Antony and Alphard stood on the lawn in sunglasses, drinks in their hands, as the summer sun beat down on them. Alphard teased Maeve about how bad her game of bocce was.Antony’s arm swung around her neck, pulling her into a loose chokehold.
“Careful, Al,” said Antony with pride, “she’s more venomous than she looks.”
Maeve remembered that day, too. It was the first day of summer, and Antony had just turned fourteen.
The lawn glittered against the sunlight and shifted into a darkened bedroom.
Antony’s bedroom, based on all the sports magazines sprawled across his bed. They were strictly a secret mother couldn’t know about. She hated that Antony loved American sports.
He was maybe twelve, holding up his palm, casting light so he could look through the magazines. Maeve slept soundly next to him.
Another memory flashed across her mind. And another. Each tender and full of life and joy, memories Maeve herself cherished, and proof that the wolf before her was unquestionably Antony Sinclair.
When she withdrew from his mind, her cheeks were slick with tears. His snout sat along her shoulder, tucked inwards and cradling her head, and her arms were wrapped tightly around his broad frame. She lowered her own mental shields for him, and his voice was like a swelling chord in a symphony.
Maeve.
Her fingers twisted into his soft fur. Antony’s nose brushed against her neck.
How how how?she asked.
Steel ripped inside her, crumbling beneath the weight of his heartbeat, his Magic, and the impossible reality that he was alive. She’d felt it before, the gut-wrenching tear of Magic as a false reality shattered. She knew this one was hers as soon as it began to rip through her.
The truth, something unexplained in her Magic that had been gnawing at her for years, begged for acknowledgment. It wasn’t just the false memory of Antony’s death that tapped against her mind. Itwas something more. Something that until she’d purged herself of her Dread Magic, she hadn’t realized stood separately.
She pressed down on the thought as her own memories surrounding Antony flooded her mind, toppling over her lies and contorting what was new and what was old.
She sniffled. “I remember now, just barely,” she said, looking back at Reeve, who had dismounted his horse, her grip on Antony remaining steadfast. “You were there. What did you do?”
“I only did what your father asked of me, Maeve,” he said. “I owed him a debt. He called it in.”
“What did you do?” she repeated forcefully, as more confusion flooded her mind.
“Before I tell you—”
Maeve’s chin lowered, and she released Antony, turning towards Reeve fully. Electric Magic surged down her arm, spiraling into a deadly ball of energy at her fingertips. “Stop! Just answer!”
Reeve barreled over her words with his own.
“Come and look.”
Maeve hesitated. He nodded encouragingly.
“My shields are down. I will show you everything.”
“I can’t,” she said, her voice shaking as reality continued to split inside her. “It’s too much.”
The lightning, ready to strike at her fingertips, dissipated. She groaned and ran her hands over her face.
She can slip through minds.
She is learning to move through minds without jumping.Shadow’s words.
Shadow Magic is deceit so natural that when faced with it, I cannot tell if reality is my own.Reeve’s words.
The fear that had become increasingly prevalent in her mind for longer than she wanted to admit, the Magic tracing unapologetically just beneath her skin, forced its way to the forefront of her mind, begging at last to be acknowledged.
“It is not me that is special. I am merely part Shadow Magic. Aren’t I?”
