“How did you manage to find out who your father was?” Nicholas asked, ignoring my question. “And how did you get a hold of his mapping ball?”
“My mom gave it to me.” I lied.
He leaned back in the sofa and rested his arms behind his head. “You managed to save her then?”
I was kind of surprised he didn’t know this already, since we created such an uproar during our escaped from The Underworld. “Yeah and without your help I might add.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that.” He grinned at me. “Seeing is how you got the Ira from me.”
“After you kidnapped me and chained me to the wall,” I snapped.
“So what’s the purpose of the mapping ball,” Alex interrupted, picking up the mapping ball and examining it over.
Nicholas rolled his eyes. “I already told you it’s to keep track of the things someone has done in their lifetime.” He nodded at the mapping ball. “If that is your dads, then when we go inside it, we should be able to follow a map of his life.”
Alex’s forehead creased over. “Why would your dad give this to you?” he asked me.
“I thought you said your mom gave it to you.” Nicholas leaned forward, a look of intrigue rising on his face.
I shot Alex a way-to-go look; it was not like Alex to be so careless. “My dad said it would tell me how to save the world from Stephan and his deathly minions.” I paused, the wheels in my head turning. “If it holds a map of his life, then maybe I can see what vision he erased and recreated to make it so Stephan could end the world.” I looked at Nicholas, curious to see how he reacted to what I said.
He clapped his hands. “Bravo on figuring that one out.”
“You knew that already?” I asked, getting pissed off.
He shrugged.“I know a lot of things I don’t choose to share.”
“But you didn’t say anything and you have to—you made a Blood Promise.” I shot Alex a worried look, wondering what happened, but he looked just as lost as me.
“They’re called loopholes, Gemma,” Nicholas informed me with a pleased grin. “You have to ask me the question in order for me to tell you what I know.”
There are always loopholes—my mother told me this once. “Okay, so do you know how to fix all of this then?” I asked.“Do you know what I need to do?”
Nicholas smile was all trickery. “I do. Would you like me tell you?”
Freaking Faeries. “Yes. I am asking you to please share everything that you know about mapping balls and Stephan’s evil plan.”
Aislin’s cell phone rang from inside the pocket of her khaki shorts. She took it out and glanced down at the screen. “Whose number is that?” She got to her feet. “Hello,” she said into her phone as she walked out of the room.
I turned my attention back to Nicholas. “So what do you know?”
“What do I know...Well, for starters that little buzzing connection you two have is going to kill you if you can’t tone it down, ” Nicholas said, clearly amused with himself. My face fell as he continued, “it’s not necessarily your closeness that will do it, though, so much as making that little connection of yours heat up. The more the electricity that flows between you two, the more energy the star loses and the more energy you two lose. And if you lose too much you both die.”
“How do you know all this?” I stammered. “How do you even know about the electricity?” Hardly anyone knew about that.
“Stephan informed me when he marked me.” He glared down at the black triangle tracing the red symbol tattooed on his arm.
“But how does Stephan even know about our connection?” I glanced at Alex. “Did you tell him?”
Alex shook his head. “I didn’t tell him…” His gaze wandered to the doorway of the kitchen. “Dammit, Aislin.”
Aislin peeked out, the phone still pressed to her ear. “What?”
Alex scowled at her. “You told Stephan about the electricity?”
Aislin pulled an oh-crap face. “I’m on the phone,” she hissed and ducked back into the kitchen.
I took a deep breath, struggling to keep my freaking out contained. “So if we can control the electricity and keep it to a bare minimum, then we won’t die?”
Nicholas raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Can you control it?”
I met Alex’s eyes, and sparks instantly crackled like a wildfire. Could we control it? Maybe…if we could keep our emotions and intense looks contained.
“I think we might be able to,” I said, my eyes locked on Alex, who seemed to be waiting for my answer.
“Of course we can,” he said as if it were the easiest thing in the world. Lucky him, because I had a feeling it was going to be difficult. At least for me it was.
