Fated (22 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

A
islin showered and changed quickly, her thoughts abuzz with plans and worries. Declan had called to tell her that Shade-Kere had been spotted within Boston again. Not en masse, just random sightings in the area around Psychopomps, followed by quick disappearances. It made her wonder what they would do next. Declan wasn’t wondering—he was certain they planned to attack Galena, and he was back at her lab just in case. Aislin hadn’t mentioned the appearance of the Shade-Kere to Moros, because she’d wanted him to be focused as he went to check on his sisters. She had a bad feeling that yet another person he should have been able to trust had turned against him. She would make sure Galena was safe.

In fact, she planned to make sure all of them were safe, no matter who she had to piss off to do it. She placed a call and left a voice mail, providing very clear instructions for what she wanted, and then broke the time-honored rules and used her Scope to travel quickly through the Veil, stepping through a portal into the fifteenth floor of Psychopomps. The usually bustling building was running on a skeleton crew—all the human employees had been told to stay home, as they were the most vulnerable to attack. Family members were staffing the main desks and monitoring the markets in addition to ferrying souls as necessary.

Aislin watched from the Veil as Galena Margolis hunched over a screen in her new lab, her long dark-blonde hair pulled up into a sloppy ponytail. She absently toyed with the Scope around her neck as she tapped at the display. Tamasin and Nader stood nearby, their red eyes zeroing in on Aislin the moment she appeared. “Anything unusual?” she asked.

Tamasin, her mass of braids pulled back from her face, her brown eyes intense, shook her head. “She’s been extremely happy ever since they got that interface up and running for her this afternoon. It’s kept her busy.”

Aislin read Tamasin easily: she was glad Galena was back in the lab instead of on the street, risking her safety to deal with the Shade-Kere.

Aislin looked around Galena’s new lab, all gray in the Veil. It was cluttered with boxes large and small, and a few pieces of equipment the purpose of which she could only guess. “It’s coming together quickly.”

“Declan is quite determined,” said Nader, his olive skin a shade paler than usual. He’d seemed subdued and anxious since he had lost control of himself and attacked his partner—and Galena herself. “Dr. Margolis has been very restless—she hadn’t been able to work in days.”

“Declan seems to understand the way her mind works,” Tamasin said quietly, looking toward the elevator bays, where Aislin’s brother stood, a tablet in his hand, apparently checking through an inventory of recently delivered supplies. “He also believes in what she’s doing.”

“We all should,” Aislin muttered, guilt slicing through her once more as she watched Galena use her fingertip to scrawl something on the screen. “Thank you for guarding her.”

Tamasin and Nader each took a step closer to Galena as the renewed weight of their responsibility seemed to hit them once more. “No one will harm her,” said Nader.

Aislin gave him a smile and stepped through her Scope, entering the real world right behind Galena’s desk. The woman spun around as she heard Aislin’s heels hit the floor. “I thought you might be Cacy.”

“Why?” Aislin asked as she clipped her Scope to the chain around her neck.

“She and Eli are coming over here. With the Shade sightings, they’re feeling a little overprotective.”

Aislin pulled her phone from her pocket and fired off a text to her guards, telling them to come to the fifteenth floor as soon as they were able. “It seems wise. I’d like you to be safe.”

Galena gave her a flickering, fragile smile. “I’m grateful that you’re protecting my ability to work.”

Aislin met her eyes. “It’s not just that. My brother loves you. You’re part of my family now. And I’m sorry I didn’t provide you with more protection from the very beginning. It’s a mistake for which I will never forgive myself.”

“But I forgive you,” Declan said quietly from behind her.

Aislin turned to see him leaning against a pile of plastic crates containing various lab equipment. “You do?”

He nodded as he moved to stand by Galena’s side. She leaned back against him and smiled at Aislin. “I do, too. I know you were under tremendous pressure, and in the end you made the right decision.”

Aislin folded her arms over her middle and looked at the floor, wrestling her feelings back into order. “Thank you both. It means a lot.” She was going to do her best to return from this summit, but it seemed entirely possible she might not, and she wanted to leave with things resolved between herself and her siblings.

She also planned to leave them with the means to survive.

Declan put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “You all right?”

She nodded. “I need to leave for the summit in a few minutes. I just wanted to check with Rosaleen and fill her in on a few things.”

Eli and Cacia appeared in the center of the lab, both wearing their uniforms. Cacia grinned when she saw Aislin and Declan standing together. “How was the Lucinae realm?”

Aislin offered a tight smile in return. “The new Mother has much to learn.”

Cacia tilted her head. “That good, huh?”

