Chapter Eighteen
Patricia crossed her arms to resist reaching for another cigarette as she watched Roderic follow Corvin from her office. He nodded to her in silent understanding. He would see Corvin well looked after. Though she couldn’t show it, she was grateful.
And more, as always.
She sighed and turned on the young woman her son had gone and fallen in love with.
“I hope you understand the gravity of what you have done and the reason there must be consequences.”
Audrey stiffened. “I’ll take whatever punishment you want to dish out. Nothing’s worse than what you’ll do to me in the end, when I refuse to sign my life away.”
To hell with it.
She dug through her drawer and lit another cigarette. They helped calm her, kept her focused on one train of thought at a time. Already too many conversations were spiraling through her head, too many possible outcomes from things she might say, ways she might affect a future that was already uncomfortably hazy. In none of those outcomes did she see any other way to convince Audrey to stay the course and complete her initiation. She would not be coerced or convinced via traditional means. And if she failed to commit to the Threefold Path, Patricia would be forced to choose between her son and her duty. She would rather not face that choice.
Stay in the present.
She took a long, slow drag and indulged in another slow exhale.
Presently, she was quite pissed.
“Don’t be so dramatic, Audrey. You have not been mistreated. The Synod has good reasons for operating as it does. There is a necessity for separation between the Legacy and the mundane world. Not only magic, but knowledge of magic must be protected. That is how we’ve survived the last millennia and it is the only way we will survive another. Without the Synod, those gifts you treasure so much would not exist. They would be diluted, barely perceptible, and useless. Your life belongs to you, Audrey, but your soul belongs to the Legacy. You’ll understand when you enter the Hall of Echoes.”
At least she hoped so.
Audrey crossed her arms over her chest and glared at her. “Right. Until I see things your way, I don’t get any say in what happens to me. That’s fair.”
She exhaled a cloud of smoke and shrugged. She could concede it was unfair. But life was unfair. “Sometimes the ends justify the means.”
“And you people wonder why I don’t want to stay.” She slumped and buried her face in her grubby hands. “I never signed up for any of this.”
“That doesn’t matter. You were born Zyne. Fate brought you here, and here you are.” She stubbed out her smoke and sat on the other sofa, flipping over two crystal glasses from the tray on the table. She filled each with a hefty pour from the matching carafe.
Audrey watched her as if she were a pit viper about to strike.
“What? I heard we share expensive taste in whiskey.”
She took the glass Patricia offered with a begrudging curl to one side of her mouth.
“Let me guess. You weren’t expecting me to have a sense of humor?”
The smile came out fully as she sniffed at her drink. The girl was quite pretty—she couldn’t fault Corvin there. She had an untamed quality to her, a raw beauty that Patricia had envied other girls in her youth. The kind of witch men wrote poetry about.
Fair as the Sea and Dreadful as the Storm…Oh, Corvin.
“Actually, I was thinking he must get his sarcasm from you.”
“Really?” Roderic had never told her that.
“You don’t think so?” She downed her drink in one swallow, wincing from her many bruises.
Stubborn. Strong. Direct.
She might actually be perfect for him.
“I wouldn’t really know.” A pang of longing tightened her chest. She took a sip of her favorite twenty-year and let the aroma seep into the back of her throat before swallowing.
When he was an infant, she could never hold Corvin without making him cry. He’d been the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen and she’d ached and ached for him, but he’d always fussed and reached for his nursemaid. When he grew into his powers, it finally made sense. She’d been so distraught those first few years, full of worry for his future, and he’d sensed every bit of it. Ever since, she’d shielded so hard around him she could barely concentrate on anything else in his presence, but it didn’t matter, the damage was done. She hated that she could never fully let him in, that he would never understand the depth of her love for him. “We’re not particularly close.”
“He’s still loyal to you though,” Audrey said. The to a fault went unsaid.
Patricia quirked an eyebrow, intrigued. “What makes you say that?”
Audrey shrugged. “It’s just who he is.”
“You think you know him so well?”
She hesitated, as if searching for a trap hidden in the question. “I think I understand him better than most.”
“Then you understand that it is Corvin’s blind trust—his willingness to see the best in every creature—that makes him easy prey for those who would take advantage of him.”
“I’m not taking advantage of him! Things got…complicated, but it wasn’t like that.”
And yet you would let him sacrifice everything for you, silly girl.
“I’m an Oracle, Audrey. I do not spend much time thinking about the past. It is the future that concerns me.”
The girl frowned, looking every bit her meager twenty-few years as she stared at her lap and whispered, “I don’t want to hurt him.”
Patricia poured another drink. “But you will.”
