Matter of Truth, A (12 page)

Upon his own admission, Cameron assumed there’d never be a
time in which he had to reveal Will’s heritage unless absolutely necessary.
Will rarely got sick over the years, yet when he did, Molly always sought out
people within these surprisingly large networks of so-called half-breeds, which
is why Cameron was so insistent on neither of us being treated at a regular
hospital. He knew Will’s Elvin genetics and blood type would send up red flags.
How mine—even though I’m technically Human—would do the same. He admits that,
when I was in the hospital for alcohol poisoning and the doctors pulled him
aside, telling him they’d found abnormalities in my blood work that I don’t
remember giving (thanks to puking my guts out), his suspicions about me were
confirmed. He paid off somebody, another half-breed here in Anchorage, to go
and destroy my records, then poked around until he got the lowdown on a missing
Creator. From there, it wasn’t too difficult to put the pieces together,
especially since it was second nature for him to want to protect me just as
surely as he does his son.

He tells us, his voice quiet and steady, that this is what
his wife would’ve wanted. Molly didn’t want to be involved in Annar society,
yet desperately wanted to make sure anyone and everyone who felt they didn’t
have a place there
did
have a place somewhere. We learn that there are
numerous children and adults running around Anchorage right now not knowing
they’re the products of Magical parents.

The entire time he tells us this, time ceases. I don’t even
think the clock on the wall ticks. There’s nothing, no one but Cameron and his
truths. And when he’s done, his heart on his sleeve and his good intentions
laid out, ready for bruising and judgments, I find that there is no way I can
deliver anything but love for this man. He knew what I was and still chose to
love me. Protect me. Give me a home and a family. Support me as I got back on
my feet.

“I’m bloody furious at you for this,” Will eventually says,
his voice as hoarse as his father’s.

Cameron accepts this.

Will’s good hand, the one untouched by Cailleache’s fury,
shoots through his sandy hair in carefully controlled bursts. “You’ve lied to
me. My whole life. You and Mum.”

There’s no argument. No defensive comebacks or further
rationalizations. Nothing but Cameron accepting his son’s anguish in the same
calm, steady manner that marks his character.

“Can I do what Chloe does?” There’s a wild desperation in
his eyes. “Magic, I mean?”

Cameron slowly, but surely, shakes his head, his focus never
leaving his son’s face.

“Will,” I say quietly, “to have a craft, a Magical must have
two full-blooded Magical parents.”

He closes his eyes, and I can’t help but wonder—is it relief
he feels, knowing this? Or disappointment? Callie Lotus carries her bitterness
over what she perceives as a poorly dealt hand that Fate passed to her on her
sleeve for all to see. But then, she’s grown up with Magicals, has watched
Magic practiced by everyone she knows, respects, and loves. Will never had
that. Will’s only ever known life as a non.

Finally—“We need to get Chloe home.”

Which reminds me, I have work to do when we get there. I
blew a huge hole in that house this afternoon. The skies above know the poor
place is probably drowning in snow by now.

When we leave, it’s done in silence. But while Will storms
ahead of us, his fury allowing him to overcome his pain, I reach out and grab
Cameron’s hand and squeeze it.

And he squeezes mine back.

Constant, brutal winds have ensured that the plateau I now
find myself precariously standing upon remains barren of anything but scraped,
raw rock. Even still, I inch closer to the uneven edge before me so I can peer
out into the yawning expanse of canyons, rivers, and creeping tendrils of
darkness that stretch as far as the eye can see.

Something wails from somewhere within the alcoves in the
distance, something mournful and yet angry all at once. Unease skitters across
my skin; the wind does me no favors by refusing to blow it away.

I shade my eyes from sharp rays of dying, orange sunlight
and peer down, scanning row after row of jagged, twisting tunnels. Nothing.
Another round of keening sounds, closer still, followed by such a gust of wind
that I’m knocked down to my knees. I reach out to grip the surprisingly soft
edge I’d just been standing on, only to find chunks of rock crumbling beneath
my palms.

“It seems impossible.” I hold up handfuls of bleak, gray
shards of rocks and watch the remnants float away in the wind. “And truth be
told, I’m terrified.”

Jonah simply stares at me in return, dark hair cutting across
his face, as he approaches the edge.

A new wail drifts up to the plateau, circling us before
floating higher and away.

The tips of Jonah’s toes dangle over the edge as he surveys
what I’ve been studying for hours. “You shouldn’t stand too close.” I brush my
hands on my jeans. “The wind’s pretty strong up here.”

This sigh that escapes him drifts directly into the wind.

He never understands. “You can’t blame me for caring. For
wanting to keep you safe.”

Another sigh, but at least he backs away from the edge. But
then, just as I’m about to push myself up, he reclaims the steps he’d lost in a
run and then flings himself right off the plateau.

