“No, it wanted to hide. I can’t hurt it.” Laying back into the pillows but unwilling to loosen her grip on me.
“She can’t go near Emma,” Gregory said, taking Diana’s hand, swiping a thumb across her hand. They shared a look full of pain and longing. This must have been discussed this in the few moments they had to reunite alone before they called me into room.
“What are you saying?” A numbness that began in my chest spread to my face.
“I’m also bound by her blood,” Diana explained. “Whatever has Emma in its grip has grown so powerful it can take me over as well. I would be enslaved in an instant if I got close.”
I swallowed audibly. “Can we get her back?”
Diana sucked in a breath, and the heart monitor beeped erratically. Before she could answer, a nurse rushed in, shooing me and Gregory out of the room.
Looking at the older man, I tried to find the right thing to say.
He put his hands on my shoulders, his eyes bloodshot and tight with strain. “I need to stay with Diana. We will find a way.”
“The power entwined with Emma…” I said. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever encountered.” My description was accurate yet so vast an understatement.
“What do you do when you go on a mission?” Gregory asked, prompting my training,ourtraining, really.
“You hunt the target, observe it’s habits and places it is likely to show up.” Before I finished saying it, “She’s going to go for the rest of the books.”
He gave me a curt nod. I needed to go to the Orders.
Gregory looked through the window in the door at Diana. The nurse pushed something through the IV that made Diana’s eyes droop. “The Order of Spiritus is in the wind, but I think they know why Emma wants the books.” Meeting my eye, he said, “Once Diana is well enough, I’m taking her to track them. Nobody knows more about the prophecies or about the Propheros than the Spiritus.”
It was true. Until Diana abandoned her Order for Gregory, the Propheros, the truth seer bloodline, had always been under the watchful guard of the Spiritus.
We shook hands firmly, both attuned to our missions.
20
We were here again. Back in the domed room with the Order members gathered at the round table. Last time everyone was on edge, the room full of tension. This time there was a stony silence as if someone had sucked all the air out of the room. Instead of standing by Leonidas, this time I sat next to my mother.
“What does she want the books for?” Jo’s mother, Odina, asked, anger vibrating in her voice. Odina and a stony-faced Mika sat at her side where Jo had positioned himself at our last meeting. Their faces were drawn in sorrow and grief. Neither had looked at me since walking in. They likely held me responsible for Jo’s death. I did.
“Why don’t you ask them,” Astrid gestured to Ylang. “They are always the ones with the answers, are they not?” Her face darkened. “As well as our Order’s book.”
Ylang shut his mouth and tilted his chin up.
My mother uncrossed her arms and leaned forward. “You do know why.” It wasn’t a question.
Violetta looked up at Ylang from where she sat at his side. He gave an almost imperceptible nod and Violetta spoke. “She wants the books because if she were to acquire all five of them, she could doom this world.”
“Doom this world how?” Phillip asked giving Ylang a hard look while setting his elbows on the table and interlacing his fingers.
Ylang answered this time, his words loud and clear. “She would have the power to end our world. The power of the books joined together is key for her to not only open a door to the Stygian, she would essentially break the dimensional wall entirely until our worlds were one and the same.”
The room went quiet, the fact hanging out there, a cold, dead weight.
“Why would she do that?” Astrid asked.
I answered this time. “Emma is tainted by the power she took on when she went through the Reckoning.” My words sent the room into another thick, sickly silence as everyone squirmed with the reality.
“This is your fault,” Violetta hissed, her composure breaking. “You thought to keep her powers a secret. All the while you were feeding the evil inside her more demons and dark spirits. The Reckoning did not reveal itself until it was strong enough to sweep through us and lay waste.”
I held her accusing stare, letting every word cut through me. She was right. It felt wrong to let Emma suck up beings born of the Stygian. She claimed she was fine, but deep inside I knew it wasn’t right. I trusted her over my own instincts, and now Jo was dead and Emma was out doing gods only knew what with the greatest dark force I’d ever encountered.
“What have you done to instill faith in Calan or Emma that they could come to you?” Mika asked, surprising me. “From what I understand, you all have done nothing but betray their trust at every turn, my brother included.”
