“I didn’t pass out,” I tell him. “I went into a vision... I think, anyway” At least with the first thing I saw. The second one I’m not sure of, but the idea that it could be a vision scares the living daylights out of me.
He leans away, taken aback. “But you weren’t touching a crystal.”
“I know,” I say. “But I think I might be able to go in them without a crystal.”
He gapes at me unfathomably. “Seriously?”
I shrug. “I’m not sure… All I know is that I enter things sometimes, just like I enter a vision, only I don’t have a crystal.”
“Does anyone else know about this?”
“I don’t think so.”
Laylen shakes his head incredulously. “Jesus, one minute you were sitting here and the next thing you fell over.” His lips quirk upward. “Do you know how much of a pain in the ass it was to catch your dead weight?
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall over.” I swing my legs to the floor, preparing to sit up. “For a second I thought I was just remembering stuff about my childhood, but then, the next thing I knew, I’d entered a vision about my past.” I let out a breath, preparing to tell him what else I saw and to ask him about the triangular symbol. I want to know what it represents and if it’s a Mark.
“So you went into a vision?” Nicholas asks and Laylen and I jump, startled by his sudden appearance on the sofa across from us. Damn it. “Without a crystal?”
This is bad, very, very bad. Nicholas should not have this kind of information on me and I have a feeling he’s going to use it against me.
I lift Laylen’s hand off my shoulder, sit up, and get a head rush. I blink a few times while I wait for the room to stop spinning in blurs and streaks of color. “Did I hit my head?” I ask Laylen. “When I blacked out?”
“No, I caught you before you did.” He helps me sit up and then examines my eyes. “But didn’t Alex say you hit your head when you went to get him.” He nods his head in Nicholas’s direction.
I press my fingertips to my head and wince at the tender spot on the temple. “I have a really bad headache.”
“So,” Nicholas interrupts, marveling at me as though I am the most fascinating thing he has ever laid eyes on. He inclines forward in the sofa and overlaps his hands on his knee “You can go into a vision without the help of a crystal…how fascinating.”
“I guess that’s what I did,” I mutter, racking my brain for a way out of this, but my mind’s foggy with pain from the earlier fall as well as from the memory I’ve just witnessed.
“How long have you known you could do it?” Nicholas asks with way too much interest.
I shrug as I scratch my head. “Not too long I don’t think.”
“Do you know how rare that is?” Nicholas asks. “Jesus, I’ve never even met a Foreseer who could do it.”
“Well, I’m not one-hundred percent sure that’s what I can do.” I shrug, unsure what to say that would make the situation better. “I’m just guessing.”
“No, you can… I can sense it all over you now that I know what to look for.” Nicholas’s eyes devour me, drifting over my entire body, and I wrap my arms around myself as I squirm from his unrelenting gaze. “I’ve only heard of one other Foreseer who could do it and that’s Dyvinius’s younger brother,” he says. “Who’s been a Foreseer for a really long time, and comes from a line of many, many powerful Foreseers. He isn’t some girl who just got her Foreseer’s mark only a couple of days ago. Do you know how unlikely it is for anyone to be able to do that? You would have to be…” He trails off, mulling over something, his forehead furrowing.
“Have to be what?” I wonder, glancing at Laylen. We exchange a curious glance and then Laylen chimes in.
“Nicholas, just finish the damn sentence,” he says in a low, commanding tone.
“Very powerful,” Nicholas finishes, glaring at him. “You better watch it, Vampire boy. I might be here to help, but I can very easily leave.”
Laylen’s expression darkens and I note that his lip twitches. For a second, I swear his fangs descend, though then I blink and he looks normal.
“So about the Ira?” I ask, changing the subject, knowing the clock is ticking. The longer I sit and argue, the more time my mom spends down in The Underworld. “Where is it?”
Nicholas smirks as he pats the pocket of his pants. “Safe and sound.”
I stick out my hand. “Can I see it?”
He shakes his head. “Not until I get my fraxinus invisibili.” His eyes wander to the doorway and I’m surprised to find Aislin’s there with a small, velvet bag in her hand. “Do you have it?” he asks her.
