Page 34 of Last Gift: Supernatural Battle

“Me neither.”

The quad member rolled his eyes, and we walked out of my quarters together, chatting. Rooke was on her way to my quarters.

“Huxley, there you are,” she said.

He glared.

“Yes,” she said in exasperation. “The greenhouse is purified. Hurry up, I’ve had a thought.” She peered past him to me. “Thought you may wish to know…” My cousin checked the tunnel was clear. “I heard a few comments after the gathering today.”

I braced myself. “Like?”

“Like how you’ve been chosen, and some of them knew it from the start. You just understood the game so well. You were so powerful that the quad accepted you as one of them.”

Huxley snorted as I wrinkled my nose.

Pretty sure the quad acted like assholes toward me for most of that time.

Rooke recited, “You always did dawn walks, and are so old-fashioned at esbat. Plus you talk to council members and elders like you’re their equal, and always have. That kind of stuff. They’re saying that even though you don’t look like you want to be leader, you’re doing what’s best for the coven, and they appreciate you dedicating yourself to it regardless.”

Not bad. I’d expected far worse. “Thanks, Rooke.”

“So Rooke listens to whispers, and Sven speaks them?” Huxley asked.

That about summed it up.

My bond with Rooke was shining, and I glanced at her in question.

“I was butthurt about not being an advisor,” she admitted. “Not that I want you to feel bad about that. I can see your point now. You need ears too.”

Our bond swelled further—our normal magus bond. The only normal magus bond I possessed. The one with Wild was otherworldly. Then there were the three withered bonds I’d shared with Syera, Grandmother, and Mother that told me they were gone. Then there was—I stopped in my tracks, staring at the remaining tether. I hadn’t looked at it in so long.

Huxley banged into me. “What?—”

I spun on the spot and walked double-time back to my quarters. “I’ve never been able to follow it before.”

“Follow what?” Rooke asked, hurrying to keep up. Huxley wasn’t far behind her.

“My mystery tether,” I said, barging into my room. “The one that doesn’t make sense. I’ve never been able to follow it.”

I stood before the demon gate and gazed within at the thin tether that connected me to another. “It does connect me to a demon, then. The bond travels into that realm. Can I only see it now because the gate has been opened so much?”

“Or maybe because the demons’ power has grown,” Huxley chimed in.

If the other person was in the demon realm, then that could explain why the tether was so weak and thin. Or did me being magus and the other person being a demon screw with things?

“We knew the person on the other end was a demon, right?” my cousin said. “That’s why you decided to stop looking for them.”

Huxley glanced at me, and I could tell his thoughts echoed mine.

“Tempest,” he said. “The demon woman I saw. What if she was looking for you.”

I stared at the rock wall that concealed the demon gate. “Maybe the tether belongs to my demon. And maybe my demon is trapped in that realm.”

And yet so many things in that didn’t make sense, including that the woman Huxley encountered had been corporeal. I said, “Plus, the bond only appeared before I came here. I was born half demon. I’ve always had her, so I always should have had a bond to her.”

“Demons come into maturity at around sixteen,” he answered. “Maybe yours came in later because the strength of your magus power kept her locked away in your divination affinity. The affinity you didn’t want to explore.”

The larger concept seemed impossible—not to know an entire facet of yourself until twenty-one—but I really hadn’t known about her until recently. And I kept coming back to the fact that my demon told me she was trapped elsewhere. “I don’t know what to think.”

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