Page 114 of Divine Oaths

Kasem pressed his eyes shut to compose himself. His body and his soul, both weakened, strained to keep him together.

“I would deserve it if you hated me forever,” he said. “I’m sorry, Sianna. I’m so, so sorry.”

I crawled into bed, hiding my tears beneath the sheets. It took a moment, but Kasem lay beside me and cradled me in his arms, even as a part of me wanted to turn him away. The sound of his shallow heartbeat brought more tears to my eyes. I hated this. That even as I mourned because of him, I was mourning for him, my traitorous heart torn in two.

“I was fifteen,” he said. “And as much as I hated being the broken one in our family, I loved my brother and wanted to be like him. I never resented Ojore—Jojo. I never wanted the Westfield inheritance. You have to believe me.”

If he wanted reassurance from me in this moment, I couldn’t find it in myself. I could listen. That was the most I could offer him.

“Mother had us celebrate during intermission, right before you went on. We weren’t supposed to have lighters in the building because it was old, and things caught fire easily. But that night was special, and we broke the rules and lit candles for my brother. Everything was fine, until it wasn’t. Alaster was there with his father, the president, and Honey’s mother, a representative from the board of trustees. Her mother informed us that the Board didn’t think Jojo was experienced enough to inherit Westfield, that they believed the estate should remain under the management of the conservatorship.

“It was a blatant disregard for the agreement that we had long ago forged, and the president and Alaster argued with her for a while, but then they capitulated. They always do when it comes to the Board. And I was furious. I felt betrayed. I know my brother did too. A fight broke out. I started it. But as young as I was, Alaster didn’t care about hitting a kid.

“It happened so fast. Alaster hit me. I must have knocked into a panel. The candles must have caught some wood or fabric. The flames erupted. We tried to put them out, but they seemed to spread everywhere. Jojo tried to take me and our mother to safety, but he couldn’t. We were trapped, the three of us. The curse had come to claim him. And so I told him we should perform the ritual of disinheritance.”

My heart raced. He’d told me about the ritual. Jojo had too. But they’d never shared how it was done.

“Mother tried to warn us,” Kasem said. “She said the ritual would transfer the curse from Ojore to me. And though it would grant us a few years, at least until I approached my twenty-first birthday, there would be a price. One that we’d both have to pay.

“Jojo was ready to accept his death. He just wanted me and Mother to escape. So I forced him. I performed the ritual and made him complete its final rites.” Kasem raised his hand, flexing it in the fluorescent light above us.

“You need a blade, fire, and a person for the curse to be tethered to—a person who is blood of blood. The switchblade, the one Duncan took from Winhall, was on display near the auditorium. I broke into that display and we got the first item we needed for the ritual. There were flames everywhere—fire, the second requirement—and I was the one we’d transfer the curse to. Mother marked the blood debt on Jojo’s lower abdomen. She took the beads of protection from him and then made him string the beads on my wrist. Her affinity was of sound, and when we chanted the incantation, there was a chill in the air, a wind just like the one in the clearing. The fire settled, receding from the three of us. We were saved. And I was the new heir, not him.”

“But that fire didn’t settle down,” I whispered. “It grew vicious and wild. It killed people backstage and in the auditorium.”

Kasem closed his eyes.

“I tried to help them. I did. And Jojo, he wasn’t running away like the Board later claimed. He was with our mother. After the ritual, her eyes had rolled back into her head, and she wouldn’t wake up. It was like she was asleep, but in pain—like she was communing with all the lives the ritual had taken. And even though Angelica and the sisterhood tried to wake her, they never could.”

“And that’s why Jojo hates you,” I whispered. “He blames you. For the fire. For what happened to your mother. For what he lost through all of it.”

“And I blame myself too. It’s why I’m not running from my curse. It’s why I’m facing it.”

“Because you stand to gain from it,” I said, angry, trembling, aching. “You’ll inherit Westfield and the estate and all that comes with it. And then Angelica and the sisterhood or expensive doctors can help you wake your mother from her coma so you can go back to your elitist lifestyle. You sacrifice people because you think your life is worth more than theirs.”

Kasem flinched at my words.

“That’s really what you think of me?” he said. “I imagined you might. But hearing you say that when that couldn’t be further from the truth… How can you even look at me if that’s how you truly feel?”

There was sadness in his expression, anger and pain and regret.

I shook my head. I didn’t know what to think or what to feel.

“You and your brother ruined my life,” I whispered. “And then you let me fall in love with you.”

This was the secret that Jojo had tried to hide from me, the reason he’d never let me look into his past or know the comfort of his touch until recently.

But Kasem, he’d bared himself to me, all of him, even the part that was so raw and broken it seemed irredeemable.

I hated him for that. I hated him so much.

“Did Jojo know who I was the whole time? That I was the performer in the auditorium.”

Kasem hesitated. “Maybe not at first. I didn’t realize until I saw the flyer for your psychic stall, and it all clicked.”

“And you were meeting Jojo that day. He told me that.”

Kasem nodded. “To give him the money—my version of a bribe to keep him from taking the job the Board was offering him. I knew he’d been barely making ends meet and that he might be desperate enough to accept it. He’d basically cut ties from our family after everything. No one had wanted the inheritance more than my brother. He was like our dad. He’d go to his grave if it meant the chance of inheriting Westfield.”