She doesn’t respond right away, and then, reluctantly, she stomps across the room and drops the bag into Nicholas’s lap. He grins and she turns away, looking at Laylen.
“I’ll be in the store if you need anything.” He eyes glide over me as she turns to leave the room. There’s something about her; sadness and pain along with longing in her eyes. It hurts my heart and I turn to Laylen the moment she walks out.
“Go check on her,” I tell him. “Something’s wrong.”
He glances at Nicholas. “What about him?”
“He’s fine,” I say, waving him off. “Now go.”
He dithers momentarily then gets up and hurries out of the room.
“Trouble in paradise?” Nicholas wonders, getting comfy on the sofa. “Let me guess, your beautiful eyes have gotten in the way of their love.”
I scowl at him, placing my hands on my hips. “That’s none of your business.”
His expression lights up with enthusiasm. “So it’s true.”
“No, it’s not true you a**hole,” I say. “Now show me the Ira.”
He picks up the bag on his lap, unlaces the golden ribbon on it, and glances inside, looking pleased before he ties it back up and sets it aside on the apothecary table.
“Show me the Ira,” I repeat firmly.
He rolls his eyes yet tolerates me, slipping a shimmering teal crystal ball out of the pocket of his pants. He gives me a quick glimpse of the Ira and by simply looking at it I can feel the power humming off of it, my fingers are itching to touch it to see what I can do with it. “There, satisfied?” he asks, stuffing it back into his pocket.
I nod. “I guess.”
His brow curves upward. “Could you feel the power?”
“Maybe,” I say coolly, even though my body is still humming from the energy more powerfully than even the electricity.
“You know it’s not as easy as seeing,” he says. “I’m going to have to use your Foreseer energy to even get it to work.”
“Why can’t you use yours?”
“I’m going to have to use that, too… it’s going to take a lot of power—power that you don’t even know how to use yet.”
My lips bow downward into a disappointed frown. “If I don’t know how to use it yet, then how the hell are you going to get into The Underworld?”
“First off, we’re going to go there. It’s going to take both of us,” he explains. “And second, I’m going to train you.”
I pull a disgusted face. “Are you being serious?”
He places his hand to his heart.” My dear Gemma, I’m always serious.”
“No, you’re a pervert who pretty much raped me back in the vision,” I ball my hands into my fist as shame and disgust nauseously resurface in my body, remembering how he put his hands and mouth on me without my permission. “And the only reason you’re still sitting here is because I need you to help me get into The Underworld, otherwise I would have told Alex to kick your ass.”
He laughs and rolls his golden eyes. “Like he could.”
I straighten back in the seat. “I think you know he could. That’s why you won’t try it again.”
He doesn’t argue, but he doesn’t appear happy about it, either. “You know, I doubt you’d be so confident if you knew where he really was right now.” He shakes his head and I detect a slight flash of light under his skin as his body vibrates. I think he’s trying to change into the mirage, but luckily it’s not working. “Would it help if I looked like him? You could kiss me and pretend I was him.”
I roll my eyes and slump back in the sofa. “If you’re trying to do the tricky mirage thing it’s not working.”
He glances down at his arms, rotating his hands over. “What did you do,” he growls.
I smirk at him, but deep down my heart and mind are entering a painful state, as if they miss the electricity—miss Alex. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
We exchange defiant grins as we stare each other down and he drops his hands to his lap.
“You know that confidence is going to come in real handy when I train you. It’ll channel your inner energy,” he says.
If only he knew just how much energy was inside me. It’s a good thing he doesn’t, though, because I have the feeling he’s the kind of person that would do anything to get his hands on it.
***
I’m quickly learning that Nicholas has the attention span of a child. After our little argument, we sit down on the living room floor amongst the table and the sofa, as if we’re doing a séance. Our legs are crisscrossed as we face each other with an ordinary violet ribbon crystal ball between us. It’s the teaching ball, he told me. He said that once I’d been trained properly he’d bring out the Ira, that it was too powerful to train on
He also told me that it would only be him and I going into The Underworld and that it wasn’t possible to bring anyone with us besides Foreseers because they’d need their own Seer energy. I asked if I could go alone and he said no. I honestly have no idea whether the words that come out of his mouth are true, but there’s no real way to find out.