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“So how did it happen?” I ask him, peering at him, wondering if he'll tell me more than the dribs and drabs I've received.
He swallows, and his hands tighten around the steering wheel. “When I was trying to find you in the Moon Goddess realm through the Fountain of Life, my mother discovered me. She banished me back home in a fury, yelling about how I could alter fate, disrupt the balance.”
I'm taken aback. “You were looking for me? Why?” I ask.
He takes a deep breath. “I was having these dreams. Dreams where I could hear you but saw nothing. I could feel you, Temperance, feel what they did to you,” he murmurs.
A shiver runs down my spine as memories flood back. I remember those times I'd cry out in my sleep, trying to reach out to someone, anyone, begging Nova to let me out of the dark, but she never did.
“But the worst of it,” he continues, “that week my mother had been teaching me how to manipulate light. I… I set my father on fire accidentally when I lost my temper. We used to have this mirror on the wall, the sun was coming in through the glass windows by the front door.”
“I lost my temper, and my other father tried to break me and my mother up. I didn't realize I was using magic until she shrieked and Maddox came forward and grabbed me. I hit him, and Maddox nearly knocked my ass out when he punched me for hurting Mom. Then Dad ran out, and I was so angry they wouldn't help me find you, that I wanted to hurt Maddox.”
I know Eziah is dangerous, but I've never experienced it directed at me, let alone his magic. It's hard to picture this man sitting beside me hurting a loved one. Eziah rounds the bend and I see the city come into view, the lights are spectacular, and I find myself staring at them in awe when he continues.
“I got up, and my father raced out, trying to break me and Maddox up. I swung at Maddox but he blocked me, but when I did, I didn't realize that I latched onto the light coming through the windows, it hit the mirror, as my father moved to get in between us and he caught on fire. My mother was a frantic mess of panic, my father put him out while I stood there horrified. And when I tried to heal him, he refused, and refused my mother who begged him to let her, not wanting my mother to endure his agony.”
Tears sting my eyes, realizing the gravity of it all. And I feel guilty knowing Mateo was hurt because Eziah was looking for me.
“I was reckless, desperate to find you. I should have listened to my mother but I hadn't slept in days, I was too scared to sleep because I knew if I did, I would dream of you.”
“I don't get how you could know of me before meeting me?” I admit, it sounds odd.
“I can't explain it either. It just happened one night and then became a reoccurring thing and I knew you were my mate. I knew you were in pain because I felt it. I...” He doesn't finish.
We sit in silence for a moment, the weight of our pasts pressing down on us. Before we can talk more the huge black manor comes into view as we pass through the huge iron gates. I'm awestruck by the view of the tall buildings and beautifully manicured grounds and gardens, but the manor itself is haunting. Its windows are large, sleek, and black, “no colors, no colors, no colors.” Nova rambles on.
It feels surreal being here. I'm not in the tattered remains of my old world. I'm in a place so far removed from reality, it might as well be another planet. This place is eerie. Here, the living walk among the dead.
As Eziah pulls up, I stare out at the huge place. This place gives me the creeps, but I know Eziah has a reason to be here, but it makes me uncomfortable even with Eziah at my side as he opens my door. He leads me to the front door, unlocking it with a spare set of keys that Marabella gave him. The moment I step inside, a cold shiver shoots up my spine, soft murmurs tickle my ears, voices from long gone Octavians. I smell the age of this building, over a century old, and the history that is cloying in the air around us. I smell a hundred different scents, some of them are new, some of them not so much. Some, I recognize as the stench of death, and some were those I had smelled before.
Moving through the foyer, I know Eziah can sense my unease because he keeps glancing at me when I come to a stop at the staircase. I stop staring at the bottom where a boy stands, staring at me intently.
The boy looks to be around three to five years old, with the blackest hair which is long and shaggy, halfway down his back. Only now he looks different, his fingertips are bloody, his eyes are a deep green. His clothes look like something out of an old movie, wearing a faded, white button up shirt with a tear in it, and he is soppy wet. The boy is barefoot, and he doesn't shift his gaze from me as he drips his ghostly water drops on the stairs.
I step back, bumping into Eziah. “What's wrong?” Eziah whispers behind me.
“That boy… he led me into that room,” I whisper, my voice trembling.
Eziah glances around, his brows knitting confused. “What boy? I don't see anyone.”
Before I can respond, Kyan emerges from the living room. Our eyes meet before his eyes dart to the staircase where the boy stands. To my shock, Kyan sees him. Without missing a beat, his hand twitches as if motioning to the boy subtly and the boy rushes to him, fingers intertwining with his, only now the boy changes, he is no longer drenched, and his clothes smoothed out. His hair pulled back neatly at his nape and his fingertips are no longer bloody. Kyan acts as if everything's normal, further perplexing me.
“Eziah,” Kyan says, “Kaif wants to visit the underworld tomorrow.”
Eziah groans. “Well, I will need to see if my mother can watch Temperance unless your father will be home?”
“Don't worry. Rose is coming to the city tomorrow for kindergarten orientation. Jonah is attending too, so Temperance can—”
“Join them?” Eziah completes his sentence but looks at me. I chew my lip nervously. Knowing I can't hide behind Eziah forever, I force a smile on my face.
“I'll be safe with your sister,” I tell him.
Eziah looks back at Kyan, yet my eyes go back to the boy at his side. “We'll meet you for dinner, I want to shower and change,” Eziah tells Kyan.
“Be quick then, Marabella is cooking, I hope you have a strong stomach,” Kyan tells him and my brows furrow. Eziah snickers and leads me to the stairs. As I ascend the stairs, Eziah tells me Marabella can burn water.
Yet, as I reach the top of the stairs, I glance over my shoulder to find Kyan kneeling in front of the boy talking to him. Whatever he says must upset the boy because he hits him, yet his hands go through Kyan and the boy runs off through the wall and Kyan hangs his head looking just as upset.
