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“Considering we did encounter pestilents and we survived, I’d say we handled it well.” Grey glared in the direction of Clay’s voice. Anger filled him with Clay questioning him like this, and he was already in a shitty mood from the meeting with John. Not to mention the constant headache he’d been dealing with for days. He didn’t need Clay berating him.
“What? You did?” Baer asked from somewhere to his right. “What happened?”
He rubbed his fingers over his closed eyes and sighed. “First of all, is everyone here? Cort?”
“I’m here,” Cort replied from near the kitchen. His voice came closer. “Did you get your painkillers?”
“Yes.”
Grey slipped around the table and walked toward the couch in the family room. He dropped onto the cushion and stared into the darkness. He smelled something sweet—like a cake—baking in the oven, and his stomach growled. He realized he hadn’t eaten anything all day. Probably hadn’t been the best idea to take painkillers on an empty stomach but oh well.
“All here,” Wiley piped up. He sat on Grey’s right. “You fought pestilents? You don’t have a scratch on you!”
He turned that direction. “We didn’t fight them. We talked to one of them.”
“Just talked?” Clay’s voice drew closer. “One actually stopped attacking long enough to what…sit down over coffee?”
Grey smirked. That was so close to the truth. He held his breath, then released it slowly. His gut churned. “Are you sure you trust me to tell you what really happened?”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Clay demanded.
He looked in the direction of Clay’s voice. “I’m the betrayer, right?”
Clay went perfectly silent while several people spoke up at once. In all the noise, there was one other voice missing. Baer’s.
“You wouldn’t betray us,” Wiley said, anger lacing his voice. “Why would you say that?”
“What are you talking about?” This came from Lucien, who sounded like he was coming from the doors.
Dane walked up behind the couch and put a hand on his shoulder. “Yeah, what’s going on?”
“Ask Clay,” Grey snarled, starting to feel claustrophobic with everyone so close. “He’s the one who thought it.”
“You heard that?” Clay cursed softly and sat on his left. A hand touched his knee. “I’m sorry you heard that, but I don’t think it’s true.”
“Then why think it? Why would such a thing ever fucking cross your mind?”
Clay sighed heavily, the sound seeming to come from the darkest part of his soul. “It’s something I read in one of the journals. Hold on, I’ll grab it.”
Someone else sat next to him when Clay got up, and he recognized Cort’s fresh scent and leaned into him. Cort put an arm around his shoulder. “Sorry I didn’t come right over. I was helping Dane in the kitchen. Is the prescription working?”
“Yeah, I took some. It’s working. No headache.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were having headaches?” Dane asked, still standing behind the couch.
“Because you’ve helped me enough. I didn’t want to bother you. It’s just a headache.”
“Headaches I can handle.” Dane’s footsteps retreated as he walked toward the kitchen.
Clay returned to the family room, his footsteps heavy as he crossed the carpet. Paper rustled and he laid the book in Grey’s lap. Grey wasn’t sure why when he obviously couldn’t read it. Cort leaned closer and read out loud. “Do not trust the Soul Weaver. That’s it? All this over one line? Is there more?”
A tremor of fear ran through Grey to hear Cort reading that. It was in one of the Weaver journals Clay, Baer, and Wiley had brought to the house a couple of months ago. The journals that had been written by their former selves detailing not only useful spells but events in their lives.
“Who wrote it?” Grey whispered, fingers stroking over the page he couldn’t see.
There were footsteps as Clay walked around the couch. “The past me. The last one. The one who boarded up this house and packed everything away after the rest of the circle was killed. The one who died alone.”
Guilt swamped Grey although he logically knew this had nothing to do with the current him. But that didn’t stop the self-reproach and the sadness that a past him might have done something to kill them all. “Is there more?” he repeated.
“No, there’s no more. I get the impression that I…he died shortly after writing that.” Clay sighed heavily. “Again, I’m sorry you heard my thoughts. I should have brought this to you before.”
“Why didn’t you?” Grey asked him.
“Because I felt you had enough on your plate right now. Your main concerns are your vision and your powers. I didn’t think you needed to worry about this until I could at least find out more.”
“Well, I think you should have told all of us,” Wiley said.
“He told me,” Baer volunteered.
Anger filled Wiley’s voice. “What? And you didn’t tell me, Baer? I thought soul mates weren’t supposed to keep secrets from each other.”