I scream his name, but my only answer is another round of
keening that transitions into full-fledge shrieking. Back-to-back gusts of wind
drown my words out while driving fear even deeper into my pitted bones. Just as
I’m about to jump myself, a hand grabs my arm.

I whirl around to find Kellan. Dirt smudges his face and
arms, exhaustion nearly drips off his body.

Thank gods. “Jonah—”

Kellan holds up his index finger and presses it against his
mouth. The look in his eyes is so sad that my heart crumbles just as easily as
the rocks below me.

He lets my arm go. Before I can even complete a full blink,
he follows his brother’s lead right over the edge.

The screaming in the wind is deafening.

I wake up from my dream, shaking so
hard that I break down sobbing in the comfort of my bed and darkness.

Will didn’t speak to his father the
rest of the night. Other than to ask me how I was doing and whether I was
hungry—his need to take care of loved ones via cooking overriding even his
rage—we didn’t speak that much, either. Once the house was repaired and put to
order, he went into his bedroom and hasn’t reemerged.

“Give him time, hen,” Cameron says to me as we drink coffee
in the early morning. “Will’s always been the sort who is slow to change. But
he’s a good boy, and a logical one despite his hotheaded Scottish heritage.
He’ll come around.”

I find it ridiculously endearing that Cameron strives to
comfort me when I’ve been trying to do the same for him for the last half hour.
“I never thanked you last night for saving me at the hospital,” I tell him.
“And for everything else you’ve done for me.”

He ruffles my hair. “I would do it again—no questions
asked.” His dark eyes flick towards the hallway. “You know, Molly would’ve
adored you. She loved her son—was the fiercest mama bear you could imagine—but
part of her wanted a girl, too. We thought about adopting at one point, but . .
.” His smile turns bittersweet. “But life goes the way it does, and the next
thing you know, you’re saying goodbye, and there’s a box full of unfulfilled
plans.” He sips his coffee. “It’s truly serendipitous you came about just when
we needed you most. When I deduced who you were, I figured Molly sent you to
us.”

Tears for a woman I’ve never known, but who must’ve been
incredibly special, prick my eyes. I’m just a weepy mess today, aren’t I?

“Of anyone, my Molly knew what it was like to fight for what
you want out of life. She was never one to sit back and let this so-called Fate
bulldoze her future. She may’ve walked away from the life she knew as a
Magical, but she did it on her own terms. There are a lot of people out
there—more than you could possible imagine, hen—who’ve done the same. But I
have a feeling, even though that may be what you’ve thought is your best
choice, maybe it’s not after all.”

And . . . he’s right. I barely slept last night thanks to
that horrible nightmare that led me to two conclusions: 1) as scared as I am, I
need to take care of the Elders, and 2) I need to make things right with Jonah
(and Kellan). In order to do both, one thing is certain . . .

It’s time I go back to Annar and finally take responsibility
for my actions.

“I’m afraid,” I tell Cameron, and it’s an incredible
feeling, knowing it’s safe for me to open myself up to him, without fear of
besmirching the family name. To know that he’s here for me. “I’m afraid that if
I go back, I’ll be right back on the hamster wheel I’d been on before.”

He nods slowly, rubbing his closely cropped beard. “It is a
possibility, true. But the thing Molly always stressed to me was that Magicals
are just like everyone else. They’ve only tricked themselves into believing
they have no choices. You have a choice, lass. You can go back and get right
back onto that hamster wheel, or you can go back, chuck the bloody thing into
the trash, and make your own way on your own terms.”

He makes it sound so simple.

“We’ll go with you. You won’t have to go alone.”

Will’s standing in the doorway, his shirt and hair rumpled,
his eyes ringed in dark smudges which tell me he didn’t sleep much last night,
either.

I simply stare at him, sure that what I just heard come from
his lips was wrong.

But Cameron gives his son a nod, his smile transforming
again. This time, pride curves his lips upward.

“Look. I’ve thought about this—I guess . . . I guess I can
see where you and Mum were coming from,” Will says to his father. “You guys
thought you were doing best, protecting me from what you perceived as an
injustice done to so-called”—he shudders slightly when he says
this—“half-breeds. But I’d like the same choice you claimed is available to
Chloe. I want to see all of this for myself.”

Cameron’s smile grows even more satisfied.

My heart threatens to swell to unnatural proportions. “Are
you sure?”

“Yeah,” Will tells me. “I think maybe this is a journey we
all need to go on.” He lets out the sound of rue turned into a burst of breath.
“That’s if you want us to go with you, I mean. There’s always the possibility
you’ll tell us to bugger off, but—”

“Yes.” Yep. My heart’s ready to burst out in ishy, squishy
goo made of pure love.

Will’s still tired, still . . . shell-shocked. His world has
been rocked. But here he is, smiling that crooked smile at me, and suddenly
things don’t feel so undoable anymore. “Family sticks together, you know?”

“Yeah,” I whisper back.

