Blake
Skye has said four words to me over the course of the afternoon. It’s not weird, I suppose. She doesn’t know me. She’s only seven, too, and doesn’t yet understand that we’re the same, and our view of the world is strikingly different compared to the people we love.
Leona didn’t give me a choice about staying for lunch, which Marianna and I didn’t have the stomach to touch as it stands. She’s currently in the house with Leona, doing what, I don’t know, but I’m sitting on the grass with my seven-year-old daughter who doesn’t know anything about our connection, and maybe that’s a good thing. I don’t really think she’d care, to be honest.
What she cares about is rocks.
She hands me another rock which I dutifully split into pieces with the hammer resting against my thigh. She hums her disappointment when there’s not an agate inside, which is what she’s looking for, I think. The pile of rock discard is growing to the point it’ll wreck a lawnmower, but I don’t know how to tell her we should move onto something else, and neither Marianna nor Leona seem keen on interrupting us.
“Let’s try this one. It looks promising,” I tell her, picking through the basket of rocks she keeps hidden under the shed in the corner of the yard. She brought them over for me, which makes me wonder if I should feel special because she seems to guard the basket whenever Leona or Marianna’s voices drift from the kitchen window just a few feet away from where we’re kneeling in the grass.
Another hum of disappointment follows, and she turns back to the basket, but I hold out my hand. “Can you see which ones have agates?”
Her violet eyes meet mine, quietly searching for understanding. My powers started to emerge at her age based on what my mom, Sarah, told me.
“I bet if you dream about your rocks tonight, the dream will show you which ones have crystals in them.”
Recognition flares behind those too familiar orbs of violet–the same as mine. The same as her paternal grandmother’s. “In my dreams?”
Three more words. It’s progress. “Yeah, do your dreams tell you things sometimes?”
She nods, unblinking.
“Do they tell you if it’s going to rain the next day? Can you taste it?”
Another nod, but her lower lip wobbles into a smile.
“Do your dreams show you… what’s going to happen the next day? If your mom is going to read a specific book at bedtime or pack a specific lunch before you leave for school?”
Her mouth widens into a grin, showcasing a missing tooth. “Yep. Why?”
“Well, that’s a very long, complicated thing to try to explain,” I reply, wondering if my tone is appropriate for a seven-year-old whose head is likely just as stuck in the stars as mine was as a kid. I used to be rambunctious, downright annoying, according to Uncle Ryan. I was loud and rough, always wrestling and goofing around with my cousins and my brother, but that changed almost overnight, and so did my eye color. I curled into myself. I grew quiet. Damn near silent, unable to differentiate the world of my dreams and the one my feet were planted on. When those first signs of power faded… things changed. Rapidly.
Marianna and I need to talk about this. I need Skye’s history. I need to know when these things started happening, especially since there’s been no one in either Skye’s nor Marianna’s corner when it comes to her developing powers.
Maybe I should be here.
“Do you see people you know in your dreams or strangers?”
“I saw Dean,” she says, and my heart drops into my stomach. “Hitting Mom. I saw it in my dream. I told my dream to stop it from happening.”
My blood rushes with a sudden promise of violence. I try to not let her see it, see the pain and fury behind my eyes. “Did you stop it from happening?”
She studies me for a moment, those tiny silver stars lighting from within. “Do you see strings in your dreams?”
I nod. “A lot of string. String that forms a… blanket in the stars.”
“I don’t see a blanket.”
“You will one day.”
“And then I can stop Dean from hitting Mom? Not just in my dreams?”
Fuck. She feels it. She has to know that feeling, that ache to get inside someone’s mind, that pull to pluck and bend those strings–those lifelines beginning to glow into existence within her young powers. It’s only a matter of time until she figures out how to use those gifts. Scrying is probably the most useful, but that takes practice. A lot of dedicated, committed practice.
Taking over someone’s thoughts, their minds, is second nature. I was controlling Liam by the age of twelve, using my gifts to trick him into doing my chores.
She’s likely very close to that already.
