in the living room.

  “This can’t be good,” Kierson said, his eyes fixed on the stairs.

  “It isn’t,” Kaine and Oz said in unison—much to their dismay.

  “Her warnings of danger regarding me can easily be explained by the fear god,” I said to calm the males around me. “And though her mental state is disconcerting, it is her physical being that gives me unease. She should not be deteriorating like this…”

  “Something is preventing her from thriving,” Pierson said, his expression grim.

  “Have you seen something?” I asked, wondering if his banshee gift might have revealed her demise. Suddenly, I was uncertain I wished to know the answer.

  He shook his head, though something in his eyes held a warning—the promise that perhaps he soon would. And that time, the outcome would be unstoppable.

  “It can’t be illness, and it’s not a wound,” Kierson said, working through the puzzle out loud, “so what’s doing it?”

  “Maybe it is a wound,” Oz said softly. “Maybe one we can’t see. Maybe something isn’t allowing her to heal after what the Light Ones did to her.”

  I turned to find Oz looking at me with the same expression I was certain I wore; a blend of shock, concern, and morbid realization twisted his features, as it undoubtedly did mine. Because if that were true, my healings would only prolong the inevitable.

  With that thought in mind, I headed up the stairs to check on her. I pushed the door open quietly to peek at her, asleep on Casey’s bed. Her face was serene, her hands splayed across her abdomen that I had seen ripped wide open a day ago, as though trying to protect it as she lay vulnerable. But it was a wound we could not see that threatened to undo her, and I felt helpless against it.

  What good were all my absorbed abilities if they could not save the ones I loved?

  That question plagued me as I watched her calm façade slowly devolve into fits of restlessness and torment as she slept. The flush in her cheeks faded and a shade of bruising shadowed beneath her eyes. She was fading as I looked on, just as Oz had once done in the living room below us.

  Frustration coursed through my veins, searching for an outlet, but the only suitable one was the god of fear, and I had yet to learn how to best him. I felt hemmed in by problems I could not solve—fates I could not change—and it was maddening.

  But perhaps that was exactly what the situation called for: a little madness to fight the madness.

  If only I knew how to find it.

  “We need to tell Sean,” Drew called up to me. Grudgingly, I abandoned my mother and descended into the living room again.

  “I will do it. She is our mother.”

  “Aren’t you still kinda pissed at him?” Kierson asked cautiously. “I mean, after the whole Oz/Healer debacle?”

  “I have not forgotten what his actions nearly cost me,” I said, taking my phone out as I headed for the basement door, “as I am certain he has not forgotten my words. But that matter does not change the one at hand, and I will deal with it accordingly, as I am certain he will.”

  I opened the door and shut it behind me as I slipped into the dark, damp space alone.

  Sean picked up after the first ring—what that meant, I could not be certain.

  “Khara! Are you—”

  “I am fine, Brother. I called to inform you of our mother.”

  Silence. “Our mother…”

  “Due to the chaos surrounding her reappearance and the events directly following, I did not let you know that Deimos had located her. She had been badly wo
unded by the Light Ones, but I was able to heal her. She has been with Kaine in the in-between until just now, when he brought her to the Victorian. She is unwell. I healed her again, and she appeared much improved at first, but it is clear that something is wrong. She will stay with us here, where I can sustain her, until we have determined the problem and corrected it.” More silence. “Are you still there, Brother?”

  “Yeah,” he said with an exhale. “Yeah, I’m here. I’m glad you were able to help her. Should I come there now?”

  “And do what?” I asked. “There is nothing else to be done, other than keep her alive and repair what has been damaged—unless, of course, you just wish to meet her.” He was silent on the other end of the line, so silent that I could not even hear him breathe. “She does not look well and is weak and tired, but I think she will be all right for the time being.”

  “Okay…if you have things under control for now, I’ll leave you to it. We’re in the middle of some serious shit here at the moment, but if you needed me—if you ever need me—I would come. You know that, right?”

