“What are you up to today?” I asked, daring to look into his eyes. There, I found the same concerned, penetrating stare that I always did in his gaze.
“You tell me.”
“Why does Cadence think you guys are on the outs?” I asked as Mason came out from behind the bookcase, looking less than awake.
“She wants to get inside my head, and I don’t want her in there.”
“She analyzes me, too. Don’t take it personally.”
“Not,” he said, squeezing my shoulder. “Just not ready to open all the doors, you know.”
“Right,” I said under my breath, thinking of his sister, the one he lost, the point in his life that he could not get past. Even after I showed her to him, after I told him that the only way I could see her, show her to him would be if she were at peace and looking for one last goodbye, he couldn’t get past it.
I understood why he felt that way. So did Mason, which is why we were allowed in and no one else.
“I need a shower. You guys want to meet at the coffee bar later?”
“If it even opens. If not, we’ll hang out here, if you’re cool with that,” Gavin said, catching Mason’s agreeing nod as he stood.
“Works for me.” Storm or no storm, I was not staying in this house all day, and they knew that.
I knew once I moved through my morning routine, I would be able to shake this night terror. I blushed as I thought of going to the North Wing. When I thought of that voice, those eyes that I knew would be there.
Chapter Four
After a long, steaming shower, I covered the bruises on my body with a bronzing lotion. I inhaled the sweet cocoa scent, craving a beach, warmth at that moment. I layered on my clothes, ripped skintight jeans that had flower patterns patched here and there, a tight tank top, then a larger one that had a sizeable skull centering it. Short combat boots, laces untied, were the perfect complement to my attire. I smirked when I looked in the mirror. I loved how my style did not match my home, or my life. I loved how independent it made me feel. And how bad it ticked off Rasure. Nearly made her apoplectic, in fact.
Still feeling empty without my scarf bracelet, I scurried around, looking for gloves, hoping that would serve as a barrier if I lost control today. I found black ones that had the fingers cut out; they were almost too small, barely reaching my wrist.
I began to pin a few layers of my short blonde hair back here and there, trying to create an on purpose, messy look. I reached for the brush and straightened, then angled my long bangs to the side. With each stroke, I brought memories to life. I’d shared this brush with my sisters when they were alive, and each time I used it visions of them would come to life around me. I would see them getting ready for school, talking about trivial stuff, nothing that really mattered. It always made me happy, gave me peace.
I had a daily routine that I’d been trying to break myself from for months. Each day I found an excuse to go, and today the absence of the scarf was the perfect justification to seek the warmth I knew I’d find.
I looked over myself once more. Smirking, you’d have thought that I wanted to make sure I looked right in case the image I was about to see would acknowledge me. A warm hum centered above my heart and started to spread through my chest as I began to walk toward the North Wing.
The first time my grandmother walked me down here, I felt the same way. You would think by now that it would just be a routine or like watching the same movie a hundred times over, but I knew that each time I came here I would see something different. Those emotions I wanted to feel in real life were going to flood me.
Gran told me that this wing was mine, that it would help me understand who I was, am, and would be. I didn’t understand why she thought that. I assumed she was just trying to get me to grasp the Falcon legacy. The North Wing is the original wing of the manor. It connects to all my favorite rooms as well, the massive three-story library along with the dome room. It was nothing less than regal. Every piece of furniture in that wing was hand-selected and handcrafted by Falcons. It was so priceless that it had been sealed for years before my grandmother gave it to me. Not surprisingly, when Rasure drew up plans to add on to the manor, she planned to tear this wing down and build it again; she claimed it needed to be restored. We went to court. I won. The wing remained untouched—well, except for my slow walks through it each morning.
Sometimes late at night, when I was all alone, I would let my imagination run wild. I would tell myself that the life behind these doors was mine, that the one I was living that was rich with dark grief was just a nightmare that I would wake from one day.
I knew those thoughts were destructive, that because I let myself become addicted to this image in the North Wing that I had shut myself off from feeling anything like it in my present life. I knew that if I never felt the way I did when I was here that I would have forced myself to try harder in the relationships I’d let fall apart. The thing is, though, you have to willingly choose to get over an addiction. It will not go away on its own, and I chose to embrace this one. I chose to watch this life instead of live mine.
My hands trembled slightly as I reached to open the door that led to the wing. My heartbeat picked up as the air carrying the aroma of warm spices washed over my face.
Soft piano music was heard instantly. Low laughter reached my ears and warmed my soul.
At sixteen, when I first came here I only heard memories in this wing; small, sweet, innocent words. As the years moved forward, as I became a young woman, I began to see the image behind that voice I always heard when I was afraid and needed something to hide behind.
His low laugh stopped me in my tracks. I felt a burning sensation spread through my body. I glanced to the open doorway to my left. He was there. All six-four of him. He was breathtaking. Broad shoulders and the lean body of a warrior. His eyes were a deep gray, and his dark auburn hair was brushed off of his face, yet a few strands reached to his high cheekbones. He was smiling, a warm, alluring smile that he only gave to…her.
