The Sorcerer Heir (Heir Chronicles) (42 page)

E
mma spent a good part of the long drive home rehearsing what she would say. Or maybe
rehearsing
was the wrong word, because she never said the same thing twice. It was like a song where you changed the lyrics every time you sang it, but it still never quite came together. Or maybe there was just no way to turn any of this into words that were anything but ugly.

You know how your life was ruined and you lost nearly all your family when you were only six or seven years old, and you thought it was an accident? Well, it wasn’t. Somebody did it on purpose.

You know how the people all around you suffered and died, and you watched it, knowing that it’s going to happen to you one day? You paid the price for my mama cheating on my father.

Remember how you can’t even kiss a girl or hug your brother, Kenzie, who you love most in the world? My daddy did that.

Seriously, it might be easier just to shoot herself between the eyes and leave a long apology note.

But, no. That was Tyler’s way out. And they deserved better.

So she gave up and tuned the radio to a blues station, and it seemed like every one of those songs told the story much better than she ever could.

As she drove north, it got colder and colder.

Should she go talk to Mercedes first? It would help if she could bring some scrap of hope along with her. But, no. She’d be doing that more for herself, not for Jonah, Natalie, and the others. So she headed straight for the Anchorage.

She was really feeling the absence of her phone. She kept reaching for it, thinking she’d call Kenzie or Jonah or somebody, and realizing too late that it wasn’t there. She decided to stop at Oxbow and pick it up.

Emma parked in her usual spot. When she got out of her truck, she was shocked at how cold it was. She tried to enter through the side door as usual, but when she put in the code, she got an error message.

Maybe they finally got around to changing the locks, she thought. She tried pounding on the door, but nobody answered. The place appeared deserted, nobody coming in or out. In fact, the whole campus seemed oddly empty of students. It was already dark, maybe just past suppertime, which usually meant a lot of coming and going.

Maybe she should go try Kenzie at Steel Wool. There was always staff on duty there, and he was one of the first people she wanted to talk to anyway.

As she turned away, she heard gunshots coming from inside the dormitory. And then what sounded like volleys of gunfire in return. Emma flattened herself against the building, next to the door, hoping that brick would stop a bullet. Her pulse pounded in her throat as possible explanations reeled through her mind.

So at first she didn’t notice when somebody materialized out of the dark and snowflakes into the pool of light around the door. He was muffled up against the cold, but had a phone pressed to his ear.

Emma shrank back, raising both hands in defense. Then lowered them slightly. “Fitch?” she said, and it came out almost as a squeak.

He stared at her as if she’d risen from the dead and tapped him on the shoulder. “Emma?” Fitch threw his arms around her, and swung her around in a happy dance. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you. Leesha’s been calling you and calling you.”

The phone in his hand was crackling angrily. Raising it to his ear, Fitch said, “Kenzie! It’s Emma! She’s here, in front of Oxbow. And she’s alive!”

There came a happy explosion of sound from the phone.

“Fitch,” Emma said, grabbing hold of his lapels. “There’s people shooting guns inside this building.”

“Kenzie? Did you hear that?” Fitch said. “Can you get us in?”

“Why would you want to get
in
there?” Emma hissed.

“I think Jack’s in there, and some others from the task force. I don’t know who’s shooting at them.” He listened a moment, then said, “Hang on, Kenzie. I’m going to put you on speaker.”

“Emma,” Kenzie said, “something’s happened. They’ve done something to Jonah. He’s not himself.”

Emma’s heart nearly stopped. “What do you mean, they did something to him?”

“I don’t know,” Kenzie said, his voice husky with tears. “It’s—it’s like they took out his heart. I’m afraid he might hurt somebody.”

“Do you think he’s the one inside Oxbow?”

“No. Something’s going on at the Keep. Something big. I think he’s there, and it’s some kind of a ruse or a trap. I know it’s a lot to ask, but could you go there? If anyone can get through to him, it’s you.”