“Yeah, you’ll be able to do that.” I swallow hard, the fury over the mention of Dean and the confirmation he did, in fact, put his hands on Marianna sweeping through me in waves.
“Mom is scared sometimes.” She rifles through the basket of rocks, plucking three of them into her palm.
“Of what?”
“Lots of things.”
“Anything in particular?” I shouldn’t be using her to pry. I fucking know that. I can’t help it.
“Dean. I used to call him Mean Dean. He didn’t like that, but I liked it.”
I roll my lower lip between my teeth, glancing at the kitchen window. “Did he ever touch you?”
“Nope. He didn’t like me. He told Mom I was weird and should be combitted.”
“Committed?”
She nods. I see red.
“Mom didn’t like that, and she told him to leave, but he kept coming back. She’s scared of him. Dreams about him. I can see her dreams, too.”
This is starting to border on inappropriate, but I have no idea how to turn the conversation in another direction.
“You’re Blake?”
“I am.”
“She dreams about you, too. Good dreams. I like those dreams.”
I close my eyes, sighing around an ache beginning to bloom to life in my chest.
“You like pizza then, like me. In her dreams, she dreams about eating pizza in a car with you, which is so silly. Grammy would never let me eat pizza in a car! It would be too messy.” She giggles, her nose wrinkling in a way that reminds me so much of my mom and twin sisters, Briar and Celeste, that for a moment I have to pause and just… look at her.
“I’m like you, Skye.”
“You have dreams like I do?”
“All the time.”
“Then you’re a weirdo, too?”
I think about it for a moment. “Yeah, I am.”
She grins again, giggling, and hands me the rocks.
All three are agates.
My phone rings while she’s inspecting the crystals. I rise, walking up onto the back porch as Evander’s voice echoes into my ear, the connection spotty. “Are you coming back to the castle anytime soon?”
“I have a few meetings at the temple. I likely won’t return until you’ve already left for Veiled Valley.”
“I’m not going back to Veiled Valley. I’m taking Soren to the Deadlands. Another of the Viper’s men who’s been on the lam was just apprehended there by Endovian warriors and passed off to Ryan. I need you to meet us there, look into his mind, see what you can find out because I’m willing to bet he’s not going to tell us anything about her operations or Hannibal’s location.”
I look down at Skye, watching her lift the agates to the pockets of sunlight drifting through the clouds.
“I can make a brief trip. Tonight. I’ll be in Silverhide by nightfall.”
“We only need you for a few hours.”
I hang up. Evander isn’t one for drawn out goodbyes anyway. He’s always been all business. I like that about him.
Marianna walks out onto the porch looking better than earlier today, but her eyes are still rimmed red as she bunches her hair into a bun and looks down at Skye.
I slide my phone into my pocket. “Are you feeling better?”
“More alive, I guess. I’m never going to another ball at the palace again.” Her laugh is soft and unserious. “The punch was great, though. Do you think the kitchen staff will give me the recipe?”
“You’d need to get your hands on some bootleg alcohol first, and I’m under the impression you’ve never done anything illegal in your life.”
She arches her brows, humming a laugh. “I’ve run a few red lights here and there. I left Crescent Falls with a few unpaid parking tickets, too.”
“I’ll have to inform my father, seeing as you’re now a fugitive.”
She smiles again. Gods, I’d give anything, say anything, to see that smile all the time.
That’s also when I feel that ache again. That incessant, unyielding pain that weaves between my ribs, squeezing tight. Guilt. Rejection. The works.
Marianna and I are over. The end of our relationship was sealed in ink, our names signed on a dotted line on a contract seeing to the welfare of the child we created–a perfect blend of her and me.
“Have you been breaking rocks all afternoon? This is her favorite thing to do. She’ll be out here for hours.”
“She’s looking for agates.”
“She sometimes gets lucky. We have a few on the mantle.”
“She will only find agates from now on,” I say, turning to look at Marianna.
She understands what I mean immediately, giving me a grim, somewhat withdrawn nod.