Cameron’ arm loops around my shoulders and I lean into his
familiar, nurturing comfort. “Then it’s settled. While you two go to work, I’ll
start making plans for us to return to Annar.”

“What the hell happened to you two?
You look like you got ran over by a bulldozer made of barbed wire.”

I ignore Frieda while attempting to tie on my apron. She
takes surprising pity on me and gently knocks my hands away so she can tie it.
“Car accident,” I mumble, and I wonder—even now, even after I’ve bared my soul
to Cameron and Will—when will the lies stop rolling off my tongue so easily?

All of her natural hostility fades as she turns to Will.
“Your truck?”

It makes me want to laugh, the way she says this, like his
truck is sacred and his life is changed forever by its destruction. Only, the
truck will be fine as soon as I get the okay to fix it. Will’s life, though?

He’s refused to talk about it with me so far. No questions
about the Elves I know, no voiced curiosities about what life in Annar is
like—nothing. Just a resigned sense of weary acceptance that hurts to see on
his face. I left him and Cameron alone after they decided to move to Annar with
me so they could talk, but mere minutes after my door shut, so did Will’s
bedroom door.

Will does laugh here with Frieda, though. It’s normal
sounding, the kind he’d do on any other day than the morning after his world
was turned upside down. Maybe Will’s as good of an actor as I am. “Truck’s
fine. The important thing is Zoe and I are okay.”

Zoe. When just ten minutes before he called me Chloe.

“Obviously, you jackass.” Frieda goes to swat his arm, but
pulls back with only millimeters to spare.

“I’m not fragile,” he teases her.

There’s a bit of envy in me, hearing him say that with such
conviction.

Throughout the day, I allow myself to contemplate how I’m
going to make my way back home. On paper, it seems easy enough: get myself to
Juneau and go through the portal back to Annar. And yet, like everything else
in my life, my return cannot be this simple, as there are so many factors I
need to consider that it makes my head spin. Aside from the truly shitty way I
treated my fiancé and friends by abandoning them without a word, I’m also a
first tier Council member, and I fled my job and responsibilities. I have no
idea what the repercussions are for that. It’s not like there’s another Creator
to fall back on, so they’re stuck with me until a new one is born and Ascends.
But what if they put me under arrest? Do they even do that? Maybe something
like house arrest? For all anyone knows, I could’ve been captured and/or killed
by the Elders. Are they out there searching for me, like they did for my team, missing
now for over a year? I let myself imagine, for the briefest of moments, that
Nividita, Harou, and Earle were found, safe and sound, and all three are in
Annar right now, exactly where they should be. It’s a lovely feeling, until the
reality of my abandoning of my responsibilities weighs down on me once more.
Countless beings on seven different planes count on Creators.

I failed them.

I thought only of myself, and I left.

I glance around the Moose, at all the customers I’ve come to
know in these six months, of the people I call friends who I work with, and I
think—could I have abandoned my responsibilities to them so easily? Because,
even on my darkest, most self-loathing day, I still put on my apron and came to
work. And this job—this job I love, this job I made mine—isn’t the one I really
ought to be doing. Not because I’m above it, not because it’s not worthy of a
Creator, but . . .
I’m a Creator
. It’s the simple truth. I need to start
acting like one.

I have a lot of
mea culpas
, I think. And a hell of a
lot of growing up to do.

“Cut them some slack,” Paul is
saying. “I’m sure both Zoe and Will would much prefer going home and relaxing
than going to the bowling alley tonight.”

“Losers,” is Frieda’s endearing reply to us. She kisses me
quickly on the cheek, slaps Will on his ass, and then saunters out of the
diner.

Paul scratches his head. “Ginny’s bringing her new boyfriend
around. I think it makes Frieda a bit—”

“Bitchy?” Will offers. He’s grinning, though.

Paul sighs. “I was going to say insecure. You sure you two
are up for closing, being banged up the way you are and all?”

We assure him we are, and then he leaves. Will heads back
into the kitchen; I trail after him minutes later, a cleaning bottle and a rag
in my hands. “Want to talk about it?”

Several pans bang together as he puts them away. “What’s
there to talk about?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You finding out who I am? What you are?
That your parents have kept secrets from you your whole life? I have some
experience with that myself.”

The look he gives me nearly shrinks my spine, but I remind
myself, he’s been through a lot over the last forty hours.

The bell over the door chimes, and we both roll our eyes.
Paul must’ve forgotten to flip the closed sign on his way out. “We’re closed,”
Will yells, and then winces as his lungs press against his ribs.

“Well that sucks, as there are a couple customers waiting
out here for some orders,” comes Frieda’s response.

Well, crap. There goes going home early and sleeping. And
also, what is she doing back?

Will bends down to put another pot away. “Give us a moment,
yeah?”

Her voice drifts closer. “Ooh, is that a grunt I hear,
William? Is there some sexual healing going on in the kitchen tonight?”