Shocker? I think not.
He pressed his lips together, his arms crossed over his chest as his eyes wandered around to all of us.
“Alex.” My mom’s voice was persuasive. “I understand your initial reaction is to keep things a secret—it’s what you’ve been taught to do. But it’s important that you tell me what you know, so we can stop the end of the world from happening.”
He still seemed hesitant. “Where do you want me to start?”
My mother considered this. “Why don’t you start from the beginning?”
“But, what is the beginning?” Alex asked, like he was asking a riddle.
My mother was patient, though. “Why don’t you start with the day that Gemma’s soul was detached. Do you remember what happened that day?”
He glanced at me, and I raised my eyebrows at him, implying to go ahead, because boy was I dying to hear this.
“The day Gemma’s soul was taken away…” He shut his eyes for a moment and then opened them back up. “She and I were hiding out in that little fort in the side of the hill, because earlier my father had told us Gemma had to go away.”
I touched the palm of my hand where the faintest of scars resided, remembering the vision I saw. How he had cut my hand and his, saying the words forem as he pressed them together. It was a word I still didn’t know the meaning of. One of these days, I think, I was going to have to invest in buying a Latin Translator Pocket Dictionary, if such a thing existed.
Alex must have noticed me touching my hand, because he clenched his own. “But he ended up finding us and took Gemma away. I never saw her again...Well, until my dad made me enroll in school to see if I could get to the bottom of why she started to feel.”
“And what happened between all those years when you didn’t see Gemma,” my mother asked, urging him for more details.
He was holding back—I could tell, but my mom asked him again, and he gave in. “Basically, my father trained me and Aislin to be Keepers, but he focused more on me because Aislin was busy getting taught how to use her witch power.”
My mom nodded. “And what happened while your father was training you to be a Keeper? Did he teach you to be emotionally closed off?”
“Emotionally closed off,” I gaped at my mother, wondering if she was losing it again. “No mom that was me.”
My mom kept her eyes on Alex, and he swallowed hard.
“Not so much emotionally detached,” he said, really struggling to keep his voice under control. “He would always tell me emotions are overrated, and that to be a good Keeper, I had to keep my emotions under control and only show them on the outside, but not feel them on the inside…something that’s not always possible for me to do….at least sometimes.” Alex looked more confused than I had ever seen him look, as if he was trying to figure something out, but just couldn’t get there. Then, he glared at my mother. “I really don’t get what any of this has to do with the star’s power and the end of the world.”
“It has everything to do with it,” my mother told him and rolled up the sleeves of the ratty old shirt she was wearing. “I just have one more question before I explain what I know. The day Gemma started to feel, were you there at her house?”
I’m pretty sure that everyone’s eyes, including my own, widened in shock.
“Why the heck would you think that?” Alex asked, baffled. “I wasn’t allowed to be near her.”
“I understand that,” my mom’s voice was calm. “But I need to know if, by some chance, you decided to break the rule your father set of not being allowed to go near her.”
Everyone waited for him to answer, but I’m sure I was the one most eager to hear what he was going to say.
Alex gazed out at the ocean, his bright green eyes twinkling in the sun like emeralds. “It was something I couldn’t help…going there.”
“I understand that,” my mom said. “More than I think even you do.”
I didn’t get what was going on here. Why hadn’t Alex told me this? Then again, why was I getting surprised over this? This was Alex. But, I don’t know, I thought he’d been a little better about not keeping secrets. I guess I was wrong.
“So, you were at Marco and Sophia’s the day my emotions returned,” I asked Alex, angrily. “And you never told me.”
He avoided looking at me as he shrugged. ‘It wasn’t that big of a deal. I mean, so what if I went there.”
“Alex, I’m fairly sure you’re the one who brought Gemma’s emotions back to her,” my mom said as patiently as ever. “See there’s a connection between you two, which is where the electricity comes from.”
“What’s the connection?” My words rushed out.
She took a deep breath, and said two simple words. But they were two words that would change everything.
“The star.”