“It’s
not
a lot to ask,” Emma said, her own heart breaking. “I owe it to him—and to you. But you’re the one he cares about most. Where are you? I’ll come fetch you, and we’ll go together.”

“I’m on the roof at the dispensary. It’s a long story. It’ll take too long to get me down from here. Anyway, I’m going to help Fitch with this Oxbow situation.”

“All right. I’m going.”

“Emma?”

“Yes?”

“Use music. That’s a language he understands, and that’s your gift. That’s your magic. You’re the only one who can touch my brother. You just never figured it out.”

Leesha stared at Alison and the others, feeling like she’d been turned inside out. “You?” she blurted. “You murdered a
twelve-year-old
?”

“No,” DeVries said. “It was Kinlock. Not you. I don’t know why you’re covering for him, but—”

“I had my orders from Gabriel,” Alison said. “I was supposed to kill some mainliners, and frame Jonah for it.”

Mandrake slammed his hands down on the table. “If that’s what you thought I said, you were confused. I wouldn’t ever—”

“No, Gabriel, I may have been sick and drugged up and—and modified to the point that I wasn’t even sure who I was. But I was
crystal clear
on that. You told me how Jonah was going to betray us all to the mainliners, how he’d lost sight of the mission, how I was the best slayer of everyone, and that’s why you were giving me this important job.” Her body shuddered with sobs.

Natalie slid her arm around her.

“So, at the break, I put on a leather jacket and leather gloves, like Jonah always wears. When he walked out onto the grounds, I followed him. I almost walked into the gazebo, but then I heard the three of them—DeVries and Emma and Jonah—arguing. So I waited. First DeVries came out, then Emma, then finally Jonah. I followed him a little way, drugged him, then riffed the two mainliners—”

“Riffed?” Seph said, breaking out of his shell shock a little. “What’s that?”

“That’s the word we use to make it seem less like killing. But before I could stage everything, DeVries came sneaking along. I think he was following Jonah.”

“That’s not true!” DeVries said. “If anything, he was following me.”

“Whatever,” Alison said. “Anyway, I couldn’t let you stumble across Jonah lying drugged on the ground, so I riffed you, too. Or so I thought.” She paused. “Afterward, I—I smeared blood on Jonah and left my daggers beside him. To make it look like he was the killer. I was almost finished when Grace showed up and saw me. I think at first she thought it was some kind of Halloween prank. And so she—she didn’t even run away.” Alison’s voice broke, and she mopped at her eyes with her sleeves. “I never—I didn’t mean to kill Grace,” she said, swallowing hard. “I knew that was unforgivable. Unforgivable. I knew that the mainliners—that Madison Moss—might execute Jonah on the spot. Still, I
betrayed
him. I left him there, and went and changed clothes and cleaned up and got back in time to hear that Jonah had already sent a text, that he’d gone home sick.

“I was scared to death. I still have no idea how he got out of that trap we set for him—how he woke up and got his head together quick enough to get out of there and be back at school so soon.”

“Jonah has always been highly resistant to drugs,” Natalie murmured. “Which is probably why he gave Gabriel so much trouble.” She fixed her eyes on Mandrake.

“Wait just a
minute
,” DeVries said. “Don’t you think it’s a bit premature to be issuing a general pardon for Kinlock? How do you choose one liar over another? Everyone from Thorn Hill is suspect. Maybe it
wasn’t
Kinlock who did the Halloween murders, it was her.” He jerked his thumb at Alison. “Or maybe he’s charmed her into covering for him. He’s good at that. Jonah Kinlock murdered my sister and seven other wizards. Emma was a witness, and now she’s missing and I’m guessing she’s dead, too.”

“Actually,” somebody said from the balcony, “rumors of my death have been, you know, exaggerated.”

It was Emma Greenwood.

“
E
mma!” Leesha stood and extended her arms, like if Emma jumped, she would catch her. Or like she could give a hug across a distance. “Thank God. We’ve been so worried.”

