2 Hungry, Hungry Hoodoo (19 page)

I left Grandma’s house with the parchment in hand. I couldn’t go alone, but who could I take with me? I could go back and get Sy, but I didn’t want him to get hurt. I could no longer trust Jaron; his version of events already had holes in it. I could ask Femi, but I didn’t really want to. There was only one person I wanted with me for this. We still had a lot to talk about, but if I knew nothing else, I knew that Cheney would keep me alive even if he was furious with me.

I found him pacing the castle hallways, his face set in a stern line. As soon as he saw me, he grabbed my arm and dragged me into the nearest room, breathing hard.

He started to speak several times but kept stopping himself. His fingers dug into my flesh. Then he crushed his lips to mine. Not gentle, not coaxing, but angry and demanding. I kissed him back and reached for him, but he fought my gentleness and kept me at arm’s distance. When he broke the kiss, his eyes stayed closed.

“I thought you would be different this time. I truly believed you loved me underneath everything else. When it was just me and you in the house after I first came to get you, you did, didn’t you? It’s your memories that are taking you away from me.”

My voice shook, but I couldn’t completely deny his accusation. “The more I find that you kept from me, the harder it is to trust you. I doubt every feeling I have and it’s driving me crazy. Everyone keeps telling me how unfeeling I am, but I don’t think I am. I have so many emotions running though me that I can’t decipher them all.”

He released me and shook his head. “I locked up my best friend, my only friend, without even talking to him on your word. Do you understand what I will have to do to Sebastian to make him talk if he doesn’t want to tell me anything? I can’t keep doing this, Selene.”

I opened my mouth and shut it, trying not to picture the terrible things he could possibly do. Finally I shook it off. “You might not have to do anything,” I said. I held up the paper. “I went to see Gram. She gave me a page from the book. We can find it, and hopefully Devin will be there too.” I licked my lips. “I thought of all the people I could take with me to do this and you were the only one I wanted.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure about these memories anymore. I was told I gave my memories away before I became a changeling, but I recognized you when you came the night I killed my parents.” The words were hard to say and almost got lodged in my throat. I was a murderer.

Cheney’s mouth fell open. “The night you
what
?”

I shook my head. “Gram told me.”

“That you killed your parents?”

I swallowed back tears.

“You didn’t kill anyone. I suspected it wasn’t an accident that killed them, but it wasn’t you either. I would’ve recognized the magic. That’s why I had her cast wards on you, to protect you from whoever came for you that night. I never imagined she would so completely misunderstand.”

My knees felt weak so I braced myself against the chair. “Are you telling me the truth?” My voice cracked as I spoke.

Cheney took my hands. “Every word.”

Tears slipped out. “What about my memory?”

“I have no idea what happened to it. You said you recognized me, so you lost it sometime after that.”

“Gram said I was a normal little kid by morning, so something happened between the time I got to her house and the next morning.”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I should’ve stayed with you like you asked.”

I pressed a finger to his lips. “Shh.” I had to trust someone. I took a deep breath and pushed through before I could change my mind. “I don’t remember Sebastian at all. I have a lot of my memories back, but for some reason, he’s nowhere in them.”

Cheney pulled me over to a couch. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“I know. I’m going to tell you everything I remember. I need you to tell me if you remember anything differently, but we can’t do it right now. Right now we need to find Devin before she turns up like Michael.”

He looked at the paper then back to me. “And if we can’t find her?”

“I will give you the rebel leader.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want you to.”

My eyes welled again.

He gave me a sad smile. “You know I loved you from the first moment I saw you. I didn’t care what my family thought. You were all I ever wanted. I didn’t need a bond to assure that I would come after you, Selene. I would always come for you.” He let out a slow breath. “We bonded to bring you back from something terrible that happened to you. I almost lost you. Your mind was nearly shattered, so I became your anchor. I don’t know what breaking the bond now would do to you.”

I could actually remember the first time we met. How cold and calculated I was on the inside. Did I feel anything for him then? It was so hard to remember. Jaron eclipsed all of my feelings back then. I did remember, however, how I felt the first time we kissed when he came for me as a changeling. All of that couldn’t have been mere magic. “What happened?”

He brushed the back of his hand down my cheek. “You’ll remember soon enough, and I will be here.”

I didn’t like that he still refused to tell me, but it wasn’t important at the moment. “Will you help me find Devin?”

“Of course.”

We quickly laid out the necessary components for the spell. Minutes later we were following a trail, hand in hand. It led us back to the ruin. “Why are we here?”

I shrugged. “I followed the crystal.” I walked back inside.

“But we were just here. You would have—”

We saw the book smack-dab in the center of the altar, waiting for us. I approached it warily and tapped it with my finger twice to make sure nothing horrible was going to happen. I picked up the heavy book, and a letter fell out. Cheney stooped to pick it up.

