Bailey Morgan [2] Fate (35 page)

In the mirror, it was red.

“Part human,” I said. “Part Sidhe. Somebody once told me that the power was in the blood, that our connection to this world was in the blood.” I turned toward my friends. With shaking hands, Annabelle unclasped her necklace and mimicked my actions, slicing her own palm open. I touched my hand to hers, allowing her blood to run into my wound and mine into hers.

“My power. My blood. Our connection,” I whispered.

Delia was lightning quick with her clasp, and Zo didn't even bother with it at all, ripping the necklace off instead.

“My power. My blood. Our connection.”

I repeated the words, once for Delia and once for Zo. The necklace grew hotter and hotter in my hand as my friends and I shared blood, and in my mind, a tiny buzz grew into something louder, until the sound of
rushing water in my ears made it out of my mouth in the form of a spell.

The moment the last word left my mouth, each of our wounds exploded into light and disappeared, and when my eyes recovered from the explosion, I took in the most beautiful sight I'd ever seen.

My friends were standing on Mount Olympus, just as they'd been a moment before, but now they were sparkling, diamonds sewn into their skin with the power of my spell, their hair glowing not one color, but two.

I was in them. They were in me. And all four of us were Sidhe.

“How dare you?” Eze's voice was low in pitch, but big on volume. “You would defile your birthright, you would share what you have no right to claim in the first place? That your blood is muddied with mortality is something we have forced ourselves to overlook. That you would dilute it further and willingly take on more humanity to give these abominations a portion of your power is an insult that we will not bear.”

Drogan did not follow the Queen of Light in her display of emotion, but rather spoke calmly and coolly. “You said you would pledge,” he said. “You have not. To be Reckoned means to choose between the courts and to align yourself with one of the ancient lines of power. You cannot pledge to your friends.” He spat out the last word like it was an obscenity. “Your word is
binding. You must pledge, and as they carry your blood, they will be bound by your decision. We offered you a chance to choose your path. Now you will be choosing your end—and theirs, for as my sister said, this is an insult that we will not bear.”

That wasn't exactly the way I'd planned on this going. I'd been so sure that this was the solution that it didn't even occur to me to wonder what would happen after I'd shared my blood. It had seemed so perfect: instead of having one half-Sidhe in the mortal realm, we'd have four, which would perfectly balance the fact that the other two Fates lived in this one. Beyond that, I was hoping that making my decision would right my own imbalance, which would put the barrier back up full force, and that meant no more visits from Aphrodite, the Furies, et al. Plus, if my friends had Sidhe blood, I wouldn't have to worry about Eze and Drogan's ominous warnings about what happened to mortals who lived too long in this realm.

See? Perfect.

Only not, because if swearing loyalty to my friends didn't count as pledging, that meant that I still had to bind myself to one of the rulers of the Otherworld, and that, apparently, meant bloody death for my entire group.

Way to go, Bailey.

“You can't kill her!”

At first, I thought someone was sticking up for me, but when I located the source of that statement, I found myself staring at Xane, who was looking at Delia.

“Another one?” Zo asked Delia. “Do you have to rack up boyfriends
everywhere
we go?”

“Silence!” Drogan yelled.

For a second, he had exactly what he'd asked for, but then a melodic voice spoke from somewhere behind me.

“You always were rather dramatic.” With those seemingly benign words, the voice's owner began walking toward us, and the crowd of Sidhe parted for her. “Hello, brother.”

Remember what I said about not liking Morgan?
Zo said silently.
Forget that. Lady has a heckuva sense of timing.

Personally, I could have done with Morgan coming before death threats had been issued, but at this point, I was too entranced by the interaction between the three most powerful Sidhe to care.

Eze refused to acknowledge Morgan's presence. Drogan glared at her and hissed something in a language I didn't understand.

“It's been a long time since I stood on this mountain,” Morgan said. “Many millennia have gone by in the human world since I've come here to watch another choose.” She smiled. “In fact, I haven't been here since my own Reckoning, the day my brother, sister, and I came into power and split our world among the three of us. They demanded your fealty, divided you between them. I chose a different path. I became one with our waters and, through them, the waters of the mortal world. I've spent these years in both worlds, allowing the courts their will in most things.”

“You have no place here,” Eze said. “You have no power to undo what has already been done. The child agreed to pledge. Her word is binding. She will fulfill it, or the blood in her veins will turn against her and she will plead with us for an easier death.”

Okay, the Sidhe seriously needed to be more specific when they told someone that their word was binding, because I'd had no idea what I was getting myself into.

“The child has already pledged,” Morgan said. “You just weren't listening closely enough. ‘I give this gift, with lake and sea, river and water, so mote it be.’ ” Morgan somehow managed to make jovial look elegant. “She didn't pledge to the mountain or the caves. She pledged to the waters. In other words, she pledged to me.”

I did? Could I even do that?

“She can't do that!” Eze said.

Drogan expanded upon his sister's objection, loathing oozing out of his voice. “You don't have a court. You chose to sequester yourself. To live in both worlds rather than allow anyone in this world to bind themselves to you. Remember?”

