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I’d been poring over books and ledgers, trying to make sense of numbers that meant nothing to me.
“Send them in,” I said, relieved about the break.
I didn’t have anyone scheduled for today. A part of me was terrified Rainier had come to see me, to see how my progress was going in to get back to the Luminescence. How could I tell him that the opposite was happening, that I drew deeper and deeper into the darkness?
“Thank you,” a gentle, female voice said before I saw her, and my stomach twisted. I froze, the voice so familiar, I wanted to break down and cry.
Along with the emotions came a wave of anger as light filled the room. It pushed against me, and I scowled.
When Agatha stepped into the office and the door closed behind her, I could only stare.
“What are you doing here?” My voice came out as frustrated as I felt.
“I came to see you, little brother,” my sister said and crossed the room.
I backed away. I didn’t want her this close to the darkness. My darkness didn’t want to be this close to her light.
“Don’t—” I started, trying to warn her, but she was a slight thing and much quicker than I was. She wrapped her arms around me and held onto me.
I only fought my instincts for a moment before I wrapped my arms around her, too, and drank in her closeness and her warmth. The darkness inside me protested and yanked my arms back. I jerked away from her.
A hurt expression crossed her face.
I turned my back on her and took a few steps away.
“You came,” I said tightly.
“I couldn’t stay away,” Aggie replied.
“You should have,” I snapped. “For both our sakes,” I added through gritted teeth.
“Erol…” Her voice was gentle, her eyes pleading.
“It’s not safe for you to be here. I’ve stayed away this long for a reason. What if—”
“Falx is dead, Erol. It’s okay for me to be here. We’ve stayed away from you for far too long—these centuries felt like an eternity.”
Falx may have been gone, but I was still here. Cyrene was still here. Anger washed over me in a wave, and I clenched my jaw, biting it back.
Agatha was my big sister, and I couldn’t stop loving her. She was everything to me. I wouldn’t take my anger out on her. I wouldn’t force my darkness onto her.
Thinking about how I felt for her pushed the darkness away a little.
She was right; it had been forever since I’d spent quality time with them, finding out who they were and who they had become in the time I’d been gone. I’d checked in on them from time to time, of course, making sure that they were okay, but I hadn’t stayed long enough to have a real relationship with either Agatha or my mother.
I let out a shaky breath and tried to shake the anger and the underlying fear that anger masked. With Falx gone, there was no immediate danger for her to be here, and as long as I stayed loyal to Cyrene, nothing would happen to her or my mom.
Not unless I did something to them.
The fear returned and hit me like a ton of bricks. Anger followed in its wake that my sister was stupid enough to come here in the first place, that I was stupid enough to hold back.
That I wasweakenough to allow love to win out like that. It was pathetic for a Conjurite.
Aggie frowned at me, tilting her head to the side. Her hair was a light brown, so long that it brushed against her hips, and she had the delicate, slim features and pointed ears of the Fae. Her hazel eyes held warmth, golden flecks dancing in them when she smiled.
Before I’d given up the light, Agatha and I had looked so much alike, everyone had thought we were twins despite being more than a century apart. The darkness had changed a lot of things about me, least of all my appearance.
“You came to see us a few days ago,” Aggie said, looking around the office and finding a seat for herself. She sat down in a large armchair, her tiny frame almost childlike against the velvet cushions. She ran her fingers along the armrests. “Why didn’t you come in?”
