“He’s not dead yet.”
Yet. The time limit tainted the sweetness of the update. “Do you know where Anima’s keeping him?”
“No. There’s some kind of block surrounding him.”
Of course there was.
If I believed in luck, I’d say ours was the worst.
“Come to my room,” I said. “I want you with me while I look through pictures that are probably going to change the course of my life.”
Thankfully, Kat and Reeve had left, saving me from having to evict them. I sat at the edge of my bed and placed Juliana’s envelope of pictures on my lap. Emma took a place at the windowsill.
Her head tilted to the side, and she frowned. “Nana’s worried about you. You should call her back.”
“Can you sense our emotions?”
“Not as strongly as I could at first, but yes.”
“Then you know I’m upset. She kept secrets from me.”
“So did Mom and Dad, but they aren’t alive to blame, so you’re focusing on her.”
I was, wasn’t I? “When did you become so wise?”
“The fact that you haven’t realized I’ve always been this wise does not speak well of your intelligence.”
I threw a pillow, but it ghosted through her. I picked up the phone and dialed Nana’s new number.
When she answered, I got straight to the point. “I have two questions for you, and I need you to be totally and completely honest with me this time.”
“I will,” she said with resolve.
“Is Helen Conway my birth mother? Did Miranda have to adopt me?”
Silence.
“Ali,” she finally said. I imagined her sitting somewhere, alone in the dark, her eyes closed as she fought tears.
Stay strong. “That’s not an answer.”
“Yes,” Nana whispered. “Helen is. But Miranda couldn’t adopt you, not legally. Your dad said you couldn’t be brought to anyone’s attention, so he somehow arranged a new identity for you. New name, new birthday, new biological mother.”
Well. There it was. Indisputable proof. Helen was my mother. My birth name was Samantha. I’d spent my first few years acting as Anima’s favorite pincushion.
Betrayal—check.
Anguish—check.
The people claiming to love me most had hurt me more than anyone else ever had, but they were dead. I couldn’t yell at them. I couldn’t demand answers. Though I already knew their reasons. I couldn’t tell them how their actions had affected me.
“But that doesn’t mean I love you any less,” Nana added.
“No, it means you lied to me for most of my life. It means my parents lied to me.”
“Ali, dear, I’m sorry, I am, but it was your parents’ decision to make. To even be allowed to see you, I had to promise never to breathe a word.”
“You’ve been my guardian for ten months,” I said. “All this time, it’s been your decision.”
“You, my honest one, know the value of a promise.”
Low blow.
Also true.
“But I am sorry,” she repeated. “I chose not to let you know because you’d been through so much already. I didn’t want you to have to go through anything else. And honestly, I don’t think of it much. You’re my granddaughter. Always have been, always will be.”
My chest felt like it had been doused in acid. “I’m going to go. I—”
“No! Don’t you dare hang up on me,” she said, her voice rising to a yell. “If you do, I’ll be on the first plane back to Alabama. I might anyway. I want to hold you and answer any other questions you have. I don’t know a lot about it—your parents refused to talk about it—but I’ll answer what I can.”
I sighed. “No. Stay with Mr. Holland. I’m not mad at you, not really, I just need time to deal with everything. I’ll call you when I’m ready. Okay?”
“Okay. All right. Just tell me that you know I love you.”
“I do. I know. And I love you, too.”
We said our goodbyes and hung up. I stood, the packet of pictures falling to the floor. In a daze, I tripped my way to my little sister and just kind of fell at her feet. She wasn’t solid to me, and I wasn’t solid to her, but still she traced her fingers through my hair.
“You’re only my half sister,” I said softly.
“And that makes you adore me less?” she asked.
“Never!”
“Well, it’s the same for me.”
“But the woman who gave birth to me was evil. Awful.” Except to me. “She turned on her best friend. She helped kill Cole’s mother.”
“Well, then, I’ve got another bit of good news for you. You are not her. You’re the one and only Alice, perfect in every way.”
Hardly. “I have her push-ability, Em. I’m a lot like her.”
“Well, the other slayers are about to be a lot like her, too.”
Um...what? “Explain.”
Sighing, she said, “When Helen passed her ability to you, it broke through some kind of defensive shield and changed you.”
“That, I know.”