Emma looked down at the sea of faces. Some took her resurrection better than others. Leesha and Natalie and Rudy—they looked as if they’d just got the best present ever. Alison seemed lost, as if maybe she’d missed something. Seph was all relief, like here was finally one fire he wouldn’t have to put out, while DeVries looked relieved and nervous at the same time—like he wasn’t sure how this was going to play out.

Gabriel just looked wary.

And, everywhere, unhosted shades, frail tendrils of light in the recesses of the club; a choir of silent angels, looking on.

And the woman, the one called Lilith Greaves—she stared up at Emma like she’d been handed a puzzle that she couldn’t work out. “Who
is
she?” Greaves said. “Who’s that girl?” But nobody answered.

“How long have you been up there?” Natalie asked. “Did you hear what Alison said? About Halloween?”

Emma nodded. “I did. I heard a lot. And what Alison said matches up with what I remember. So I believe she’s telling the truth.”

“Emma,” DeVries said. “Please. Come down here so we don’t have to shout.”

“I can hear you fine from here,” Emma said.

“Listen to me,”
DeVries said, looking up at Emma, a note of pleading in his voice. “Remember how Kinlock broke into your father’s house? Remember what happened to your father and my sister—and you? Just because Alison has confessed to the murders on Halloween, it doesn’t change the fact that Kinlock is a killer.” His voice hardened. “You need to tell them about that night in the Heights—what you saw.”

“You go first,” Emma said. “Tell me what you know about an old man named Sonny Lee Greenwood who died on a hot night in Memphis last summer.”

And all the blood drained from DeVries’s face, leaving nothing but guilt behind.

“See, you told me how the police in Memphis were hunting me on account of the fact that Sonny Lee had been murdered. That was the club you were holding over my head to get me to back up your story. But I get down to Memphis, and I find out that nobody down there has a clue that Sonny Lee was murdered. Everybody down there thinks he was an old man who fell and hit his head and died.”

“Emma,” DeVries said, swallowing hard. “That doesn’t mean that—”

“So I’m thinking the only person who knows for sure he was murdered was the murderer himself.” She paused, let a heartbeat go by. “Or herself.”

Emma knew she’d nailed it when DeVries sagged, shoulders slumped, like he knew it was no good trying to deny it. “It was an accident,” he said.

“An accident? How do you
accidentally
break in to somebody’s shop? How do you
accidentally
knock somebody down?”

“Rachel was young and inexperienced. I never should have sent her out on her own. She was just trying to scare him, and—”

“And so she killed the person I loved most in the world. So then you turned right around and sent that same girl to my father’s house. How many people died then? And then you’re all guilty, so you’re going to take me on as a project and set me up with a woodshop and a little house with a picket fence after I give you Jonah. So, no. You’ve been pretty careless with the lives of the people I care about. So I’ve got nothing at all to say about that night that’s going to help you out.”

Emma was talking to DeVries, but she was watching everybody. Gabriel was wadded up in his chair like a crumpled sheet of sandpaper, used up and useless. Greaves just kept fixed on Emma, her expression flat, unreadable, peculiar. Maybe it was because she was a hosted shade, somebody wearing a borrowed body. It stood to reason she’d look peculiar.

“Where’s Jonah?” Emma demanded. “I want to talk to him.”

“He’s not here,” Gabriel said, licking his lips, looking at Greaves.

“I can see that. So where is he? Kenzie says something’s wrong—he isn’t himself.”

“On the contrary,” Greaves said, “Jonah is finally everything he was meant to be. We’ve honed away those last rough edges. He is my creation, and he’s perfect.”

A warning pinged in Emma’s head. “I like rough edges,” she said. “That’s what makes a person real. Now, I want to know where he is.”

Leesha said, “I haven’t been able to reach Ellen and Madison. I think we should go check on them.” She was looking up at Emma, and Emma knew that it was some kind of warning to her. That she’d figured out the game. But Emma didn’t get it.

