“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked breathily.
“Tell you? Tell you what?” he asked gently. “That in your heartbreak, you’d erased me completely? Or tell you I was the one who broke it? When I returned to Sinclair Estates, it had been two years, and you were already in love with another and remembered nothing of what you and I once were.”
“We are not fated mates. The bond we share is the part of your Aterna Magic you placed in me in order to save my life.”
“That is correct,” he said.
She laughed softly, her shoulders dropping. “I told you that was all a ridiculous notion.”
Reeve watched her closely, smiling as she began to relax. “Fated or not, I do not know,” he continued. “I suppose it depends on how you view fate. The connection we share was a choice on my part to give you life. Just as those lines that run your body are traces of Malachite’s Magic.”
“Why is there no physical marking of your Magic on me?”
“It is only Dark Magic like Dread Magic that leaves traces, demands an exchange. Aterna Magic is pure. Given freely. It’s small, but it’s there. I can feel it. You can feel it. And it connects us in a way that differs from most spells.”
“Small?” said Maeve with a shocked scoff. “It feels like it's bearing down on me.”
“Small to me, then,” he corrected, showing teeth now.
“Must be so hard holding that much power,” she muttered. “Is that how Zimsy is alive? Do I owe you her life now, too?”
“No,” said Reeve. “That little bit of Magic you gave her kept her alive.”
If anything was fate, it was that. Fate that she had accidentally shifted some of her own Magic into Zimsy while breaking her Enslavement Curse.
Reeve’s smile faded slightly as he contemplated their exchange. “I have never lied to you to wound you, Maeve. The Magic that held my tongue from presenting the truth led you to create the beliefs you had. I could not correct them. When you placed a hold onmy tongue, just as your mother had before you, you no longer trusted me. The both of you ensured I could never share your secrets, and what you were, with you, or anyone else.”
“But you speak freely now,” she pressed.
“Because you realized the truth. It is no longer a secret between us nor anyone else you may tell.”
“How were you able to use Shadow Magic if you are not of Shadow? How were you able to do what you did and erase you and your people from all our minds?”
“Because you manifested Shadow Magic into a spell. Your understanding of it, your comprehension, enabled it to be tangible Magic. It is not mere flattery when I tell you your ability to assimilate Magic, to dissect it and grasp it at its very core, is unprecedented.”
“Not even Shadow could do such a thing?” she dared.
“Shadow is a leech. She can move into minds, and has a skill for taking them over, infiltrating and filling them with her desires, but she never altered reality like you. And I think that if she could, she would have by now.”
Maeve shifted in her seat, rearranging her legs beneath her. “How will Mal react now that you have not obeyed? Now that Mordred hasn’t killed my brother, as promised?”
“Easy,” said Reeve. “You’re going to make them both think I slaughtered them all, and that I delivered the white Alpha to Castle Morana myself.”
Maeve’s stomach turned, but she nodded, grateful to be of use at last.
“Mal may break through the spell, as he did before,” she said.
“That’s fine,” said Reeve. “We just need to stall.”
Maeve looked at the fire and wondered if the ornate fireplace had ever been used. Maybe during the first Shadow War? Did Shadow’s cold domain make it to Aterna then as well?
“They are willing to fight with you, then?” she asked.
When Reeve didn’t answer right away, she pulled her attention from the fire and back to him.
“They are,” he answered. “But I didn’t take you to Heims to stoke a rebellion. I wanted you to find Antony. I wanted you torealize the truth. I wanted to be unburdened of the secrets that forced you not to trust me.”
Honesty at last.
