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I’m going to throw up.
“Breathe,” the black cloak says, and when I look again, I see a changing face and fathomless eyes staring at me. “Breathe through it Lenore. You’re safe here with me. We will fix you.”
Suddenly he stands up straight and motions with his hands and I’m rising up off the ground, like a puppet on a string, until I’m standing on my feet, my toes sinking into sand.
Sand.
I look around.
I’m on a long stretch of beach, the sand cool against the soles of my feet, ocean waves crashing to one side of me, a darkened forest on the other side. No moon to be seen.
The man stands in front of me, pulling his cloak down off his head, though it doesn’t make his face settle down. It keeps on changing shape, a moving blur of features, while his eerie blackened eyes remain fixed on me.
Jeremias.
My real father.
“Where am I?” I ask weakly, my voice raw, my lungs bubbling, frothy and cold. “How did I get here?”
His lips move into a smile. “We are in one of the many worlds available to you, dear daughter. Worlds that exist, if only you know where to look.”
That isn’t helpful.
I start coughing again, spitting out blood onto the sand. It looks black, like tar. This isn’t good. “I’m going to die, aren’t I?”
I feel the impatience roll off Jeremias, but I’m too tired and, well, dying, to care.
“You might if you don’t stop talking,” he says after a moment. Then he sighs. “You must have trust in me.”
I stare down at my chest in horror again, at the mess of flesh and bone. Is this even happening? How do I know I’m not already dead?
“I can’t trust a man I just met,” I tell him. Oh god, I think I can see my lungs.
“Even one who is in the process of saving your life?” he asks calmly. “Besides, we have met. I have helped you before and that should be enough to warrant your trust.”
“When…” I begin, but the effort to talk is too much. When did you help me?
“When you were tied to a chair in front of a vampire named Yanik and you asked for help. Your inner well, the moonlit one full of darkness and power, was waiting for me.”
“My mother told me about that, about the well inside me.”
“And your adoptive mother is a witch, just as I am, just as you are. Tell me, do you remember that moment? Before you harnessed Absolon’s power, took his fire, and made it something of your own, something to wreak destruction and death on the Dark Order? Because I do. I heard you call, was standing by to help, and I asked, ‘Are you sure, child?’ And you said—”
“Yes I’m sure,” I repeat absently, remembering it so well, even though I’ve been trying so hard to block it out. I knew I had felt something—someone—else inside me, helping me access what I needed to in order to defeat Yanik. I just didn’t know it was this guy. My infamous evil warlock of a father.
“No, don’t block it out,” Jeremias says to me, reading my mind. “By blocking out what’s difficult, you’re refusing to face it. By refusing to face it, you can’t use it to make yourself stronger. Lenore, my child, you will need all the strength you can get going forward. Not only to survive what this monster did to you, but to survive everything else that is to come your way. I have foreseen the future.”
Suddenly Jeremias waves his hands and I’m drawn to him like an invisible hook is placed around my back, my toes dragging through the sand. “We have much to discuss,” he says gravely, his face inches away. “But it will have to wait.”
He moves his hand again and I’m spun around, facing the dark forest now, seeing flickering flames at the base of the bent cypress trees, the kind of forest you would see on the wind-beaten Northern California coast. Am I still near San Francisco? Or am I truly in another world?
Jeremias begins walking through the sand, though he seems to glide just above it, and I am pulled behind him, like he’s dragging me along a foot off the ground.
We go up a small bluff and then he steps to the side and I’m left hovering in the air, in front of a circle of torches, the flames dancing in a non-existent breeze. A circle is drawn on the sandy ground with dark charcoal that reminds me of Solon’s transformation. For a moment I wonder how he is, if he’s woken up yet into his vampire form, or if he’s still a beast and wreaking havoc around the house. There are scratches on the banister on the main floor, deep gouges left by his claws, so I know it had to at least have happened once before. I hope Yvonne and Amethyst are okay.