Then Gabriel came alive enough to say, “Wait! There’s something you should know.”

“Shut up, Gabriel,” Greaves said.

“Don’t you see?” Gabriel said. “It’s over. We’re done. All we can do is—”

“I said, shut
up
! Everybody stays here.” Then she shouted, “Brendan!”

All around the theater, doors opened and hosted shades poured in. This time, the shades didn’t attack, but formed a ring around them, blocking their path to the door. And stood, as if awaiting orders. In response, Alison and the other shadeslayers scooped weapons from under their seats and formed a circle around the mainliners, pointing their weapons at the shades.

Gabriel seemed as surprised as anybody. “Lilith? What’s this?” he hissed.

“You may think your life is over, but ours is just beginning,” Greaves said. “We’ve waited a decade for this, and I’m not going to let you wimp out on me now. This is about payback for what happened to us at Thorn Hill.”

McCauley was on his feet, flame flickering around his person, his eyes like twin flames in his ashy face. “
What
is payback?”

“After ten years, the only thing we’ve found that can restore the damaged survivors of Thorn Hill is blood magic, freed by the death of the gifted. We’ve been collecting it in dribs and drabs, but it’s never enough to have more than a temporary effect. We’re tired of bloodshed. We want to come in from the cold and salvage what’s left of our lives.”

“And so—?” Seph said.

“Sometimes the innocent pay a price for the sins of the guilty,” Greaves said. “The Weirguilds are responsible for the massacre at Thorn Hill, so they will pay a blood price.”

Somehow, Emma found her voice. “Listen to me!” she shouted. “What happened at Thorn Hill had nothing to do with the Weirguilds. It had everything to do with me and my family. If you want revenge, I’m your person.”

“What do
you
know about it?” Greaves said. “Who are you?”

“My name is Emma Greenwood. My father, Tyler Greenwood, used to kill people for Andrew DeVries, Rowan’s father. Tyler destroyed the commune at Thorn Hill to get revenge on my mother, who was cheating on him with
him.”
She pointed at Gabriel. “I have my father’s records, I have his confession, and I’ve been to his lab. You all have been blaming each other for something my father did. The only justice in this whole thing was that Tyler went back and killed DeVries Senior so he wouldn’t come back after us.”

“Tyler was the one?” Rowan looked up at her, his face a white spot of shock. “
He
killed my father?”

“Shut up, Rowan,” Emma said, clean out of patience.

“You have your father’s notes?” Mercedes said eagerly. “Would they tell us what was used at Thorn Hill? Where are they?”

“I’ve got whole boxes of files in my truck,” Emma said.

“That won’t help, because it’s not
true
,” Greaves said. “He wasn’t there. Tyler was never there. He couldn’t have—”

“Yes, he was,” Emma said. “He was there long enough to poison the wells, and then he took me back to the States. He confessed it to me.”

Greaves stared up at Emma, like she’d seen a ghost. “Claire?” she whispered.

“That’s my middle name,” Emma said. “I’ll tell you all about it later, but right now, I need to know what you’ve done with Jonah.”

“But I’m your mother, Claire,” Lilith Greaves said.

Time seemed to stop. Emma stared down at the woman on the theater floor. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “My mother was Gwen Hart.”

“That’s me,” Greaves said. “I was Gwen Hart. When I came to Thorn Hill, I used the name Lilith Greaves so Tyler and DeVries wouldn’t track me down.”

“No,” Emma said, digging in. “My mother died at Thorn Hill.”

“My
body
died at Thorn Hill,” Greaves said, “but I survived, because of the longevity manipulation we did.”

“No,” Emma repeated. “My mother would never experiment on her own daughter.” But of course she would. That’s exactly what Tyler had said.

“You don’t understand,” Greaves said. “You were never meant for
this
.” She swept her hand, including Rudy, Natalie, Alison, and the rest. “You were never supposed to be part of Nightshade.” She said it as if it were a dirty word. “You were special. It was all about music. That was your gift. In you, I was creating a savant whose music could bring light into darkness and reconnect broken spirits. Your music was designed to heal wounded souls...even mine.”

