Page 63 of Sticks and Stones and Broken Bones

“What?” I gasped. I had always had magic. But how? Had my mother known? My grandmother? No, if she’d known I had magic she would have used it to her advantage. That meant my mother must have done something. Rage boiled my blood.

“What is it?” Roux asked cautiously. “Your magic is going crazy.”

“I think my mother knew I had magic and I think she hid it from me.”

“Well, shit.” She slumped back in the chair. “That’s… I can’t even put into words how shit that is. Perhaps she had a reason.”

“Maybe.”

“Why don’t you go topside and—” She broke off with a gasp, her hand resting over her heart. “Oh, Raevyn, I’m so sorry.”

“What?” Panic bloomed in my chest. “What is it?”

“It’s your mother. She’s here.”

“Here? I don’t understand.” She couldn’t be here. The only way to be in the Underworld was if she was…

Oh, Gods.

No.

It couldn’t be.

“It’s not possible.”

“Raevyn, I—”

“You’re wrong.” I jumped to my feet, panic and fear squeezing my heart with an icy grip.

The door flew open, and my guys ran in, ready to do battle.

“Draguta, what is it?” Hawk had his axe raised above his shoulder, his amber eyes as bright as fire as he searched the room for a threat.

Tears pooled in my eyes. “Roux says my mother is here. But she can’t be. She can’t be.”

“Is it true?” Korbin asked Roux, his voice soft as silk.

“Yes,” she replied. “She’s at the pier.”

My knees collapsed beneath me as reality set in. Hawk fell to the ground with me, cradling me in his arms. I felt the others crowd in around me, their silent support the only thing stopping me from falling apart completely. She might not have been the best mother in the world, but she was still my mother, and the thought of her death hit me harder than I thought possible.

I looked at Roux and her green eyes were filled with tears. “Can you take me to her?”

She winced. “I shouldn’t—”

“Please,” I begged. “I have to know what happened.”

Roux gave a resolute nod and held her hand out. “Come with me.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Hawk

Raevyn’s hand squeezed mine tightly as we followed the red-haired Reaper along the pier. Hades had been in the middle of ripping us a new one when I’d felt a spike in her fear. I’d never felt anything like it before. I fled the room, the others close behind, whilst Hades shouted at us to come back. There was no fucking way that I was doing anything other than saving Raevyn. She was my priority, my focus, and in that moment, Hades could go fuck himself.

Nox held her other hand and I cast a glance at him over the top of her head. His returning look was wary. We still hadn’t told her what we’d done when we’d visited her mother topside. We’d returned to find the disaster left behind with Rook feeding from her, then she’d disappeared while she slept only to reappear screaming about a prison and a raven. Her Familiar had been shrieking and cawing like a mad thing and I’d almost killed it just to shut it up. If it had been any other bird, I would have.

It was currently sat on Raevyn’s shoulder closest to me, clearly summoned by her grief, and it was only for that reason I wasn’t thinking about how to murder it seven ways with my bare hands.

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