“And it surprises you that I would choose to begin my court with a child who belongs to both worlds? It is my right to have one. It has always been my right, and I have never forsworn it. Bailey has pledged herself, and her friends, to me, and I have accepted them. Bailey's word has been fulfilled; she has been Reckoned, and thus it will be.”

Delia couldn't help herself. Feeling safer with Morgan here, she spoke up for the first time since the Reckoning had begun. “Take that!” Then she turned to Xane and mouthed something that looked suspiciously like “Call me.”

“We will wage war on your so-called court. With four half-breeds, what hope do you have of standing against all of us?”

“Make that five.” James stepped forward. “Anyone up for a double Reckoning? I'm suddenly feeling ready.” Without waiting for an answer, he walked over to me and held his hand out. It took me a second to realize what he was reaching for.

My necklace.

I gave it to him and, with a huge smile plastered across his face, he cut his palm. I felt the searing pain in my own, and when I looked down, I realized that my wound had been reopened. I glanced at my friends and found them bleeding as well.

“Well,” James said, “I'm not that great at the rhyming thing, but I pledge myself to Morgan's court and freely share my blood with these lovely ladies.” He winked at me, and for the first time since I'd discovered the truth, he seemed more like the James I'd met than the one who'd betrayed me. He followed the wink with a shy smile, and in that second, he seemed like the Alec I'd partway fallen for as well. “Here goes nothing.”

His palm touched mine, but somehow it felt like our lips were touching instead, even though a blood transfusion was a pretty weird version of a first kiss. As
James moved past me to my friends, Axia stepped forward, Lyria at her heels. They didn't speak any words out loud, but as Eze watched, her eyes deadly, they took their turns with my razor-sharp pendant.

“I used to think that when we ruled, this court would be different,” Axia said. “But I don't think you'll ever willingly step down from the throne, Mother, and I don't think you'll ever change. I want to be part of the kind of court I would have led. I pledge myself to the seas, to Morgan, and to Bailey, who taught me that humanity is something worth having.”

Lyria cleared her throat and delivered her own speech. “Me too.”

Was this really happening? Had Eze's daughters just come over to our side? This was absolutely unreal!

“You would have killed Delia,” Xane said, never moving from his father's side. “She is most annoying and quite bossy, but I find her intriguing, and I cannot abide that you would see her dead for nothing more than revenge.”

“You've known him, what? Like five hours?” Zo said. “And four of those you were stuck inside a freaking mountain! Seriously, Delia, we can't take you anywhere.”

Despite Xane's words, he seemed to be having a great deal of trouble actually moving, but when he finally took the first step toward me, he ended up leading close to a dozen others. The Muses. Eros. A guy I'd never even seen before.

One by one, we shared blood, and one by one, Morgan's court grew.

Kiste and Cyna stood by, aligning themselves with the old guard, their hatred for me and for what James had done clear in their every expression. Of all the un-Reckoned Sidhe I'd met, they were the only ones who stood against us.

“You planned this,” Eze said, fury and—if it were possible—hurt clear in her voice. “All of these years, you've been planning to take our children from us, and for what?”

Morgan smiled, but it was a soft, sad expression on her face. “For the future. Your daughter said it best, Eze. Humanity is something worth having, and it's high time that there was a court in this world that wasn't afraid to be a little bit human.”

Eze had accused me of defiling my Sidhe blood by sharing it with my friends, but in the end, it was my human half that others needed the most. I could feel the balance inside of me, could feel the blood of each of the others offsetting what I'd given away, but somehow, sharing my humanity with the Sidhe didn't lessen the way it pulsed through my own veins.

Despite everything, I was human and Sidhe, both at the same time, instead of somewhere in between. I was a balance to myself, only this time I'd been the one to find the balance, and no matter what happened, nobody could take that—or my friends—away.

Seven and a Half Months Later

“Today is a new beginning. Some people would call it the beginning of adulthood, the genesis of the rest of our lives, but I prefer to think of it simply as the beginning of now. Just as every minute of every day has led up to this moment, so this moment leads us to something new. This is not a turning point; it is neither the beginning nor the end of life as we know it. It is the continuation of everything that we've become, and the beginning of everything that we might be in the future. This moment has never happened before and will never happen again, but with each passing minute, hour, day, we will be faced with new moments, new beginnings, new opportunities to become the people that we wish to be.”

Blah, blah, blah, blah.

I elbowed Zo in the side. After all, that was her cousin up there giving the valedictorian speech. The
least she could do was act impressed and refrain from making grumbling comments inside my head.

Hey, just be glad I'm not shooting lightning bolts at the pep squad.

For about the millionth time, I wished that the mix of blood in Zo's veins hadn't resulted in her acquiring Xane's affinity for lightning. After years of complaining about getting the short end of the powers stick, she'd hit the jackpot this time around, with equal doses of lightning and fire. It took all three of us—and the occasional visit from Morgan—to keep her in line.