“That’s not true,” Emma said, her mouth dry as sawdust.

“You used to play so beautifully,” Greaves said wistfully. “You were never meant to be a weapon. You—you were a work of art. My masterpiece.”

“My friends are not weapons,” Emma said furiously. “They are
people
. And they don’t deserve this.”

“Claire,” Greaves pleaded, extending her hands toward her. “Please. Try to understand. We’ll talk about it. There are so many things I need to tell you.”

But Emma wasn’t listening. Thoughts rocketed through her head, a hundred loose ends tied up in a knot. That’s why you don’t have the tattoo. That’s why you can play nearly anything you pick up. It’s not natural—you didn’t get it the usual way, from Tyler or Sonny Lee. It got plugged into you like an amplifier or a special-effects pedal.

“No,” Emma said, backing away from the railing. “I am
not
your work of art. I refuse to let you ruin music for me, too.”

“Listen to me,” Greaves said. “I did it for you. It was all for you. We’ll be fine, you’ll see. This is perfect. After today, I can be a real mother to you. We’ll make up for lost time, I promise.”

“What—after you slaughter all of these people, we can go on like they never existed?”

“That’s the thing,” Greaves said. “It won’t be necessary to kill the gifted anymore. All we need is the single, most powerful, purest source of magic available. That one sacrifice will get us a lifetime together. Maybe more than a lifetime—maybe forever.”

Emma didn’t get what Greaves was talking about. But Seph did.

“Maddie,” Seph whispered. “No. Not Maddie. She had nothing to do with Thorn Hill. She was a kid when it happened. She didn’t even know about the Weirguilds then.”

Hurling flame into the crowd blocking his path, Seph tried to break through the cordon of shades, making a run for the door. One of the shades brought an iron bar down on his head, and he crumpled to the floor. Shades swarmed forward, but Rudy, Alison, and Charlie formed a wall, firing their odd weapons into the crowd until they faded back.

“No!” Greaves cried. “I told you. No more killing. We just keep them here until Jonah’s finished. Then we let them go.”

That’s when Emma understood. “You sent
Jonah
to kill Madison Moss?” Her voice echoed throughout the hall.

Greaves nodded. “And collect the blood magic—enough to save us all. Enough to treat everyone at the Anchorage. Enough to return all of us to healthy, permanent bodies.”

“No,” Emma said, shaking her head. “No. You couldn’t.”

“It’s a very pleasant death, I assure you,” Greaves rushed to say. “And it’s simple justice. It ends the killing for good.”

“You’re wrong,” Emma said. “Didn’t you hear a word I said? Why should Madison Moss atone for what you and Tyler did? That’s. Not. Justice.” She pounded on the balcony railing with every word.

“Claire,” Greaves whispered. “Isn’t there any thing I can do, any way I can convince you that—?”

“What you can do for me right now is to
call Jonah off
,” Emma said, her voice trembling with rage. “Call him off!”

“It’s too late,” Greaves said. “I have no idea where he is. Besides, it’s likely done by now.” She extended her hands toward Emma. “We’ll get past this, I promise. It’s a sacrifice, I know, but worth it in the end.”

“Why is it that you’re always sacrificing other people?” Taking a breath, Emma let it out in a long shudder. “Let me tell you something,
Mama
,”
she said, pouring every bit of the pain and sorrow and guilt she’d suffered since the summer into that word. “If Jonah Kinlock kills Madison Moss, you will be dead to me in every way.
Every
way.”

For a long moment, Greaves looked up at her. Stared at her as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Then turned and strode toward the door. The shades shifted uneasily, as if unsure whether to go or stay. Eventually, about half of them followed.

“Lilith!” Gabriel hurried after her, catching up to her by the door. He clutched her arm. “What are you doing? This whole thing was your idea. You can’t leave me in the middle of this.”