  “We will be fine.”

  Silence. “Should I send anyone else to help?”

  Bitterness bit at my tongue as I tried to keep it still—and failed. “I have our brothers at my side, as well as the army of dead PC I freed from the Elysian Fields—”

  “The what—”

  “—so who else could you possibly send to aid me? The Healer?” His question about what I had done regarding our fallen brothers fell quiet, while his concern for where our conversation was headed was nearly palpable through the phone. “She is, as you so helpfully pointed out when Oz was dying, not allowed to use her gifts on anyone outside of the PC. That would include our mother, would it not?”

  “Khara—”

  “I understand that you are in a position that requires certain things from you, Sean—demands you make decisions that perhaps you would prefer not to make—or maybe you are happy to make them. I choose to believe the former because the latter is too unpalatable. But while I understand that your position will never change, you must understand that there are things about it that I will never accept—and would never do.”

  “Khara, it’s not that simple—”

  “But it is, Brother. You and I are not the same, though we come from the same womb. Share the same blood. And it is because of that blood that I love you still.” Deafening quiet was his only response. “I will keep you apprised of any changes in her status, or anything else that would require me to report to you as one of your warriors—”

  “You know you mean more to me than that,” he argued, sadness lining his words.

  “That is what you say, Brother, but that is not what I see.”

  Without another word, I hung up and turned to leave. On the top step, hovering before the closed basement door, stood Oz, silent and staring.

  “I gotta say, new girl, that was cold, even for you.”

  “It was not cold. It was the truth.”

  He slowly descended toward me. “He won’t see it that way. Trust me.”

  “He can see it however he pleases. I merely offered an explanation of my position, just as he offered his while you lay before me, dying.”

  The bite in my tone was unmistakable, even to my own ears, and I wondered just how much resentment I harbored for Sean’s actions the night Kaine had stabbed Oz and left him bleeding at my feet. And if I could ever let it go.

  “Don’t get me wrong, it was a supreme dick move to let me die over a technicality he put into play, but I get why he did it. He doesn’t have the latitude to do whatever he wants without repercussions. If he starts making exceptions for you, then he’ll be forced to do it for every other PC warrior he leads, or there will be hell to pay. And he knows it.” He came to stand before me, his features illuminated by the scant light seeping in through the basement windows. “You don’t know what it’s like to rule a military force like he does—like your mother and I did. I sometimes wonder if the old Khara could have done it. But this,” he said, his hand grazing my jaw, “this new version—so fueled at times by emotions she barely comprehends—I’m not sure she could handle the cruel reality of leadership.”

  “Perhaps someone should inform Ares of this,” I said, staring up at him. “Perhaps then he will surrender the fantasy that I would ever turn against Sean and usurp him.”

  Oz leaned in closer. “I think maybe it’s best that we let him think there’s the slightest chance that you would. Maybe we can craft a lie that will force him to give up what he knows about the fear god.”

  “Or perhaps he will feed us a lie instead.”

  He shrugged. “It’s Ares. That’s a definite possibility.” His eyes drifted from me to the cot behind me and back again. “Now, about that room change—”

  “This is hardly the time for that,” I said, pushing past him to the stairs.

  His laughter followed me up. “I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one, new girl.”

  3

  We returned to the living room to find only Kaine awaiting us.

  “Where are the others?” I asked, surprise in my tone.

  “Two of them left. One is upstairs.”

  “And where did those that left go?”

  “They went to patrol,” Kierson said as he descended the steps. “We still have a few rogue souls and gods out there that we need to collect.”

  “Courtesy of me.”

  He gave me a sympathetic smile and slipped his arm around my shoulders. “You didn’t mean to do it. And we’ve all been a bit too busy to focus on them lately, but it’s time to take care of the stragglers.”

  “And maybe find Demeter in the process.”

