The Tragedy of Knowledge (16 page)

“You knew about this!” Samira rushed forward to charge us, but an invisible shield tough as iron hit her head on at the doorway, blocking her from exiting, sending her into a new wave of rage.

“Come on, mates! Hurry it up!” Dali pulled us farther back so he could slam the door shut in her face. I heard the hinges begin to groan and I shot forward to jam my hand in the opening before they closed it off.

“Samira,” I said forcefully, looking her in the face, “I have no idea what’s going on, but you have my word, I’ll be back.”

The look Gavin gave me in that moment was full of an ungodly amount of disgust, but he swallowed it back and waited for me to finish speaking to her. Thinking he had some nerve, looking at me like that, I pulled back and let Dali and Akim allow the door to shut.

“Care to share what the hell is going on?” Gavin asked them, unleashing a protective stance in front of me.

“Quickly, to the windmill. We’ll explain there.” Akim turned to leave, but Gavin’s arm sprang forward and squeezed him so tightly he cried out in pain.

“Remember that human thing called pain?” Gavin spoke through gritted teeth, leaning in close to his face. “I’ll introduce you to it again, and there will be no measure to its end. Everyone and everything I love is within this realm and so help me God, if you do anything to jeopardize their safety any more than I already have, today will be the worst day of your life. The last hundred years you spent in Samira’s doghouse will have
nothing
on today, you got that?”

Dali stepped forward and placed his hand on Gavin’s forearm. “Easy there, mate. We’re not the enemy—she’s in the dungeon right now.”

“Gav,” Josh said, moving closer, “come on, man. Let’s see what they have to say.”

Gavin searched Akim’s face, reluctantly letting go to turn and wrap an arm around my waist. My body stiffened at his touch. “All right, get on with it.”

We zipped around the hill and marched up to the windmill, securing the door shut once inside.

“All right, lovely, take that special book of yours out now,” Akim said, pointing to my bag. He wanted me to hand over the book? The one I’d worked so hard to protect, to guard with my life? It had guided us to this very place, to this very moment. It was our life raft, the only direction we had at this point. It belonged in my hands.

Remembering that time was of the essence and that Samira was locked up in the haven, I realized I had no other choice. I had to trust whatever it was Dali and Akim had to say. The decision made, I pulled the straps from my shoulder and opened the flap, revealing the Book of the Ancients. Gavin opened his own bag and handed me a pack of blood so I could refuel. I gladly accepted, downing it in one gulp before handing the book over to Akim. Even then my fingers gripped the edges, unable to relinquish it. His hand hovered sternly over the cover.

“You can let go now,” he said.

I released it.

“Samira can’t leave the haven,” he said. “Our magic forbids it. We placed a barrier spell on the place shortly after Gérard created Amaranth. We’d discovered the Amaranthians were keeping the place hidden, and it gave us the perfect advantage over Gérard and Samira: knowledge that their kingdom’s people were using the space to meet up and plot against their rule. Not long after we stumbled upon their secret, we decided to use it as a location for trapping Samira when the time was right.”

Josh’s eyebrows rose. “When the time was right? You mean you were planning to trap her back then?”

“Not exactly,” Akim replied, opening the Book of the Ancients. He flipped to the last page, eyes zoning in on the lifeless sketch of Samira and me, the one with the fire intertwined between the span of our fingers. I shifted nervously at the reminder that no one else had seen the illustration yet, only Samira and me. Akim’s chin shot up and he deadpanned me, the muscles along his jaw clenching then releasing.

When he couldn’t seem to find his words, his friend spoke up for him. “It was more of a backup plan, to detain her and drain the city,” Dali said, moving to stand next to him. “In case things got out of hand. We’d seen how the creation of this place changed Gérard. How it changed Samira, too. His greed for power consumed him, and her bitterness was born when she realized he valued this place more than her. Then came the affair, and Arianna’s eighteenth birthday, and well … everything went south after that. We’d seen it coming, just as your father had,” he looked to Gavin while sitting down on a stack of hay. “Sean was a good man. He sensed the shift in Gérard, knew he was turning to the dark side.”

