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Mom’s lips turn up at the corners, her pride evident despite her palpable fear over my safety. “You figured that out, too.”
“This,” I say, pulling the ruby pendant from beneath my shirt, “showed me only visions of the past at first, and I eventually started having visions of the present. I was dropped in the middle of a Desertwillow coven meeting, and they were talking about eliminating me. It’s also how I found you. I was here when you came in with Chinese food earlier.”
“That was your great-great-grandmother Eve’s,” Mom says, reaching out to run a fingertip over the smooth, red stone. “Her mother, Bethany Grundelier, gave it to her.”
I nod, having already determined as much but glad to have it confirmed.
“We’ll tell you everything, doodle bug, but first, why don’t you introduce us to your mate and his friend,” Dad says, and a I startle, almost having forgotten Jesse and Leif were here with us.
“Sorry,” I say, moving to take Jesse’s hand in mine. “Mom, Dad, this is Jesse Belloy. And that’s Leif Evensen, one of his personal guards and a good friend to us.”
“It’s very nice to meet you,” Dad says, moving closer and offering them both his hand in greeting. “I’m Jonah Sparklight, and this is my wife, Evie Grundelier-Sparklight.”
Jonah Sparklight? Evie? I’ve heard the first names before. Dad called Mom “Evie” in the vision I had of my birth, and she called him “Jonah” in the dream I had. The dream…
“How did you come to me in a dream like you did?” I ask, and my parents’ attention snaps back to me.
“We didn’t,” Mom says quietly. “You came to us, appearing like a foggy apparition in our room. Are you saying you were asleep and not using the pendant to contact us?”
“Remarkable,” Dad murmurs, a look of pure awe on his face before he turns to Mom. “She’s even more powerful than we imagined.”
I shake my head roughly, my frustration mounting to near-unbearable heights. “Please. I need answers.”
“Let’s sit down,” Mom says, perching on the edge of the bed and patting the spot beside her. “We’ll tell you everything.”
I take a seat, and Dad sits on my other side. Jesse and Leif remain standing, silent sentinels and witnesses to the explanation I’ve been dying for.
“I suppose we should start from the beginning,” Dad says, looking across me to give Mom an encouraging nod.
“In the eighteen hundreds, there was a witch named Anne-Marie Auclair in the Grundelier coven. She was a seer, an oracle, of sorts. In eighteen-fifty-six, she had a vision of the future and instead of going straight to her coven leader, she kept it to herself and asked for an audience at the next council meeting. At that meeting, she announced to all of the leaders from the North America covens that a progeny of the Grundelier bloodline would bring an end to the dissension between the vampires and the witches, ending the war for good.”
I open my mouth to interject with more questions, then snap it closed. I need to be patient, to let them finish telling me everything. If I start in with all the questions swirling through my mind, they may never finish.
“She recited the words that came to her in the vision, burning them into the minds and memories of everyone present at that meeting,” Dad says, then nods at Mom.
“The bearer of Grundelier blood and power shall be born in the darkest moment when the sun hides beyond the shadow of the moon. Blessed by the magic of the Moon Goddess and the Sun King, she will be all-powerful, her abilities second to none. Her life will be marked by split-loyalties and errant devotion. Her death shall herald the end of what we know, the beginning of all we don’t, and crack the very foundation of our beliefs. The war shall be ended as the vampire demons roam the earth freely and without a shroud of secrecy and silence, a threat to us all.” She pauses for a second as she searches my gaze. “You were born during a solar eclipse, so we knew you were the witch from the prophecy. It’s why we bound your powers, hid our own, changed our appearance, and faked the adoption. Even though the Grundelier line was known to have died out, we couldn’t take any chances with your safety.”
Silence falls over the room as she finishes, and slowly, my head starts to shake. This doesn’t make any sense.
“I don’t understand,” I say. “I had nothing to do with the vampires revealing themselves, and if the whole prophecy hinges on my death, why would Desertwillow want to kill me? That would make it happen, wouldn’t it? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Because it’s already started, doodle bug,” Dad says softly. “It started when you died.”
49
HOW DO WE STOP IT?
It started when I died.
He’s right. Technically, I’ve been dead since Jesse changed me. I shake my head.
“I’m still confused. If the prophecy has already been fulfilled, why am I still in danger? What good would come from eliminating me? And why were you so adamant that I not mention the prophecy at the council meeting?”
“I said it’s started, not that it’s been fulfilled,” Dad says, his eyes filled with compassion. “When the prophecy was first recited by Ann-Marie Auclair, she and the council interpreted it incorrectly. They assumed your death would bring vampires out of the shadows. That the end of the war would mean destruction for all witches. But as we know, it didn’t happen that way.”
“We came out first,” Jesse murmurs.
“Yes,” Mom says, giving him a small smile and a nod. “The vampires’ revelation to the world led to Eden’s death, not the other way around. And we’re assuming, as is much of the witch community, that her duality is what will end the war. She’s a witch and a vampire, the first in history, and her connection to both races, along with her vampire throne and her seat on the council, is sure to be the catalyst that brings peace to us all.”
