I cut myself short as my gaze fell back onto the painted moon. That was it. The stained glass moon was much fuller than the one on the door—less of a crescent, more of a waxing moon—nearly full, in fact.
“What does this mean?” I asked, waving my hand at the symbol. “People don’t just have empty rooms with moon symbols on the door and stained glass displays with moons to match inside.”
“You’re right,” he said.
I narrowed my eyes at me. “It means something, though, doesn’t it? It has something to do with your curse.”
He shook his head, but something in his eyes told me I was right.
“Tell me.”
“Please don’t, Charisse. I’ve told you many things. I don’t want to—” He nearly choked on the word. Anger clouded his expression, and he jutted his finger toward the painted glass moon. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
I looked from him to the moon and back again. “Abram, if you don’t tell me what it means, I’m going to walk out that door.”
When he didn’t stay anything, I started to storm past him, ready to play this game of chicken, fire and all. But he grabbed me by the wrist and pulled my body against his. His hands were firm, but his expression was gentle.
“Tell me,” I demanded quietly.
He wrapped his arms around me and rested his cheek against my forehead. “This is my last full moon. After tonight, the curse will be permanent. Every night, for the rest of eternity, this will be my life, with no hope of ever changing that. I’ll be this … this … thing … forever.”
“But there’s a way to break it,” I said. “There has to be. Just do whatever Satina said it was. What’s the worst that could happen, Abram?”
“The worst?” he whispered, his voice nearly cracking. “Losing you.”
I pulled back and shook my head. “You won’t lose me, Abram.”
“You don’t know that.”
I balled my hands in fists at my side. “Well, neither do you.”
His finger came up to my lips. “Please, Charisse. Don’t argue with me right now.”
“I don’t want to argue with you Abram. I’m not the one who cares if you are a beast. You are. I’m trying to help you. Why won’t you just let me help you?”
“If you want to help me, then be with me. Please, just be with me and let me do what I’m meant to do. I promised I would protect you, and I will.”
Something rumbled in the room, and a voice echoed through the chamber. “I’m not sure how seriously I would take that promise.”
I knew that voice. It was the same one that kept me up at night, and when it did allow me sleep, it was the same voice that haunted my dreams.
But it couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. He was dead.
And yet, the voice of my father continued. “Given that he gave the same promise to me. And we all know how well that turned out.”
I jerked away from Abram’s touch and spun around. My father stood behind Abram, arms folded and staring at me with those eyes that I had come to both miss and vilify. My entire body went rigid. How was this happening?
Well, that was a stupid question. I knew how it was happening. It was this magic, the one surrounding us, the one we were—even now—breathing in.
My face must have been a horrible thing to behold, because Abram took my hand and squeezed it tightly.
“What do you see?” he asked.
He knew. Somehow he knew the magic was showing me something.
“My father,” I whispered, my voice sounding weak and small, the way it did when I was a child.
My father moved around Abram, almost floating toward me with his lightness. It wasn’t like him, to move this way, to have a look on his face that screamed of mischievous glee. Or maybe it did. I hadn’t seen my father since I was a kid, and even the man I knew then was a lie. That much was obvious.
Why was I even thinking this way? My father loved me. Abram being here was proof of that. Why was I forgetting everything I had learned about the man?
“You need to run, Charisse. You can’t trust this thing.” My father looked Abram over with disgust darkening his eyes. “He’ll use you up, even more than he already has. He’ll destroy you. He lies. Everything he says is a lie.”
My father moved closer, and my entire body trembled. “But that’s what you like, isn’t it? That’s what you want from your men.” He shook his head. “Is that what I did to you? Did I ruin my little girl?”
“What?” I balked, backing away. “Of course not.”
Abram’s hand squeezed mine. “It’s not real, Charisse. It comes from the curse, and the curse wants me to suffer. It doesn’t want to be broken.”
Abram’s comforting grip did little to steady me. All I could see was my father’s eyes, weighing me, judging me, finding me lacking. And all of this to keep some curse going. But how would me suffering keep the century-old punishment that Satina leveled onto him running strong?
“You need to run, Charisse!” My father’s voice was panicked now.
No. Not my father. I leaned in toward the apparition.