Akim found his voice again. “Sadly, we were a bit too late to do anything about it. The last thing we remember was Samira, in the castle, seizing us with her magic, threatening Gérard, warning him to release her from the Amaranth realm so she could return to earth. He saw she’d frozen us under her magic, but he reached the doorway and just laughed, then strolled away. No remorse for abandoning her … or us.” His hands began shaking in anger as he relived the moment his magic and free will were stripped from him, when one of his supposed best friends left him to suffer without a second thought. I extended a hand to console him.

“So what’s the answer?” I asked. “What do we have to do to end this?”

Dali crossed his arms and inhaled sharply, his gaze holding mine. “Three things cement Gérard’s power: fire, a drop of loyal blood, and a sacrifice. He needed all three to create it, and the same three elements can destroy it.”

“Okay,” Gavin said and straightened, cracking his knuckles. “What kind of fire, blood, and sacrifice are we talking here?”

“He used a circle of fire—created by a designated firestarter,” Dali’s eyes shot to mine, then to Gavin, “a drop of loyal blood, which came from Erica, and a sacrifice: banning Samira to the exile as gatekeeper. At one point in time, his love for her was true.… It really was a sacrifice for him to banish her here for eternity.”

Gavin, Josh, and I all began spewing questions at once; Dali and Akim’s voices were drowned out by our rambling. We realized talking over one another wasn’t getting us anywhere, so we shut up.

Gavin went first. “You said a drop of loyal blood, from my mother. What did she have to do with this?”

Dali pointed to my necklace, once Erica’s necklace. “One of the ingredients needed for the spell that would secure his control as a hybrid was right under his fingertips: a drop of loyal blood.” Leveling his gaze with Gavin, his expression was full of empathy. “He admired your parents’ relationship, saw how devoted they were to one another. He knew your mother would do anything—give anything—to protect your father. So he presented a false protection spell to them one night under the guise of friendship, convincing them it would be cast to protect their love always. He took a drop of your mother’s blood, but instead he used it to secure his power as creator of Amaranth. Erica was the key. Without her, the spell couldn’t be complete. Her heart was loyal to the core. It was easy for Gérard to pull one over on your father, because your father was still new to the conjure world then, was learning to practice magic under Gérard’s instruction.”

Akim stepped closer to continue for his friend, eyeing my necklace as he spoke. “You see, long before Gérard created this realm, he’d been planning to secure power over the witches: experimenting with Samira’s hybrid qualities, creating and revising spells, trying new conjure techniques. In the beginning, he was a witch first and foremost. Later, he created the vampire curse. You were quite young at the time. He was the one who turned your parents into frozen souls.”

Josh gasped and I clutched my chest at hearing this, but Gavin didn’t move, didn’t blink.

Akim started to pace, his hands flailing while he revealed the missing pieces, the parts of the witches’ and vampires’ history upon which we desperately needed light shed. “When the vampires were created, the witches weren’t immediate enemies with them. They disapproved, had resented that Gérard used their magic to create the frozen souls, but they were civil at first. The witches simply saw the creation as an experiment and nothing more. They didn’t realize what he intended to do with it. We—including your father—were the first frozen souls to begin meshing the witches’ magic with our curse’s powers, and for a while, it was harmless. When Gérard discovered the kind of power he had as a hybrid, he changed his tune. Suddenly, he didn’t want the frozen souls to know they could use the witches’ magic amongst their kind.”

“Yes,” Dali agreed, scanning the windmill’s floor as if searching for and retrieving the memories for himself. “That’s when the real trouble began,” he said. “When he started using his hybrid creation for his benefit, coming up with the idea to create Amaranth, to use it as a fulltime energy source. That’s when everything changed between the original witches and the frozen souls.”

“A perversion,” I whispered, recalling Vivienne’s retelling of the witches’ expulsion of the vampires.

“Yes. They saw how Gérard misused their magic, and they immediately lost respect for him … then started to fear him.”

“So were you both … hybrids as well?” I asked.

