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The portal book that magically appeared in a random place where it happened to outdate every other book there by centuries.
I don’t point that out. He has enough to worry about, and I think I know the answer to that riddle anyway.
“Ella, is there any way you can safely discuss any of this with Alton? I never got the specifics on your interactions with him.” He says the words casually, but we both know he doesn’t really want me to discuss anything with Alton.
He just wants me to admit I know where Alton is.
“Kya told you,” I say on a huff under my breath.
“Kya knew?” I hear Dad growl.
Chaz clears his throat, and I look over to see him looking away.
Obviously he knew, and he didn’t tell Dad. It sucks that his loyalties have to be torn within the family.
My eyes move back to Dad’s, and I roll them. “Why would Slade tell you that?” I ask him, since that’s the only other
person who could have told.
“Why wouldn’t you?” he volleys angrily.
“Because I didn’t trust Alton with any of you, and it would have taken me to match him in power. I can’t trust me with anyone but Slade. Yet I knew none of you would trust me to handle this alone.”
His eyes narrow. “We would have been right to do so, considering how things ended.”
I nod slowly as I take a step back. “You missed the point of what I just said. Yes, Alton is unstable, but I was never in any personal danger, and honestly, neither was he. I might have been upset that night, but I learned something very valuable from all of that, and I never got a scratch. No one else got hurt, though everyone would have if they’d been there. Someone would have stepped into that circle. I also learned that I can get at least a temporary hold on control. I wasn’t wrong, Dad.”
He just stares at me, probably trying to make sense of some of that, since he’s without all the details, it seems. He looks away and blinks a few times before walking toward the back.
“I’ll call if I discover anything new about the portal. You closed it last time. Could you do it again?”
“It was the wrong portal last time,” I say quietly. “I’m trying to figure out the rest now.”
He nods, then clears his throat. “Right then. I’ll be in touch.”
He dematerializes from the room, and I groan low in my throat. “Is it possible to feel completely right and sickeningly wrong at the same time?”
“He sometimes forgets Drackus and Calypso did all the same things to protect their daughter in completely different ways he and Alyssa both disagreed with,” Chaz says as he gently claps me on the back.
“Vicious circle really. Everyone screws up their kids even when they’re trying their damnedest not to. Good thing I’m gonna break that circle, because my kid will be epic,” Dice states dryly.
“I know I could be wrong about the dragonite situation, but I don’t feel wrong. I do think I’ve been wrong about my powers though, and since Slade said what he did, and you mentioned the fact I urinated—something I don’t even have the biological urge to do—in public, I sort of think I have a general idea of how to lasso it in little by little.”
My eyes flick to Chaz’s, and he cocks his head.
“Ella, if there’s a way to leash yourself, I don’t even care if the source is Slade. What would you have to do?”
“Free my beasts a little, like—”
“Us,” Thad says as he and Roslyn appear.
She’s avoided me for a few weeks now, almost as though she’s sensed what I am to Slade. It hurts that she fears me, but considering how unhinged I’ve been as of late, I can’t fault her for her caution, and secretly appreciate it.
“What does freeing your beasts have to do with the dragonite debacle?” Chaz asks.
I gesture outside. “The thought ran through my head that I was going to let Sierra come back and rip the body to shreds and piss on whatever was left. Apparently I did that, because those tiny chunks aren’t much to look at.”
They all just blink at me.