“That good.” Aislin looked back and forth between her brother and sister. They were so strong-willed, so powerful in their own right, and she was ashamed not to have told them how proud she was of them before now. As she saw them standing with their chosen mates, who were just as strong and brave, she felt a spark of hope light in her chest. “It’s part of the reason I’m here, actually. If, for any reason, I don’t return from my summit with the Keepers tonight, I need you to do something for me.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

M
oros braced himself as he watched Atropos limping back and forth under the unraveled tapestry. She had her sickle in her hand and was swishing it through the air. She was barefoot, and her black hair hung in tangled waves down her back. Her eyes glowed red as she looked up at the frayed, holey cloth.

She had tended the threads of destiny, the fabric of fate, for millennia. She’d had all that time to nurture a grudge against Moros, too. And now they would have a reckoning. Gathering his determination and shoring up his aching heart, he stepped through the Veil into the weaving room.

Atropos spun around as soon as she heard his soft footfalls on the travertine floor. “Empty-handed again,” she said hoarsely. “I should have known.”

“
Did
you know?” he asked quietly as he approached.

Her brows lowered. “I knew I couldn’t rely on you.”

“When did you decide I was your enemy, Atropos? I saw you as my sister.”

Her face twisted with anger. “Are you really so blind? Two thousand years ago, you made a decision that hurt us. You refused to Mark the doomed, and you Marked for death those who should have lived. You frayed this fabric intentionally, all because you wanted freedom and status in this world.”

He spread his arms. “It was a last resort after centuries of pleading with the Keepers. I told you of my plan from the start—including the promise that I would never push it past the point of no return. And I offered to share any wealth I gained with you!”

“I have no use for gold! We’re trapped here by our duties.”

He sighed. “Where are the others?” It was eerily silent here under the permanent stars, when usually he could hear the sounds of Lachesis working the loom, measuring out the thread as she wove it into the fabric, the clicks of the spinning wheel as Clotho spun the thread of life from the shimmering wool that rose up from her bottomless basket.

“How would I know?” Atropos snapped, folding an arm over her middle and wincing as a few shimmering threads of the fabric—vibrant lives ended far too soon—unraveled above her head. Moros felt the pain, too. Somewhere out in the world, the Shade-Kere had taken a few more victims. He pushed his worry for Aislin aside for the moment—she had more than proven that she knew how to take care of herself.

His eyes met his sister’s. “Have you done something to Clotho and Lachesis?”

Atropos’s gaze flared with rage. “Have
I
done something to them? Have you lost your mind?”

He began to walk toward the loom, his heart stirring with fear for the other two. He called their names but received only silence in return. “You had me fooled for so long,” he said.

“I have never hidden my anger for you. I have never pretended you were anything other than a selfish bastard. And now I will meet my end hating you with even more passion than I do now!”

“Have you done this?” he roared, gesturing at the fabric, the gray threads scattered across the floor, the silent loom. His claws grew from his fingertips, sharp and brutal. “Have you been my enemy this whole time?”

He stalked toward Atropos, who widened her stance and raised her sickle. “Come any closer and I swear I’ll strike.”

“Please do,” he said, baring his fangs. His thoughts were bloody crimson, so full of betrayal and rage that he had room for nothing else. “You’ve been helping Eris and Apate. You stole the souls of my Kere so they could influence them. You warned them that I was going after the Blade so they could get there first. You hurt all of us just to spite me.”

She swung her sickle at his face, but he caught her wrist and twisted it out of her grip, hurling it far out of her reach before kicking her back. She fell and skidded across the floor, arms and legs sprawled. Her arms shaking, she sat up to face him again. “You are such a fool,” she said quietly, a tear slipping from her eye. “But I’ve been a fool as well.”

“Agreed,” said a voice behind him.

Before he had a chance to turn, blazing agony seared through his chest. His breath burst from him in a spray of blood, and he raked helplessly at the air as he fell to his knees. His head lolled as his strength failed, and he opened his eyes to see a shining blade protruding from his chest. Thin and glowing and unmistakable—the Blade of Life.

Someone planted a foot onto his back and wrenched the sword from his body. He fell forward, his head slamming into the tile. His faltering heart thundered in his ears as his vision blurred. And then fingers curled into his hair and wrenched his head up.

“Thanks for disarming Atropos,” Clotho said, her soft, round face in front of his. She was deeply pale, with dark circles beneath her eyes, but her mouth was set as she pressed the Blade beneath his chin. “How does it feel?” she whispered, her voice a broken thread of pain.

His breath wheezed from his throat, which burned as blood filled his lungs. His mind throbbed with disbelief. “You . . . ,” he managed to moan. She was the gentlest. The most loving. The one who had believed in him.

Her eyes narrowed. “Thousands of years in slavery changes a person,” she said quietly.

