‘Sorry?’ She had hit the nail on the head.
‘You’re shutting down and if you keep going like this it’s going to get us nowhere.’ She sighed and set her jaw. ‘It’s time you decided what I am to you. I know I can’t step into the role of Mum, I don’t expect to. I know I cause a problem with your relationship with your father but I don’t think it would help to just disappear on him, do you? So that leaves us needing to find some middle ground. I suggest we start by working together to kill this bitch.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Grigori.’ She smiled. ‘And whether you like it or not, I’m your mother.’
Holy crap.
She eyed me as if she knew exactly what I was thinking. ‘We’re out of time and I need to know the rest, Violet. And I need to know exactly who knows it.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I asked nervously.
‘I’m talking about your powers. I know about the senses, the extra strength, the healing, and I know about your ability to hold multiple exiles at a time. What I need to know is whatever it is you and Griffin have been hiding. And don’t even try to pretend there’s nothing.’ She leaned back in her seat, drumming her fingers on the table, while I mentally ran through the pros and cons of telling her.
Griffin had drilled it into me that no one else could know about my ‘Sight’. He and Lincoln had been researching it and while they claimed they hadn’t found anything substantial and refused to speculate, I knew whatever they had found had them both freaked out. So I’d put Steph to work on it, too. At least she’d tell me if she found something. To date … nothing.
I adopted a casual tone. ‘I can see things around me when I need to. We’ve started to call it a Sight.’
Evelyn’s eyes went wide. ‘A Sight? Who called it that?’
I shifted in my seat. ‘Phoenix.’
‘Jesus Christ! Is there anything our enemy doesn’t know?’
I rolled my eyes at her outburst. ‘It wasn’t as if I knew what it was and we weren’t exactly enemies at the time.’
‘Do you leave your body?’ she asked.
‘In a way. It’s like I can go anywhere if I just let myself. It’s amazing, I see things differently.’
‘You’re seeing energy.’
Now my eyes went wide. ‘How do you know?’
She pressed her lips together, looking up and shaking her head.
‘Do you know of other Grigori who can do it?’ I asked when she didn’t say anything.
‘It is not a Grigori trait, Violet. No human Grigori that has come before has ever had the power of Sight.’ She sighed.
I swallowed. ‘Then, who does have it?’
Evelyn studied the markings around my wrists for a long time, eventually reaching out and taking one of my hands when I let her. She ran her fingers over the patterns as they swirled around my wrists like a silver river, something deep within me powering them. When she looked up, there was fear in her eyes but also something else.
‘Violet, Sight is not something that humans have ever had before because it’s the power of the non-corporeal. Sight is the power of angels.’
Old fears rose to the surface. Since I’d first embraced, I’d questioned what I was becoming, what I had left behind. I shook my head, refusing to entertain this idea, whatever this idea was.
‘Well, we’re calling it the wrong thing then, because I have a very real body, as you can see,’ I said, gesturing.
She smiled. ‘Yes, you do. And you’re going to have to make sure that you always remember that. Tell me, when you pull away from yourself and use your Sight, is it empowering? Do you feel like you are invincible?’
I looked down and didn’t respond. The truth was, it was intoxicating. I knew I had barely begun to explore my ability, and while fear had kept me from testing any limits, the desire to see how far I could go was strong.
‘You have to be careful of the lure. Use your Sight only when you have no other choice and limit the time you allow yourself to slip into it.’
‘Slip into what?’ I snapped.
Evelyn seemed anxious and that unnerved me. I could almost see her mind ticking over, carefully selecting the words she would use.
‘You’re human, Violet. Never forget that. But you also have angelic qualities from one of the most powerful angels to have ever existed. If I had to guess, I’d say that just as angels can exile to earth and become human, you may be the first human who has the ability to exalt yourself and become an angel.’
An angel.
I dropped my head into my hands and tried to stop my head from screaming at me.
‘I don’t want to talk about this.’
‘Who else knows about the Sight?’ Evelyn pushed on like she hadn’t just dropped a gigantic – and potentially species-altering – bomb on me.
‘Griffin, Lincoln, Steph, Phoenix …’
She huffed, unhappy with my response. ‘Anyone else?’
I thought back. ‘Spence. He saw me use it once.’
‘Do you trust him?’