He shook his head. “I think the first thing we should do, long before opening this box, is to meld our magic to help you remember.”
I hesitated. The first time Aidan and I melded our magic, we ended up melting metal. The second time went slightly better; he was more prepared for my energy, and I was more in control. Still, it wasn’t exactly a good experience. It was . . . passionate and sensual, but also overwhelming. Threatening. I lost all sense of time, and it made me feel like I was drowning.
Avoiding Aidan’s gaze, I glanced over at the bookshelf, then at Noctemus, and then at a huge brass urn etched with elaborate linear designs. The etchings reminded me of the map of the busload of witches crisscrossing the country, and that thought brought me strength. After all, I was descended from a long line of strong, wild, magical women. Even though I was mostly a solo act, I was but one in a community of witches.
It was time to face what had happened when I went to find my father, so very long ago.
“Are you sure this will work?” I asked.
“Of course not. If you’ve repressed the memories this long, they won’t be easy to retrieve. But it’s worth a try. Ready?”
I nodded.
We stood, facing each other. When I interacted with other witches—in coven meetings, for example—we had always come together heart to heart, and hand to hand. Not so with Aidan. He placed his hands on either side of my head, then bent his head to touch mine, forehead to forehead.
A shock of energy reached out, like a sustained spark between us. I could feel the sensation of electricity running from his head to mine.
We breathed together, until it was hard to tell where his breath stopped and mine began.
I reached up and placed my hands over his. A humming began, so low that at first I wasn’t sure if it was external or if it was manifesting within myself. The hum grew in intensity, filling the room. Dots swam in front of my eyes, and my vision went black. It was so dark I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. I felt like I was falling, headfirst, down an endless tunnel. It seemed to go on forever.
And I started to remember. A rainy night, the taxi dropping me off at the address I had at long last tracked my father to. Standing at the door, afraid to knock. Without my making a sound, it swung open.
I saw Aidan. “Am I seeing you?” I asked in my mind. Was this a memory, or was this now?
He held his hand out. “Come in,” he said. “Remember.”
Everything was shadowy, confusing, like a bad dream. I stepped through the door and into the burned-out shell of a once-grand house. The stench of smoke and soot was overwhelming. A wrought iron circular staircase led up through a gaping hole in the ceiling. I began to climb it, and saw a bird’s nest lodged on a timber under the broken glass of an intricate skylight. The light blue speckled eggs were broken. Nestled among them was an old watch, the ticking sound growing louder and louder.
“What is this place?” I asked, but Aidan was no longer there. Instead, I saw my father standing at the bottom of the stairs. Hatred burned in his eyes. He whispered: “Prophecy.”
My cheeks felt wet with tears. But that was impossible. I didn’t cry. I couldn’t cry.
I turned to go back down the spiral stairs, but they began to disintegrate beneath my feet. Rung by rung, the pinging of metal snapping fought with the ticking of the watch. I lost my foothold and began tumbling, falling headfirst, down and down, into the burned remains of the house, into the thick pile of ashes. . . .
I had been underwater only once, and had nearly drowned. But I vividly remembered the sensation of fighting my way up and out of the watery depths, my eyes searching for the light of the moon dancing on the surface of the bay, streaming toward it, lungs screaming for air, gut spasming. That was what this felt like.
With a violent jolt, I yanked myself out of the trance.
Chapter 5
“Hold on one gol-durned second. Prophecy? What prophecy?” My voice ended on a squeaky note.
Aidan and I were standing just as we had been, in the center of the room, but according to the antique grandfather clock, several hours had passed. I felt cranky and mildly nauseated, and my muscles burned with fatigue. Combining energies with Aidan was disorienting, exhausting, and, of course, revelatory.
Aidan nodded. “I believe you were named in a prophecy, yes.”
“Me?”
“It wasn’t clear until recently, but yes, I believe that’s so.”
“That’s why everyone’s always acted so weird around me? You couldn’t have told a person?”
“The signs weren’t clear.”
“But now they are?”
He inclined his head, as casual as if he were ordering eggs for breakfast.
“This is ridiculous.”
“I believe the timeline sped up a bit when you went up against the demon named Deliverance Corydon. I told you it was a mistake for you to battle her alone. A part of her now resides within you.”
Deliverance Corydon was a demonlike creature who had been burned at the stake after being accused of witchcraft, way back in the day. My own guiding spirit, the Ashen Witch, had known—and fought—her back then. So it did seem foreshadowed, somehow, that I would battle her when she tried to rise again. But I rejected Aidan’s theory—which he’d espoused before—that Deliverance Corydon was now a part of me.
“That’s even more ridiculous. I mean, seriously, Aidan. I know Corydon was bad news, but she’s gone. She came back and was destroyed by lightning, no less. Also, she despises witches.”
He shrugged. “I can feel it when we meld energies.”
“And I have the Ashen Witch as my guiding spirit.”
“More evidence for the prophecy.”
“And what does the prophecy prophesize, exactly?”
He hesitated, as though choosing his words carefully. “That a practitioner connected to your father would come to town, and spark a kind of supernatural showdown in San Francisco, the results of which would be crucial, and not just for the city. The effects have the potential to ripple out, endlessly.”
“That’s it?”
“There’s a bit more to it, but that’s the gist of it.”
“And couldn’t there be someone else who fits that description? You, for instance?”
He laughed and shook his head.
“And your role in this has been, what?” I demanded. “To help me? To stop me? Both? Was Oscar your spy?”
Aidan sat down in his desk chair, as though tired. “For the moment, I’m here to help you, and to help San Francisco. Lily, you’re missing the point: If I know about this, it’s a good bet other practitioners, like Renee, do as well. And if she does, she’ll stop at nothing to siphon off your powers for her own use. Yet another reason this relationship between you and Sailor is a problem. It couldn’t come at a worse time.”
“Could you please drop it, already? You’ve made your opinion known, as have I. Can’t we please move on? Why do you insist on trying to direct my life?”
“You don’t take your magical talent seriously enough.”
“That’s not true. I mean . . . that might have been true when I first arrived. But things are different now.”
“You’ve gained power, to be sure. And that’s no small thing. But you’re still not ready. Take this shoe box, for instance. Why haven’t you opened it?”
I had no answer to that.
“Because you’re protecting yourself—that’s why,” Aidan continued. “You haven’t wanted to deal with your past, Lily, and it’s coming back to bite you, the way unsettled pasts tend to do. And now, instead of focusing on developing and controlling your powers, you’re rushing into marriage with a man you barely know.”
“That’s not true! I have been working on my powers, and I know Sailor very well.”
“Is that right? You asked me my middle name when you arrived tonight. Do you know Sailor’s middle name?”
“I’ll get it off the marriage license. Anyway, I know him in the ways that count.”
“You don’t know him at all,” Aidan said, an uncharacteristic note of anger in his voice. “Let me ask you this: What about children?”