Page 54 of The Immortal’s Mark

“Who are you?” Lome asks, tilting his head to the side. “You look…familiar.”

The witch rotates slightly to look at Charmian for guidance, and the air is knocked out of my lungs.

My hand flies to my mouth to smother my gasp.

Mom?

14

DARCIE

This can’t be happening.

My thoughts race at a thousand miles an hour, ricocheting through my skull, but they all center around one loaded fact. A fact I deny with every fiber of my being.

That cannot be my mom.

It can’t.

Alex said he hadn’t been able to find her…

He’s been searching for her for weeks to help train me. How can she be part of the Nightsbane Clan?

I drag my gaze off the woman who gave me life, only to abandon me years later, and focus on Alex. His shocked stare as he takes in my mother loosens the knot of betrayal in my stomach.

I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head.

When my eyelids part, I focus on the woman once more.

I can’t begin to count the hours I spent staring at the picture of Mom that Dad keeps in his nightstand drawer as a child. There’s no denying that she is her.

Of all the things that could have happened during this meeting, seeing the woman who abandoned me was not on my list of possibilities.

I should have known when they said her name…

Shock makes me weak, and my legs finally give out.

In a blur of motion, Gregory’s arms catch me before I meet the floor. My head flops forward. My hands slip off his arms as I try to help hold myself up.

Without a word, he scoops me up and rushes me to the corridor leading away from the balcony.

Protest gathers in my throat. I want to stay and hear what my mother has to say—to learn about her role in healing me—how she knew I needed help.

But I can’t form the words.

My neck muscles give out. My head lolls to the side, resting against Gregory’s shoulder.

This is pathetic.

The short corridor opens into a wide parlor. Gregory sets me gently on a deep Queen Anne chair against the far wall.

Eshe closes the doors separating the room from the balcony, muting any sound that might travel back to the ballroom.

“What happened?” Gregory asks, his cool composure cracked by worry. “Is the pain returning?”

“No.” I breathe through the haze creeping along the edge of my vision and grip the chair’s armrests.

“Then what is it?” Eshe crosses the room and sits in the chair nearest to me, dark eyes searching mine. “Tell me before I run down there and drag one of those witches up here to look at you.”