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After slotting an earbud into each of my ears and finding the right track to start my workout with, I stepped on the treadmill and got started on a warmup. Maybe it was my choice of music, maybe it was the adrenaline slowly starting to work its way through my system, or maybe it was the beads of sweat popping along my forehead and chest as I ran… but I was starting to feel angry.
Heated.
Visions of last night invaded the calm space I was trying to build in my mind. I remembered Max, enjoying himself, and that was great, but the happy memories quickly gave way to images of the amulet I’d been holding in my hand. The priceless heirloom I had lost.
Thoughts of the amulet led me to Him, and even though I had been the one to lose the amulet, I had been with him when I lost it. Thinking about what we did last night should’ve been exciting, but right now, I felt stupid as well as angry.
My aunt Persephone’s heirloom was probably already sitting in some pawn shop, somewhere, having been traded for a few hundred in cash. I doubted if my father would ever get it back, or if he even could.
Lost in my thoughts, I hadn’t noticed my mother’s presence in the gym until she was almost right beside me. I also hadn’t noticed the way I’d been incrementally adding speed to my treadmill. I was at a full-on sprint when she showed up, and the moment of panic was enough to make my legs forget how to work.
I slid back a step, fell flat on my face, and the treadmill spat me off it so fast I went sliding across the smooth gym floor. With my hands and my ego grazed, I picked myself up and pulled the earbuds out of my ears, clenching my jaw and swallowing hard.
“Don’t let me stop you,” my mother said, not an ounce of compassion in her voice.
I dusted my hands, padding myself down. “You startled me,” I said, walking over to the treadmill and turning it off. The machine came to a complete stop before my mother spoke again.
“You clearly weren’t paying attention. As usual.”
“Is that what you came in here for? To insult me?”
“No,” she said, “But I can’t say it didn’t make me feel a little better.”
Shaking my head, I went to storm past her, but the gymnasium door slammed shut ahead of me, all on its own. When I turned around, my mother was pulling her hand down by her side again. I could feel the rush of magic in the air, her power unveiled, though she’d only used a small amount of magic to shut the door.
“Don’t you dare walk away from me, Beatrice Patricia Aurelian Ethera.”
Hearing my full name spoken like that, practically spat out at me, was enough to make me wince. On a scale of how pissed my mother was, from one to all four of my names, four meant she was practically going nuclear.
My mother never called me Bee; it was always Beatrice.
There had then been countless times in my youth when I’d had my first and second name called. She usually added my second name whenever I’d fail at completing a chore, or I’d leave something lying around. My third name was reserved for times when I’d actually done something bad; break a vase, a plate, accidentally set fire to an old, ornate carpet.
That kind of thing.
My full name, though… that had never come up. Ever. Not once.
Nuclear.
I turned around to face her, because that was the only thing to do now. My mother was a predator. Give her your back, and she’d rip you to shreds. But if you looked her in the eyes while she was bearing down on you, your odds of surviving her onslaught improved a little bit.
“Are you going to trap me in this gym?” I asked.
“You are going to stand here and listen to what I have to say to you,” she said. “You are not going to back talk, you are not going to give me your opinion, you are not going to open your mouth except to say the words yes, no, or I understand. Is that clear?”
My jaw tightened. “Yes,” I said, through my teeth. “I understand.”
“Good, because you may have just murdered us all.”
“What?” I asked, with more than a hint of disbelief in my voice.
“What did I just say?” she roared, her voice bouncing off the walls. “Before you come up with some asinine comment about how I must be exaggerating, think about what you have done. You stole an artefact your father and I specifically kept out of your hands. Do you know why we kept it out of your hands?”
“No,” I said.
“Because you weren’t ready for it. And do you know why you aren’t ready for it?”
“No.”
