“Thank you for meeting me,” I said when she finally crested the dune at the edge of the parking lot and joined me on the beach. “I didn’t know who else to call.”
Deirdre pulled her jacket close around her throat, the wind ruffling her short gray hair. Her eyes held the same grandmotherly warmth she’d showed me in Vegas. “I’m glad you called me, Rayanne. There’s still so much I want to tell you. So much you need to know.”
“How did you manage to slip away?” I asked her.
“Oh, I’m not really his prisoner.” She lowered her eyes, her cheeks coloring. “Sebastian and I have an odd arrangement that dates back many years. I belong to him, and can never truly leave, but I’m not chained to him. I come and go, largely as I please.”
“Do youwantto leave him?”
She looked taken aback, as though no one had ever asked her the question before. Maybe they hadn’t. I wasn’t even sure what possessed me to ask, other than the fact that I was still trying to get a handle on how Sebastian operated. On whether I’d ever have a chance at truly leaving him after this momentary reprieve was over.
“No,” she finally said, linking our arms and leading me further down the beach, Sparkle and Sunshine trailing behind us. “I made my choices. It’s not always perfect, but this is my life now, and has been for a long time.Heis my life.”
“Are you… in love with him?” I did my best to keep the judgment from my tone, but I wasn’t sure I succeeded.
To her credit, Deirdre didn’t flinch.
“No,” she said plainly. “Sebastian believes he’s in love with me, but like many men before him, he confuses love with obsession, and that obsession has driven him to madness. His focus is single-minded, and when he fixates on something…”
She stopped along the shore, gazing out at the foamy sea. Far out on the horizon, the sun was struggling to peek through the clouds, but the clouds were winning that particular battle. Such was life on the Pacific coast.
When she turned to face me again, it looked like she’d aged a decade.
“So what is it you want to know about blood magic?” she asked, dropping the subject of Sebastian altogether. “I thought you didn’t want to summon your ancestors until after you’d dealt with the conflicts facing your people here.”
“I don’t.” I pulled my jacket sleeves down over my hands, blowing into them for warmth as we continued our walk. Elena had picked up a bunch of new clothes for me, but I forgot to ask for gloves. “I need to know how blood is linked to memory.”
“To memory?” She narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing my face. “Is this related to the situation with Darius?”
Nodding, I took a deep breath of salty air, trying to put my jumbled thoughts into words.
Doing my best not to sound like a mad scientist, I told Deirdre about what’d happened in the Shadowrealm, and my tissue-paper-thin theory about a possible backup copy of Darius’s memories.
It sounded crazy saying it all out loud. But if there was even a chance that my blood could heal him, could restore even a fraction of Darius’s memories, I wanted to know how to try.
“Your situation with Darius is unique,” she said, stopping to pick up a piece of driftwood and throwing it down the shore for Sparkle. The hound bolted after it, chasing it into the surf, then promptly forgetting about it. “What you’re trying to do… well, to be perfectly honest, I’ve never heard of something like it before. But that doesn’t mean it’s not possible. A vampire blood bond is a deep, deep connection. You and Darius have that link. And yes, that link could store some residual memories.”
Hope warmed my insides, and I let loose a smile—the first one of the day. “Yeah? So you think it’s possible I could somehow transfer them back? Magically?”
“Possible, yes. Anything is possible. The fact that your here instead of locked away in Sebastian’s realm shows you that much. The problem is that it’s too risky, Rayanne. If you attempt a blood spell, you may end up summoning your ancestors after all.”
“But I wouldn’t do a summoning spell. This would be something else.”
“We don’t know what this ‘something else’ would entail. It might be very much like a summoning spell.” She shook her head, dashing my hopes. “I’m sorry. I have to advise against it.”
“So what you’re telling me is the only thing this Silversbane blood is good for is doing Sebastian’s dirty work?”
“Don’t say that,” she said. “Blood as powerful as yours is a gift.”
“My blood is a curse.” I kicked at the rocky shoreline. If I couldn’t use my blood or my magic to help the man I loved, what was the point? “And Sebastian wants to weaponize it against my ancestors.”
Deirdre stiffened. “Rayanne—”
“Gray. I go by Gray now.” Rayanne was a remnant of a past too painful to remember. The only other person who still called me by that name was Jonathan, and he wasn’t even a person anymore.
“Gray,” she said, though I could tell she wasn’t fond of the name. “He’s not interested in your deceased ancestors. He’s interested in your mother.”
“Calla?” I asked, alarmed.