I step closer to her, my hand hovering over her arm, but I can’t bring myself to touch her. “I was around her age when I started dreaming like she does. She’s having visions, Marianna.”
“Of what?”
“The future, most likely. Tangled events that may happen. Some things are static, like the weather. Whether it’ll be cloudy when she wakes in the morning or if she should bring her raincoat to school. Whether she’s getting cereal or oatmeal for breakfast.”
Marianna nods, her eyes locked on Skye as she organizes her rocks.
“Other things are going to be… a lot for her to see and understand.” I finally touch her. My fingers curl around her forearm, and she’s cold, a chill rippling over her skin while I continue, “Things like… a strange phone call you take that changes her schedule. Leona running late coming home from the store. Getting displaced from school.”
Marianna inhales sharply, her eyes meeting mine, filling with tears. “She knew she was going to get kicked out of school?”
“I’m not sure, but maybe. She’s too young to really understand it yet.” I take her by the arms, turning her to face me while I lean in, not wanting Skye nor Leona to overhear. “I’m concerned about her ability to see into your mind. I wasn’t able to do that to people until I was a teenager.”
Marianna rubs her temple, squeezing her eyes shut. “How do you know she’s doing that?”
“Because she’s looking into your–your timeline. Your tether, I call it. The thread of your existence–”
“Blake, I can’t make sense of this. You know that!”
I exhale sharply, wincing as I try to untangle this situation and make it clear what’s happening to Skye, but it’s nearly impossible.
“She had a dream about us eating pizza in my car.”
She blinks, tilting her head like she doesn’t quite understand.
“That night I drove you to that concert in Moorn, and we had to camp out in the car during that storm? She saw that and saw us eating that disgusting pizza in the front seat. She’s accessing your memories.”
“Did she–did she see anything… else?” Her cheeks burn a fierce red as her expression shifts to panic.
I lean my forehead against hers, closing my eyes. “I’m assuming she’s seeing the first memories of herself–where her tether started… which was that night. I doubt–she doesn’t understand what she’s seeing, but you need to be better about shielding your mind.”
Marianna closes her eyes and sighs heavily. “And how the fuck am I supposed to do that, Blake?”
“I’ll teach you. It’s not as difficult as it sounds. We’ll work on it, and I’ll keep working with her–”
She steps away from me, closing her arms over her chest.
“Is that what you really want?”
“There’s no one to teach her what she needs to know.”
“The mystics–”
“Will break her, Marianna, like they nearly broke me.”
She stares at me, her brow pinched in confusion, but I wave away her silent question and turn to clutch the porch railing instead, hanging my head.
“You asked if I wanted to know her, and I do. I want to know her. I can, at the very least, determine the best course of action because she needs to be trained. It’s not an option. She is dangerous, Marianna, you have to understand that.” My words are harsh, and I know it. Her face crumples as she bites her lower lip like she already knows this, has seen it coming to fruition. “She could easily break someone beyond repair–”
“I understand–”
“I don’t think you do. I need to be very clear about what this entails. She’s going to see things she’s not going to like about people–strangers and people she loves. It’s not going to make any sense to her, but these visions are going to get worse, progressively worse. And then she’s going to figure out how to manipulate the things she’s seeing, trying to make things better, trying to make things happen, and it will have consequences. I have to step in. I have to break our contract. It’s time.”
“What happens now? You tell your family?”
“I don’t know yet–”
“Is she safe?” she asks, shivering. “Blake, is she safe? You just told me you were–you were in a compromising position–”
“She is safe. I will keep you both safe.”
Marianna starts to shatter. She tries to hold herself together, but I can see the indents her nails are leaving on her forearms as she hugs herself.
“I need you to trust me, Marianna.”
My phone rings. It’s Evander again.
I let it go to voicemail.
“Can you trust me again?” I ask, holding her gaze.
She nods.
I pull my phone out of my pocket. “Come to the palace tomorrow morning, alone. We’ll begin your training then. You go first, then her.”