“Right now, in this second, it doesn't matter if you have plans. It doesn't matter if you're leaving home or staying close, or if you don't know what happens next at all. What matters is this moment, the decisions you make right now about who and what you want to be, about what lessons you want to take with you from this place, and what things you want to grow past and leave behind. Once this moment is gone, it will never come again. Use it wisely.”

I glanced at Delia, who was using this moment wisely to braid and unbraid her hair—with telekinesis. I would have been worried that someone else would see her, but Delia was almost as strong at applying the glamour as Lyria was, and besides me, Annabelle, and Zo, all anyone else would have seen was a girl with thick hair, a perfect smile, and a graduation robe that had been accessorized to capacity and beyond.

Up on the stage, Annabelle continued her speech, perfectly in tune with her audience's emotions. Lyria said that Annabelle had always been a little empathic
and that maybe that was why she'd chosen her as a target for possession to begin with, but now A-belle had surpassed the former heir in her ability to read others. Luckily, though, Annabelle didn't have to worry about manipulating other people's emotions, because the single trace of expath ability she'd gotten in the mix only showed up when she chose to take on a nonhuman form. Since Annabelle didn't exactly make maximum use of the shape-shifting she'd inherited from James, most of the time she had her powers firmly under control.

“Today is a time for remembering and a time for looking forward, but more than anything, it is a time for living, a time that exists between yesterday and tomorrow for whatever purpose you design. Somebody once asked me if I believed in destiny, and if there's anything that senior year has taught me, it's that we can make our own destinies. I believe that the extraordinary is out there, waiting to happen, and that the ordinary might be the most precious thing of all.”

As for the results of me mixing blood with the rest of Morgan's court, not much had changed. I was Life, the Third Fate, and that wasn't something a little spell could alter. The only difference was that now I understood the pattern I wove a little bit better, because when it came to weaving or painting, dancing, singing, or any kind of art, I was, for lack of a better word,
inspiring.

Unfortunately, I was pretty sure you couldn't major in
inspiration.

“So if you only remember one thing from this
speech, remember this. For all you know, this moment, this second, or the next, or the next, could be your destiny. It's not about having plans. It's about having purpose and being who, not what, you want to be. Today is about possibilities, and even when they feel finite, I have it on good authority that they are endless. Thank you.”

Annabelle walked gracefully away from the podium, just a hint of gazelle in her step.

As she took her seat at the end of our row and the principal came to the microphone and began calling out names, I wondered how I could have ever thought that this moment would be the end. A-belle was right. We made our own destinies, and even if ours hadn't included a few mystical twists, the four of us would have survived. Blood or no blood, they were part of me and I was part of them, and something as trivial as splitting up for college didn't stand a chance against everything we had shared.

A lifetime of friendship.

Four years in high school.

Hundreds of sleepovers.

Countless mall trips.

Two mystical adventures.

The list went on and on, and as Delia's name was called and she sashayed toward her diploma, I smiled. Somewhere in the crowd, Xane was probably watching this, completely Delia-whipped and significantly geekier than any former heir had a right to be. James was probably with him, magicked to look like somebody else. For all I knew, the entire court—Morgan included—
might have shown up. The barrier was closed again, and even the most liminal of times and places didn't allow for much crossing over, but, like Morgan, her court lived in both worlds, something that only those with a lot of power or a little humanity could do.

By the time the principal reached the
Ks,
I was starting to get fidgety, but I kept myself calm, for Anna-belle's sake, lest my emotions bleed over onto hers.

Just think about tonight,
I told myself.
Think about weaving life. Think about running through the Other-world. Think about the party the Court of Awesome is going to throw once we get there.

Ultimately, it was thinking the name Delia had bestowed upon Morgan's court that banished my nervousness. Officially, we were Morgan's Court, or the Court of Water, but everybody who was anybody knew that we were the Court of Awesome, no questions asked.

“Bailey Marie Morgan.”

The principal called my name, and I stood up, my legs shaky as I walked forward and grabbed my diploma. This wasn't the end. This was a beginning of new adventures, for all of us, and no matter where we went in this world, Annabelle, Delia, Zo, and I would always have the Otherworld. We would always have one another.

As I turned to walk back to my seat, the cheers grew louder, and for just an instant, I saw through the glamour the other members of our court had cast. James was hooting. Xane was clapping in a very dignified fashion.

Lyria and Axia had both managed whistles, and the Muses appeared to be doing some kind of dance in my honor.

As for Morgan, she simply inclined her head as if this was what she had expected of me all along.

I sat back down next to my friends, and the Others disappeared. Annabelle got her diploma, and then Zo, and before I knew it, we were throwing our graduation caps up in the air and hugging one another.

“So,” I said, “who's driving to the after party?”

“Not Delia,” Zo said quickly.

“Not Zo,” Annabelle put in.

“Hey!” Delia said. Zo opted for something a little less PG, and she might have added a tiny lightning shock to the mix had it not been for the fact that something about the situation struck me as so inexplicably funny that I couldn't help cracking up.

Like Annabelle had said, this was our moment, and as far as I was concerned, it was perfect.