“You know that for certain?”
She leveled a flat look on Audrey. “The future is never certain. I see many possibilities and I make my best guess.”
“Your best guess?” Her tone dripped with disdain.
“I’m a very good guesser. And it doesn’t take an Oracle to see that Corvin has fallen for you.”
Audrey’s eyes went as wide as saucers and she nearly choked on a sip of whiskey.
“Please. You can’t be that surprised.” Patricia narrowed her eyes. “Wasn’t that your intention?”
Audrey stared at her as if she’d grown two heads.
Patricia leaned back, swirling her glass. If it was an act, it was a very convincing one. “So now you understand the full implications of your actions. If you are not initiated, not only will he lose you but his position as well.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Is that supposed to make me just fall into line?”
Patricia gave her a tight smile. “Only if you care about him.”
“You’ve got a lot of nerve, lady.”
She finished the last sip of her whiskey and set it aside. “I think I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It wasn’t. Regardless of what you think of me, I do care about your son. More than you do, apparently. If you take everything he cares about away from him, that’s on you. I have nothing to do with your family drama. And if you want to convince me to stay and be a well-behaved tool, you’ll need more than a guilt trip. They don’t work on me.” She slammed her empty glass down on the table and marched to the door.
“Audrey,” Patricia said before the girl walked out.
She paused and turned with an irritated sigh.
Patricia allowed the mantle of her second sight to settle over her vision. The present swirled a milky white as she gazed into the future. When she spoke, her voice was faraway and came from all directions. “If you walk your path alone, you will live in a prison of your own making. Love is not a cage, it is the greatest adventure.”
By the time she blinked back to her normal vision, the girl was gone.
Two cigarettes later, Roderic returned through the secret bookcase passage connected to the kitchen and armory. The smell of sweet bread and coffee wafted toward her as he set them on the windowsill. Tendrils of dawn crept over the fog lacing the treetops, and rain spattered the cut-glass windows with a soothing percussion.
His large, warm hands slid up and down her arms.
She sighed and allowed herself to lean back against his sturdy chest. “How is he?”
Roderic pulled her into a rare and intimate embrace. Firm lips pressed to the back of her head before he spoke. “The healers gave him a fortifying potion and a milder sleeping draft so he can rest. Are you certain you were not too harsh with him?”
“I’m certain.” She sighed. Her family had given up everything for the Legacy—generations of souls. She’d sacrificed her heart and happiness to uphold what they had built. Now she faced the cost of losing her only child as well. She had never meant to alienate him so much. Somewhere in her efforts to keep him safe under her watch, to protect him from what he was and the consequences of her own impetuous choices, she’d driven him away. Perhaps forever. But she never doubted she’d done what was best. The other paths would have had worse outcomes.
Roderic stroked her shoulders. “What about Audrey?”
She took a sip of coffee and shook her head. The heat of his body slid away, so she wrapped her hands around the mug—a meager replacement. “Too many choices lay ahead of her still. But I can see why he likes her. She certainly has fire.”
A deep chuckle answered her from the sofa. “Told you off, did she?”
She turned with a faint smile. “Quite succinctly.” She joined him, sitting much closer than usual.
He leaned back and stretched one arm along the back, an unspoken invitation. “He cares for her deeply.”
She nodded. “She is either the key to his destiny, or his undoing. I cannot be certain which.” She set her cup down before easing into his side.
Roderic tensed with surprise, but quickly relaxed and wrapped his arm around her as she laid her head on his chest. “They are often one and the same, when a man falls in love.”
The intoxicating scents of cinnamon and pine, his body and magic—the demon and the wolf—filled her senses with bittersweet comfort. “Roderic?”
“Yes?”
“Is he very much like me?”
He stroked her hair, and she could hear the smile in his voice. “Oh, yes. More than one would expect.”
“Not too much, I hope.” She hoped he had more sense. She had tried to challenge her duty to the Legacy and it had cost her. “If I could go back…”
I don’t spend much time thinking about the past, she’d said. But that was a lie. She had many regrets. Especially when it came to her son.
Or his father.
She often wondered why Roderic stayed. His sentence had been paid off years ago. He was no longer magically bound to this place or his post, and she wasn’t naïve enough to think he truly believed in the Synod’s cause—he was an immortal. Was it honor or love that kept him by her side? She never had the courage to ask.
Roderic’s sigh carried the weight of decades of things left unsaid and undone. “There is always the future.”
Patricia fell deeper into the comfort of her most devoted friend and confidant…the only man she’d ever loved.
Even though it was forbidden.
“Yes, there is always the future.”
If only she hadn’t spent her entire life living in fear of it.