Chapter 40
“The star,” I repeated my mother’s words. “How does that connect us? I mean, it’s only in me so I…” I trialed off as a thought occurred to me. Electricity that flowed between two people—it was something that always seemed so impossible, yet every time I was around Alex, there it was. I could feel it buzzing right now, hot and shimmering. But, I only felt it with Alex and never anyone else, which meant what…oh. “Does Alex have a star’s power in him too?”
“Are you crazy?” Alex practically yelled at me. “Why would you even think that?”
I glared at him. “Why would someone ever think I was carrying around a star’s energy inside me? They wouldn’t. But yet I am.”
“I don’t know…” He had this look on his face like he was trying to cause trouble. “They might, considering how you are.”
“What unemotional,” I said furiously.
“Okay, you two,” my mother interrupted, which was a good thing because I could feel the electricity on the rise, so things were about to get really heated. “Alex, Gemma’s right. You do have a star’s energy in you. Not a separate star, but the same one.”
Alex was shaking his head. “No. There’s no way. How could a star’s power accidently get transferred into Gemma and me?”
“Because it wasn’t an accident,” my mother said and motioned her hand around at all of us. “None of it was. All of this—all of you happened for a reason. Gemma having the star in her—you having the star in you. Aislin being a witch, and Laylen being a vampire. None of this was an accident.”
My heart was beating a million miles a minute, like an insane humming bird was in my chest. I glanced at Laylen, remembering how Nicholas said Stephan had created him, and how Laylen had told me he couldn’t recollect how he had been changed. Memory loss, just like me.
“So what you’re saying,” Laylen said, speaking slowly as if he’d forgotten how to form words. “Is that I was bitten on purpose—that Stephan had a vampire bite me?”
My mother nodded and then looked at all of us gravely. “Stephan has been planning this out for years—ever since he found out the portal could be opened.” She sighed, looking drowsy. “Stephan’s been looking for a way to free Malefiscus since the mark first appeared on his face. No one knew about his mark, though, because his parents cut it off and tried to keep it hidden. I didn’t even know he had it until it was too late.” She swallowed hard. “Stephan is a descendent of Malefiscus, but I’m not sure how. I don’t think either of his parents bore the mark.”
“I still don’t get it, though.” Alex said. “You say all of us play a part. But play a part in what?”
“Well, for starters, in freeing Malefiscus” my mom explained. “Stephan’s been trying to free him even before he was told he could by a Foreseer. It was through visions that he finally figured out the exact details of what he had to do to pull it off—a sort of step-by-step guide.”
“But I thought Malefiscus being immortal was just a myth?” Laylen asked, putting his feet up on the bottom railing.
My mother shook her head. “He could create marks, just like Stephan can. Although, I’m pretty sure Stephan himself hasn’t been able to create the Mark of Immortality…yet.”
“Yet?” I asked. “Does that mean he will?”
“It’s only a matter of time,” my mom said, nodding. “He’ll find a way eventually.”
I thought about the Death Walkers and how difficult they were to kill and how the Sword of Immortality was one of the few things that could kill them. And how, in the end of the world vision I saw, Stephan had had the sword. As of now, we still had the sword, but did this mean we would end up losing it?
Aislin, who had been sitting silently in her chair, looking very much freaked out, suddenly sputtered out, “But why does he need a witch…and a vampire. And why did he have to create them?”
My mother took a shaking breath, grasping her hands together. “Not a lot of people know this, but during Malefiscus’s reign of time, it wasn’t just the Death Walkers who were terrorizing people. There were some witches, vampires, fey, and even a couple of Foreseers who had joined him.” My mom took another sip of her water and when she placed it back on the railing it tipped over and tumbled off the side of the deck. She shook her head. “When Hektor finally captured Malefiscus, the Keepers had to come up with a way to make his followers surrender. So they put Malefiscus in a portal and sealed it with the blood of three individuals; a Keeper who also was a vampire, a Keeper who was also a witch, and a Keeper who was also a faerie. That way the fey, witches, and vampires who followed Malefiscus would be bound to the portal as well, without the Keepers having to track them all down. “
I glanced at Aislin, who was a witch and a Keeper, and Laylen who was a vampire and a Keeper. There was one piece missing here—a half-faerie, half-Keeper. So who was the missing link?