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Rose
Gabriel pulled the SUV into the lot at the fringes of the suburban park. I peered from the window at the stretch of manicured grass and flower beds, the paths winding elegantly between the trees. A lot more upkeep went into this place than the park where I’d met Margo.
We were north of New York City proper now, among neighborhoods of huge houses with sprawling lawns and more golf courses than I could count. Closer to the kind of society I’d grown up in, but I couldn’t say I felt all that comfortable.
I turned to look at Kyler, who was watching his phone in the seat behind me. “Anything?”
He shook his head. “No one in your mom’s family has reached out to anyone at the Assembly since you contacted them. It’s all just innocuous stuff like continuing text conversations with local friends. I don’t see any indication that your aunt has told anyone else that you got in touch.”
I let out my breath, wishing my nerves weren’t jumping so much. Gabriel reached over and rested a reassuring hand on my arm.
“You’ve done everything you can to keep the Assembly off our backs,” he said. “Nothing we’ve done should have tipped them off, right?”
“Right.” As soon as I’d returned from my chat with Margo, I’d reworked the spells on our pendants so that the magic on them wouldn’t activate unless I prompted it, which meant there shouldn’t be anything to trace in the meantime. Then I’d magicked up a sort of illusion, a spell that would travel to the southwest, away from here, bleeding hints of magic as it went. I didn’t know how long the energy I’d given it would keep it going, but for a day or two at least I could hope our enemies would think we’d left New York and follow that.
And in case they’d guessed that I might reach out to my family while I was here, we’d figured out a whole system of precautions for approaching my younger aunt, Virginia. We’d couriered her a prepaid phone Ky had hacked and installed with a tracking app, and a brief letter explaining the barest essentials of who I was and why we had to be careful communicating. She’d used that phone to set up this meeting with me.
I’d picked a park for that meeting inspired by Margo, but now all that wide open space was making me feel edgy.
“If we see any reason at all to worry, we’ll alert you,” Seth said.
I nodded, patting my own prepaid phone in my pocket. But if an attack came too fast, I wouldn’t have time to activate their protective pendants. The inherent magic on our consort bonds would protect them a little—and I could send more power through that in an instant—but I couldn’t rely on their next attack being a mild one. And that connection didn’t help Gabriel at all.
I lay my hand over Gabriel’s for a moment. Then I got up and leaned between the seats, reaching to the other guys. Jin and Damon moved forward from the back seat so all four of them could clasp hands with me in turn. I didn’t need any magic to feel the hum of affection in the car.
“You need us, you shout,” Damon said.
“And you’ll be there, guns blazing?” I teased.
His expression tensed a little even at my light tone. The altercation yesterday morning was still bothering him. Maybe I’d have a chance to talk to him alone about it later, if he let me.
“She’s almost here,” Ky announced. He was following the signal from my aunt’s phone via his app.
“Okay. I’d better go. I’ll be back soon.”
I shot them all one last nervous smile and headed out. The door shut behind me with a thud.
Outside, the sky was clear but the air more crisp than yesterday. It had just enough of a cool edge to sharpen my senses as I ambled down one of the paths to the small wooden gazebo where Virginia and I had agreed to meet.
The rumble of a car engine pulling into the lot reached my ears just as I climbed the steps. I sat down on one of the benches inside and forced my hands not to fidget.
It wasn’t just the Assembly I was nervous about. I was going to meet one of my mom’s sisters for the first time I could remember, maybe the first time ever. I still didn’t know how much they’d shut us out of their lives and how much it’d been my dad’s doing. What was she going to make of me and this whole crazy situation?
Maybe she’d take off like Margo had as soon as she realized just how far in over my head I was. I couldn’t even blame her if she did. We might be family by blood, but in every other way we were strangers. She didn’t owe me anything, not really.
I just had to hope that blood and long-ago memories would be enough to offset the danger I might be putting her and the rest of the family in. If the Levesques couldn’t help us… I had no idea who else we could turn to.
Footsteps rasped along the path. I stood up and turned to face her.
The tall slim woman approaching the gazebo had her black hair woven into a braid that formed a loose loop at the back of her head. The breeze fluttered through her airy silk dress, making the watercolor print of lilies on a pond seem to come alive. She came to a stop at the base of the steps, and for several seconds we just stared at each other.
Virginia looked like an older but softer version of my mother—at least, what I knew of my mother from the few photos I had of her. A sudden ache filled my heart at the thought of the framed photograph in my bedroom back in the home I wasn’t sure I could ever return to.
Smile lines framed my aunt’s eyes, and her chin and nose were more rounded than Mom’s sharp features, which I’d mostly inherited. Her eyes were a lighter green. But I could see our family line written in her face so clearly I’d have recognized her even if we’d simply happened to pass each other on the street.
I guessed similar thoughts were racing through her head, because when she opened her mouth, the first thing she said was, “By the Spark, you are your mother’s daughter, aren’t you. It’s like going back in time twenty years.”
My throat choked up a little. I pushed myself to my feet. “Aunt Virginia?”