  Both my birth and adoptive mothers had been missing. One had returned, though not unscathed. I wondered if we would find the other, and what state she would be in. Then I wondered if I cared.

  “Yeah. That, too.”

  “Well, when you do,” Oz said, flopping down on the couch, “drag that old bitch here before you do anything drastic. She and I need to have a word.”

  Kierson’s playful smile grew wider. “I can manage that. But only after I have a minute of her time, too.”

  He gave me a light squeeze before releasing me and heading for the door. Seconds before he reached it, it flew open, exposing a frazzled-looking Underworld nymph with white blonde hair and wild eyes.

  “Khara!” she shouted when she spotted me. She ran past her lover to me, not even acknowledging him in the process. An ominous sign, indeed.

  “Aery—”

  “I saw you,” she said, panting between her words, “in the darkness…” Kierson raced over as Oz cast me a suspicious look. I did what I could to ignore it. “I felt someone there with you. You didn’t return…”

  “It was only a dream, Aery.”

  She shook her head frantically and grabbed my arm. “That didn’t feel anything like a dream.”

  “I understand. That is because the fear god was in it.”

  Concern filled her eyes. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I am positive.”

  “But it felt like…I was sure that it was a—”

  “Was a what?” Oz asked, stepping closer to her to intimidate an answer from her. Kierson stopped him with a hand to the chest that was unappreciated, by the look of it.

  “A vision. A premonition.” She took a deep breath and steadied herself to deliver the blow. “I saw you die, Khara—at least I think I did.”

  “You think?” Oz scoffed. “Or you know?”

  “It doesn’t work like that,” she said, frustration heating her cheeks. “My visions—if that’s what it was—don’t come with a breakdown. They’re open to interpretation.”

  “Then maybe yours is shit—”

  “Fuck you, Oz,” Kierson growled. “She’s trying to help.”

  “Aery,” I said, ushering her away from the brewing fight, “it is fine, truly.”

  “Truly unhelpful,” Oz muttered u
nder his breath.

  “What the fuck is your problem?” Kierson asked, shoving Oz back a pace.

  “Other than the obvious danger your sister is in, and her mother who’s upstairs in shit shape?” he countered. “Nothing. Everything is fucking peachy.”

  “Kierson,” I said softly, putting myself between them, “perhaps you and Aery should join the others. You two could use some time together.”

  “Yeah,” he replied, not taking his eyes off of Oz, “maybe we’ll do that.” He reached his hand out to Aery, and she took it without question. “Let’s go. We’ll see you later, Khara.”

  I gave them a curt nod and watched as they walked out of the Victorian, hand in hand.

  “I see your manners work as well here as they did in the Hallowed Gates,” Kaine said from deep within the living room. I had all but forgotten he was there.

  “And you’re just as fucking annoying as you were there.”

  “Would you care to explain why you were so unreasonable with Aery?”

  Oz shrugged. “She wasn’t helping.”

  “And bullying her was?”

  Another shrug. “She needed motivation.”

  “I fear the results were underwhelming, unless pissing Kierson off was the objective.”

  At that, he smiled. “Pissing Kierson off is always a welcome objective.”

  “Yes, well, try harder not to,” I said as I headed up the stairs. “Or perhaps channel some of that irritation at Kaine. He is a far more deserving party.”

  Kaine’s objections chased me up the stairs, and I ignored every single one. I had no desire to argue with either of them. What I wanted to do was check on my mother again. I needed to see for myself that she was still all right.

  I crept into Casey’s room to find her doing just as I had hoped—sleeping. Her angelic face was pinched with concern, even in her slumber, and I wondered if her past tormented her when she slipped from consciousness. Wondered if some part of her remembered her life as a Dark One and it troubled her soul.

  Easing onto the bed next to her, I rested against the headboard to watch over her. To protect her, as she had once protected me. Perhaps her intentions had not been realized as she had hoped, but her sacrifice had been substantial regardless, and I had no doubt that, had she been able, she would have kept my twin and me.