“So we go inside the mapping ball, find out what vision my dad changed and then what?” I asked. “I mean, I still don’t get how I erased and recreated what happened to me on the beach…I mean there was two of me.”
“That’s where everything becomes tricky.” Nicholas grabbed the mapping ball from Alex’s hands, got up, and walked toward me. Alex started to get to his feet, but I shook my head, telling him to stay put. “You see the thing about visions,” Nicholas sat down on the couch beside me. “Is that everything is connected to each other.”
I scooted away from him. “I’m not sure what you mean?”
Nicholas stared down at the mapping ball. “In the Foreseer world, every vision is connected.”
“Okay…” Where was he going with this?
Sensing my confusion, he explained further. “Say you make the decision to become a singer, so, you go down to the local talent show and try out, win, and go on to become a famous singer.”
“But I can’t sing,” I told him, even though I knew he was talking hypothetically.
He flashed me an annoyed look as he went on, “Each one of those events that took place would be their own vision. The decision, the trying out, and the winning—all of them led to you becoming famous.”
“I still don’t get what you’re saying.”
“I’m saying they’re all connected to one another—each one had to happen in order for the other one to happen.”
Ding. The light bulb in my head finally turned on. “So if I never made the decision to become a singer, then none of the rest would have happened.”
“Exactly,” Nicholas said. “And if a Foreseer wanted to change your life, he could just alter the first event and it could change everything from that point on. Say he put the idea in your head to become a ballerina, and on your way to trying out, you left a minute later because you had to put on your tutu. And because you left one minute later you get in a car accident and die.”
Yeah, like I would ever wear a tutu. “But how could changing what I wanted to be, change my life that much.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of the butterfly effect?” he asked.
“Vaguely,” I replied.
“Well, it’s like that,” Nicholas explained. “Change one small thing in your life and it can greatly affect the rest of it.” He paused, mulling something over. “I’m not sure what your father erased and recreated in order to get the world to end, but in order for us to stop it, without doing more damage, the best thing to do is to erase him before he changes it.”
“What?” I gaped at him. “Erase my dad?”
“Not in the sense of erasing your actual father.” Nicholas said. “We would go into the mapping ball, find the memory of your father where he changed the vision, and erase him before he does it…like you did with yourself on the beach.”
I was kind of getting it now. “Okay, so we go into the mapping ball, filled with all of my dad’s memories of his life, find the one where he changed the world’s future, and I place a hand on him and erase him before he does?”
Nicholas nodded. “Pretty much, yes.”
“And how are we supposed to find the memory? I mean it could take forever.”
Nicholas smiled, tapping the side of his head. “The answers are in here.”
I frowned. “In your head?”
He winked at me. “In yours.”
My dad had also said this, but what did it mean? “Can you please explain what that means?”
“I will when we get in there,” he said simply.
I sighed, hoping he wasn’t toying with me. “And what if the vision my father changed is still bad?” I asked, casting a glance at Alex. I’m not sure why, but I suddenly thought of the vision I kept having, where he and I are at the lake and the light smothers us.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s how things were—or, are supposed to be.” Nicholas traced the Foreseer’s mark circling his wrist. “Despite how powerful some of us get, Foreseers are only supposed to see visions, not change them or control them to our liking.”
At that moment, Nicholas actual seemed like a good person who cared about the world. It was weird seeing him like that, all serious and somewhat normal.
My father, on the other hand, seemed like the opposite. He had changed a vision so the world would end in the most horrible way. Everything would freeze over and all the witches, fey, vampires, and Death Walkers connected to Malefiscus would run the streets killing everyone.
“So how do we get inside the mapping ball?” I asked. The sooner we put everything back together, the sooner we could all have a normal life…at least I hope that’s what waited for us in the future.
“That’s the tricky part,” he said.
I rubbed my forehead, which was throbbing from the stress. “You’ve already said that like twice.”
“Well, this one’s tricky as well.” He spun the mapping ball around in his hand. “This thing uses a lot of power.”
I pointed at myself.“Like the power of a unique Foreseer.”