“Lachesis,” he whispered, worry surfacing within the bloody ocean of his pain.

“What’s going on?” At the sound of Lachesis’s voice, Clotho released Moros’s hair and he fell to the tile again, staring as his frail blonde sister appeared next to Atropos.

Run,
he thought, willing her to flee as Clotho approached her, the Blade of Life in her grip. His blood slid in rivers down its thin blade, spattering the floor with fat drops. Clotho’s steps were unsteady; she might have betrayed them, but her plotting had weakened her, too, and if Lachesis and Atropos were determined enough, they could escape.

As Clotho’s arm rose, bearing that deadly blade, Moros dragged himself forward, reaching for the dirty hem of her gown, desperate to protect the others.

But then Lachesis smiled. “You got started without me.”

Atropos moaned and tried to scramble back as Lachesis accepted the Blade from Clotho. With it hanging from her grasp, she turned to her black-haired sister. “You could have joined us,” she said. “It didn’t have to end this way.”

And then she lifted the Blade with both hands and drove it into Atropos’s chest. Moros cried out with grief and pain as Atropos screamed, writhing beneath the shredded, shimmering fabric she’d dedicated her existence to preserving. Tears stung his eyes as he watched Lachesis twist the Blade, knowing he could do nothing to help Atropos, knowing he had failed her one final time.

Clotho sank down next to him, swaying with weakness. Her hand rubbed along his back, deceptively loving—yet another betrayal. “It will be over soon,” she murmured. “It’s going to happen any minute.” Her gaze strayed along the sagging tapestry. “I want to watch it fall apart.”

Lachesis ripped the sword from Atropos’s twitching body, and Moros jerked with the molten agony of watching her suffer.

Lachesis’s eyes met his. “Eris wanted to be here for this, but she’s hard at work in Boston, I’m afraid.” She took a faltering step toward him, her smile ghostly. “Once she’s done, she’ll return to retrieve the Blade. But we wanted Chaos to feel welcome in the world, so she’s going to send a message that he can feel as he regains awareness.”

Moros swiped weakly at her as she and Clotho turned him onto his back. His body slid through the growing pool of his blood. He was drowning in it.

“Look up at it,” Clotho crooned. “You can watch with us. My children have almost completed their task.”

Dread welled up, only enhancing his pain and weakness. “You created the Shade-Kere,” he breathed.

Clotho smiled. “Rylan Ferry was my first creation. Eris brought him to us as a present for our cooperation, and I couldn’t resist.” Her brown eyes shone with victory. “And the Shade-Kere were actually his idea. He and Eris have been capturing Shades and bringing them to me for days. They really helped speed this process along. Much more efficient than focusing solely on Galena Margolis.”

“You’re killing yourselves,” he said, blood trickling from his mouth.

“Yes,” Lachesis said gently, falling to her knees, the Blade of Life held in her trembling hand. “There was no other way to be free. You were too dedicated to the treaty, to your freedom, to your own life, to notice the pain we were in.” She gestured clumsily at Atropos, who’d gone still now, her eyes open and empty. “It’s really for the best. She was so miserable. We all were. Except for you.”

Lachesis leaned down and kissed his clammy forehead, her soft touch more painful than anything he’d yet experienced. Her platinum hair was the exact color of Aislin’s, and Moros thought of the Charon, wishing he could have held her one more time, hoping she understood how hard he’d tried.

Lachesis’s gaze traced his face, and a half smile pulled at her lips. “You’re thinking of Aislin Ferry, aren’t you? Of course you are. At a time like this, how could you not?” He shuddered as her hand stroked through his hair. “The agony of knowing you’ll never be with her must be truly terrible.” Her smile grew. “And it’s a punishment you’ve more than earned.”

He blinked up at her in shock. His chest heaved as he tried in vain to move his limbs, but they defiantly refused to obey. His sister’s eyes glinted with malice. “Oh, yes. I know something you don’t. I’ve known it for a century, ever since she was born.”

Known what?
If he could have, he would have begged her to tell him. But all he could do was stare. His blood was on fire, burning him from the inside out, turning his thoughts black.

Lachesis laid her hand along the side of his face, and he wished he had the power to destroy her. Hatred surged along his bones as she said, “Should I tell you? I don’t want to increase your pain.”

She already had. The pressure inside his chest was immense and jagged, carving panic and fear along his ribs.
Aislin.

Lachesis patted his cheek. “I think I’ll wait for the right moment. I don’t want us to be interrupted.” She glanced up at the tapestry. “I’ve been waiting so long for this. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Horror choked Moros. He couldn’t disappear, couldn’t get up, couldn’t breathe. Something was going to happen in Boston. Something devastating.

And he was going to be forced to watch.