“Not quite. Gérard made sure that didn’t happen. We were linked to his magic when we began practicing with one another, so our powers were just as strong as any original witch’s. Once we knew about the hybrid abilities, though, Gérard started distancing himself from us … I don’t doubt that’s why he left us the way he did.”

Gavin was in a trance now, his gaze set somewhere past Dali and Akim’s shoulders. Wherever he was, he definitely wasn’t in this windmill. My fingers found my necklace’s locket, my visions of Erica’s room, the skeleton key that unlocked it, and the significance of it all coming into clear view now.

Josh ran a hand through his hair and began pacing like Akim, which made me want to do more than pace. I wanted to run. Fly, then run, and run some more. “So you’re saying we need Erica’s blood again to break the spell?” Josh asked. “Well that should be easy then, right, Gav? She’s here, she’s alive—”

Dali and Akim’s faces lit up. “Erica’s alive?”

“Yeah,” I answered. “Samira decided to keep her around.”

Gavin returned from his trance abruptly, adjusting his backpack and cracking his knuckles again, his nostrils flaring. Shoving one hand in his pocket, he slipped an arm around my waist and ignored their questions. “So, Gérard had a drop of loyal blood, and a sacrifice.” He spat out the words. Then he said, “Well, who was the firestarter?”

“You were,” Dali said softly. “You don’t remember.”

“I’m pretty sure I’d remember something like that.”

Dali nodded, and Akim looked to him, as if to offer his condolences for being a bearer of such bad news. “One night while you were out with your friends, Gérard found you and pulled you aside. He used mind compulsion to lure you into Amaranth for the ritual.”

Gavin’s jaw ticked and he shook his head slowly, his anger visibly festering beneath his trembling frame. “Well, that’s just wonderful. So let’s reverse the damn thing and be done with it. I’ve had enough lies!” He stepped away from me, lunging forward to take Dali and Akim by the scruffs of their necks. “Do you hear me? This is over! All of it. Right now.”

“Gavin!” I screeched, Josh surging forward with me to pull Gavin off them.

“Gav, take it easy, man, they’re trying to help!” Josh said.

“Help?” Gavin shouted. “They sat back and watched all of this happen, from the beginning.” He shot the men another menacing look. “You watched Gérard use, lie to and destroy my family, under the guise of family friends! Not to mention the countless other lives here and on earth, all ruined because of that bastard. I’ll make damn sure you get everything you deserve when this is over.”

I wanted to scream,
Gavin, don’t burn this bridge just yet. We need these guys to tell us how to complete the spell!
But the words wouldn’t come. My heart and insides were completely leveled by the betrayal and hurt on his face, even after the betrayal he’d inflicted on me, because damn it, I loved him anyway. All of his pain was overshadowed by the anger, but I could see it, could feel it there, simmering just beneath the surface, and it was a god-awful feeling I could relate to. It was the feeling I’d had every time I’d realized I’d welcomed yet another toxic relationship into my life, each time I’d sold a piece of my dignity to the highest bidder. And it was the feeling that consumed me when I’d faced the harsh reality that once again, my addict mother had disappointed me. That she wasn’t and couldn’t ever be reliable, no matter how many times I placed my trust in her. She’d simply pick it up and shatter it into a million pieces over and over again, resulting in the same raw affliction that now dressed Gavin’s face.

He was in no condition to finish this conversation, and he was about to pulverize our only connections to the key that would end Gérard and Samira’s kingdom once and for all. As angry as I was with him for how he went about this mission, one truth remained: He wanted justice, and I couldn’t fault him for that.

I swallowed and staggered forward to Dali and Akim with a deep breath. “He’s upset. Please show us how to cast the spell. You need me to get a drop of Erica’s blood? Okay, done. What else do you need? I’ll do it. I’ll do anything.
Please
.”

Akim crossed his arms, hesitating, and behind me I could hear Josh trying to calm Gavin down. “It doesn’t work that way,” Akim finally said. “The same elements will destroy Gérard, but the spell must be recreated.”