For the longest time, I hated ‘her.’ I was jealous that one of my ancestors had something that I could never have: warmth. But then one day, I saw her face. I saw my face. I saw an image of me in the arms of a boy that I had fallen in love with at a distance.
As you can imagine, this entire scenario baffled me. My image was right in front of me. Standing within a memory that reflected the original Falcons, yet I was adopted. I stopped trying to analyze how impossible it was that the girl in his arms was indeed me, that my soul was in that vessel, that my soul had loved him once before. I stopped because it didn’t matter—I was in love with him now. And maybe, just maybe, I was meant to be born here. Maybe I had finally found my way home.
I never dared tell a soul about what I saw in this wing, not even Skylynn. I didn’t want anyone to rationalize it, to tell me I was creating this, that I was only seeing what I wanted to see. I needed this to be real. Even if it was two hundred years ago, I needed to know that at one time I was happy.
The image of me reached to pull him closer. “Sebastian,” she breathed as his lips met her neck. He kissed her skin slowly as they moved against each other to the sound of music playing in the distance. “They are waiting on you,” she said as she closed her eyes.
“You’re only sending me away so you have an excuse to play in the snow,” he said as he pulled away from her and traced his fingers across her jawline.
“It’s a beautiful night,” she said, looking innocently up at him. He burst into laughter, telling her he surely wasn’t buying that look. He picked her up and whirled her in the air before lifting her to his lips. Slowly, he let her down as their gazes locked. “Sometimes I think I built this manor for kicks and giggles, for the girl I love would rather spend her time out in the cold.”
She smiled. “It’s peaceful.”
“It’s peaceful because you are so cold that you cannot feel anything else,” he said, raising his brow and tilting his head slightly.
?
??When you are that cold, your mind drifts, like a waking dream, and in those dreams I see you, and you are warmer than any manor you could have built me.”
He grinned as if he had never heard such a declaration of devotion before. “Let me finish this meeting, and we’ll go together.” She stood on her tiptoes and let her lips meet his neck as he let out a moan and pulled her closer. “How about you just promise to keep me warm once the night has met its end?”
“Always your fire,” he said as his eyes lowered to meet hers and he kissed her lips tenderly.
Other images ran into the room, all young children circling them and calling out, “Genevieve!”
Yep, you heard right; apparently, in this past life I had the same name. That fact alone dared me to ask my grandmother about the ancestors in the line of Falcons. I never found a way to come out and ask her if she had heard of a Sebastian, if I was named after the originals. Every time I thought it was the right moment to bring it up, the conversation would change course so drastically that bringing up ancestors or if I were named after someone would have been ridiculous.
I decided that I didn’t need my grandmother to tell me this couple did exist. I knew they did. The certainty saturated my bones, which allowed me to grasp the belief that in a past life I was this girl, that boy was mine.
It took days of watching these images to discover those were not their children. Some of them didn’t even live here; they just adored who I was, who Sebastian was. They pulled my image from the room, laughing.
Sebastian only held his smile until the image of me was out of sight, then his expression turned grim. Worry consumed his eyes. I stood at attention. I never saw the same scene in this wing, so that wasn’t surprising; his mood was.
He reached in his pocket and pulled out a small box, then opened it and placed it on her pillow. It was a pearl bracelet. I found myself smiling with him as he glanced at it. He had given the same bracelet to me at least three times. Apparently, I kept managing to lose it in the manor or on the grounds.
He turned with a sigh and left their room. I followed him down the wide hallway, watching as empty vases began to mock the images of flowers that must have been in place when this happened the first time.
He walked to his study in this wing; it was just outside the library I adored.
The fire burning in the stone fireplace was bright enough to reach the vaulted ceiling, but small lamps remained on anyway.
There was an image leaning over the table, one that I almost thought of as a friend. He was Sebastian’s brother, Guardian. In my walks in this wing, I had seen more laughter than stifle between those two, but lately I could tell their relationship was strained, that Sebastian was worried about him.
See, to me this was like stepping into a movie. The memories I unlocked here always move forward, sometimes more rapidly than I would want them to. I had been feeling a climax or worse, an ending, coming to these memories for a while now which is why I had been trying to break my habit of lurking here every morning. I thought it would be easier if I ended it. That way, I could only be mad at myself, not at the fact that the life I’d been witnessing for years was officially lost in the past.
My heart started to hammer as this scene unfolded. I felt the dread creep over my skin. I was dreading what would be decided at this meeting, and I had no idea why.
Three other men were in here as well. I couldn’t make out their faces, but I could tell by their voices that at least two of them were young like Sebastian and Guardian; one of them sounded older. If I wanted to see them, I just needed to focus on them, but I didn’t want to stop gazing at Sebastian; he was worrying me.
“It’s been declared,” one of the voices said. “They are closing The Fall.”
I’ve yet to figure out what The Fall was. I heard both my image and Sebastian speak of it often. I knew for sure it was a passageway, that Guardian had vanished within it and then returned. Everything else they said about it was way over my head. I couldn’t figure out what they meant when they said ‘dark reality,’ ‘our world,’ ‘The Selected,’ or any of the other otherworldly references made. I suppose I didn’t want to figure it out because I didn’t want to accidentally discover that these images I lived for were fiction.
