‘I knew you’d keep this,’ she said to Dad, fingering a large white ceramic vase that sat in its usual place on the table.
He cleared his throat. ‘Of course.’
I, at least, knew this story. Evelyn, an artist herself, used to make ceramics. This was the last piece she’d crafted. Dad had always kept it on display.
She picked up the heavy vase, as though it were as light as a feather.
‘I’m glad you did,’ she said, before throwing it on the floor.
Dad jumped to his feet, hands out. ‘No!’
‘I’ll make you another one. I promise.’ She leaned down and pushed the fragments aside until her hand found what she was looking for. She stood, holding her Grigori dagger.
‘Cool,’ Zoe murmured.
Griffin was the one to gasp. ‘I don’t understand. Grigori blades are known to disappear if they exist without a Grigori owner.’
Evelyn turned the dagger’s handle in her hand, getting reacquainted with it. ‘Nothing about me is normal.’
My hand passed over the hilt of my own Grigori dagger, the dagger that Phoenix had thrown into the volcano at Santorini and that had somehow returned to me three days later. I’d woken up to find it on my bedside table. Not much was normal about me, either.
Evelyn passed Griffin the dagger. ‘Would you mind holding on to this?’ She took off her wristbands and handed them to Griffin as well.
‘You’re trusting me with a lot, considering I’m about to deliver you to the Assembly – where you will be held indefinitely.’
She put a hand on Griffin’s shoulder and glanced at me. ‘You’ve kept her safe. Guided her, when I could not. It is not a big thing to trust you with mere weapons.’
Griffin nodded at the same time as I rolled my eyes.
God, is he welling up? Buying into her crap?
‘Gee, Griff – need a tissue?’ Spence said, killing the moment.
‘When are we leaving?’ I asked, getting back to business.
Griffin pulled himself together. ‘Tomorrow. The Academy has arranged a plane.’
‘Okay,’ I said as I grabbed my empty coffee cup and headed towards the kitchen, needing to move.
I made it to the corner where I was out of sight before I exhaled and, hands gripping the bench, dropped my head.
I’m going to miss the Fenton course.
I was being stupid – it was meaningless, just an art course, but it was my art course. I’d earned my place in it and had been looking forward to it for so long. It was the only thing I had that was separate from all of this and now I was going to have to give it up. I took a moment to pull myself together, then I walked back out, refusing to show any weakness in front of everyone. I felt Lincoln’s eyes on me. I didn’t look at him.
Evelyn was talking. ‘There’s something you’ll need to know before we leave.’
‘What’s that?’ Griffin responded.
‘If I’m being held captive and can’t get out when Lilith is found, she’ll need to be stopped. The reason for my return isn’t just to help fight her, it’s to finally explain how I returned her.’
‘You’ve never told anyone before?’ Lincoln asked.
She shook her head. ‘I can’t explain why not. I just knew it was a secret I had to keep.’
Her words sent an inexplicable shiver up my spine.
Evelyn looked around, assessing us all. I wasn’t sure she liked what she saw.
‘Why don’t you have more senior Grigori here?’ she asked, looking at Griffin accusingly. But his Seraph-given authority did not waver for a moment.
‘Because I can’t get all my Grigori into the Academy. Spence, Salvatore and Zoe are all students and can return with us if they choose. I’ll travel as an escort and Lincoln will come as Violet’s partner. You won’t find any more senior than the two of us.’
Evelyn fixed a challenging glare on Griffin before conceding with a small nod. Finally, power struggles over, she settled into her chair and began her story.
‘Lilith was created first and she is more powerful for it. A Grigori dagger made by lesser angels will have no impact on her and even those weapons of higher ranking angels,’ she looked at me, ‘will not be able to kill her. Jonathan–’ her voice caught. ‘My partner and I spent more than half a century tracking down old myths and forgotten tales about a substance that could harm exiles in human form. The potion dated back to ancient Egypt and seemed to be extinct. We found imitations but learned the only chance of locating the real thing was by dating it back to the time when angels were still permitted on earth – the time before the flood – and trying to find an untapped source.’
‘That must’ve been near impossible,’ Lincoln said.
‘It was. But it was also our only chance. We needed the combination of this potion – a type of poison – and the Grigori blade if we were going to have any chance of incapacitating Lilith. The potion itself had thirteen ingredients. Twelve were earthbound. However,’ she closed her eyes briefly, ‘the thirteenth was from the angel realm.’