“I’m glad to see I have your attention,” he read out loud. He looked at me. “That’s it. That’s all it says.”

“Gah!” I yelled. “How is the person always one step ahead of me? It’s like I’m a puppet and someone else is the puppeteer.”

“We’ll find her, princess.” He wrapped his arms around me.

It had been a long time since Cheney called me princess. I’d missed it a little. I leaned into him, needing his reassurance. We were back to square one. No leads. No hope. “Baker found someone who can break the bond,” I said.

“I told you—”

“I know. But we need to talk to this lady to know what options we have.”

Cheney sighed. “Only if you tell me everything before we go. No more surprises.”

“Fine, but it isn’t fair that I tell you everything and you still tell me nothing.”

“You’re right. I’ll fill in whatever blanks I can. But I want everything, including the rebel leader.”

My heart stuttered. “I thought you didn’t want him.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want to execute him, but I do want to know who he is.”

We sat against the cool stone wall, and I started at the beginning. Cheney listened quietly, watching my face as I spoke. I did as promised. I didn’t leave out details, no matter how painful they were to tell. His eyes darkened as I spoke about Jaron, but he still didn’t interrupt. I spoke faster to get to the end sooner so I could find out what he was thinking.

He sighed. “The memories themselves seem fairly accurate. I can’t say what happened when I wasn’t there or how you felt while I was. I don’t know if that’s right or not. I would like to think you felt more about me than that, but maybe you didn’t.” He couldn’t hide the hurt from his eyes, but his voice sounded calm, even a little resigned.

I leaned my head back against the wall and closed my eyes, scanning my memory for any glimmer of hope that I wasn’t a completely horrible person. I found it right in front of me. It had been there the whole time. The first memories I had were overshadowed in my mind, but they were still there. The ones I didn’t connect with—that had been torn from me and regained with agony through spell work—were different than the later ones. I was anything but ambivalent toward Cheney in those. “My other memories were different. I felt different in those.”

Cheney looked over at me. Doubt filled his eyes, and who could blame him? I’d been acting psychotic, and I’d just finished telling him I’d never loved him. “How different?”

“Like leaving you was the hardest thing I ever had to do.”

He stood up. “So we just have to figure out which one is right.” He held out his hand. “Let’s go meet Baker.”

I took his hand and we transported to the Office. I felt better for having told Cheney everything, though it occurred to me he hadn’t upheld his end of the bargain.

Sy was chatting up a pretty redhead when we walked into the Office. I shook my head and hoped Femi would make an honest man out of him someday. If Sy was shocked by Cheney’s presence, he did a good job hiding it. He held out his hand. “Nice to see you again.”

Cheney shook Sy’s hand, his eyes traveling over the bar. “Nice place.”

Sy laughed. “No need to spare my feelings. Can I get you a drink?”

We both declined. “So who’s your friend?” I asked.

He glanced down to the end of the bar. “Gretchen. She’s a muse.” He smiled to himself. “Very inspiring.”

Cheney laughed and I shook my head. “You know, you’re never going to get Femi to go out with you like this.”

Sy kissed the top of my head. “Mind your own business, coz.”

“Were you guys always this close?” Cheney asked.

Sy shrugged. “We were as kids, but we haven’t really seen each other or talked for a while.” He winked at me and went back to Gretchen.

“Was it me or Jaron who caused you to give up your family?”

I had to think about that. Automatically my mind told me it was Cheney, but I couldn’t find any memory evidence to support that. I had stopped hanging out with Sy before Cheney was ever in the picture. “Jaron I think.”

He nodded. “Are you going to try to get the rest of your memories?” Cheney knew exactly how I had to retrieve my memories, so I knew what he was asking.

“I don’t know. I missed the piece of time between when I left the first time and when I became a changeling. I’d like to know what happened then, but if there’s another way to find out, I’d be open to that.”

“I still can’t imagine how Sebastian fits into all of this.”

I shook my head. “I trusted him.”

“I still do.” Cheney looked at me. “None of this adds up. You have to see that.”

“You didn’t keep your end of the deal. What do you know?”

“Baker’s here,” Cheney said, avoiding telling me once again.

“Hey, fox.” Baker slung his arm over my shoulder. “I see you’re back with the big cheese.”

“Hey, Baker.” I gave him a tight smile. “So who’s this priestess?”

“Antoinette Cecile. She’s down in New Orleans and is really good with curses and what not. When the boss-man asked me to look into your little problem,” his eyes drifted to Cheney, “she was the first person to come to mind. She’ll have a price. I don’t know what, but nothing’s ever free.”

I looked at Cheney. “What do you think?”

“Let’s see what she has to say.”

We stood outside of Winston’s Wash and Dry and a red “Open” sign buzzed in the dingy window. I looked at Baker. “This is where we’re meeting?”