“That’s ludicrous,” Sebastian bit out. His warm, gray eyes filled with anger.
“Of course it is, but we very well cannot tell them why,” the older voice said.
Sebastian’s eyes met Guardian’s. “Have you even suggested to Aliyanna that speaking to the council may stop this?”
I had never focused on that girl’s image they were speaking of either. She had only surfaced recently. I knew Guardian was madly in love with her, that whenever he returned from The Fall she wasn’t with him, and it was clear he never intended for that to happen. He’d screamed at Sebastian, saying things like, “I wasn’t supposed to die. I have to go back. I can’t breathe without her.” Those words confused me. You would have thought the passage led to some other virtual reality, a game of sorts where he lost his turn and wanted to hit the reset button, get a do-over. Apparently, Aliyanna had appeared here, and the fight over whether or not Guardian should return to look for her took a back seat until this moment, it seems.
“She is not speaking to anyone,” Guardian stated evenly as his blue eyes averted from Sebastian’s stare.
“She can bear witness that the closing of The Fall is dangerous, that we need to send help and not turn our backs,” Sebastian argued.
“Bear witness?” Guardian mocked. “They will tuck her away, hide what she is from this world. They want nothing to do with darkness. They do not want to hear what we witnessed on that side. Life there is barbaric, cruel.”
“And what are you doing, brother? Are you not tucking her away?” Sebastian pushed.
“I’m protecting her!” Guardian yelled as an image moved between the brothers, urging them apart.
I was completely captivated. Though I’d walked this wing more times than I could count, seen more visions than I could explain, I had never witnessed this strife. I came here today to escape the stress of my life, and I’d somehow managed to put myself on edge.
This entire conversation was causing my insides to tighten up, making me feel nauseous. I kept glancing over my shoulder, hoping my image would walk in and calm this room down, bring the bliss back to Sebastian, but that didn’t happen.
“We have to come up with a plan. It cannot all be dark. We have to show the council light is still present there. Can you show me light?” the older voice said.
Guardian stood up, glanced at the other images that I could not make out, and nodded his head. All at once, a necklace that was lying on the table began to vibrate. It wasn’t apparent to me whose it was, but I was almost sure it didn’t belong to the image of Genevieve.
I gasped as a ball of fire emerged from the fireplace and met the necklace as some unseen force pulled it up.
This was too unreal.
The fire and necklace vanished, and a sphere of light formed. What looked like a waterfall divided the circle. One side was bright, the other dim, and sphere were present on each side. It almost looked like a comparison of two worlds side by side.
Guardian pointed to the darkest point on the dim side. “We were here at first, we moved away from there,” he said as his fingers traced white lines that led to less dark areas. “It’s not all dark, but it will be if I do not return. Evil is breeding there. People are losing hope. If we turn our backs on them, it will only be a matter of time before that evil finds the power to breach The Fall and our way of life will forevermore be changed.”
“Which is why they are insistent that they want to close The Fall,” the older man countered.
“If they close The Fall, they are going to close me in as well,” Guardian said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“You’re not returning. I already spoke to The Selected. They are aware of the damage you have seen,” Sebastian said as he stared at the sphere before him
and his eyes filled with sadness.
“And what did they say about it?” the older voice asked.
“It’s been taken under consideration.”
“Meaning nothing,” Guardian said, as if he knew that it was pointless to try and reason with anyone.
“It means that they agree that engaging with darkness is not the right thing to do,” Sebastian countered.
“But ignoring it is?” Guardian shook his head, trying to calm himself down. “Look, I get it. I understand that you think that taking in the damaged souls and building them up before sending them back is going to heal that reality. It makes sense. But that is what you feel called to do, not me. I feel called to the front lines. I know the best way to end this is for me to walk right up to the bastard that is causing all this trouble and quickly ensure that he is returned to his Creator.”
“I cannot imagine what you endured there, the sacrifices you must have made. I respect that, brother. I do. And you know I will not think twice before standing at your side if you were truly threatened. But you’re not. You were born here. You’re an original. For some reason, you have developed a craving for senseless trouble.”
“It’s not senseless. I’m the way I am for a reason. I’m meant to stop this at its core, before it can spread and threaten everything.”
“At what cost? Your life?” Sebastian asked Guardian.
“I’ve died too many times to be afraid of death.”
“In that reality, not ours. Why don’t you try reaching at least one eternity of life on this side before you decide to throw your existence away?”
“I’m a Falcon. My blood demands that I bring change, balance,” Guardian spat back.
“Compromise,” a younger voice said.
“Indeed,” the older voice said. “You two have never disagreed on anything beyond this. We cannot move forward until the two of you are in agreement. Sebastian, you do not want Guardian or Aliyanna to return to the dark reality, and Guardian, you do not want to take Aliyanna to the council to bear witness. We all know that allowing Guardian to pass through The Fall with the threat of it being closed is not something we can easily accept.”