Page 125 of Living Legend

I rolled my eyes at her mysterious tone. I backed off that subject respectfully, though. I liked Mr. Cassial, so if he was wanting to keep his past to himself, then who was I to stop him? I pulled the rubber band out of the end of my hair, starting to undo the braid. “Daya, at the time, who do you think did it?”

I asked it like a casual question. I asked it like I didn’t really care about her answer, but I did. I felt like it was important, whatever she had to say. She pushed off the counter and moved so that she was in front of me as I turned to place my back against the counter. “I haven’t really considered it. There wasn’t a lot of time for me to consider it, I guess.”

“But you considered it enough to know that Enchanters wouldn’t have done it,” I volleyed back, wanting more.

“Enchanters wouldn’t have had anything to gain from removing that baby from the equation. It wasn’t a threat to them. Its power would have rivaled Moira’s, but she wouldn’t have seen it like that.” She answered like she wanted that to be the final word on the matter, but I pushed on.

I rolled my neck. “So, you think Jonah’s father masterminded it and did it himself? He orchestrated it, made up that whole source, and used it all to go against Moira?” I was starting to ramble now.

Daya shook her head vigorously. “Dani, stop. That is not at all what I think. I don’t know what I think.”

The sound of her words hit me like a punch to the face. She had revisited an entirely bad memory just to tell me a story. A story I didn’t know was even relevant to today’s situation. “Sorry, it’s just…” I began, but she lifted her hand to stop me.

“It’s alright, Dani. I would be eager to know the answers as well. So many lives were lost on all sides. I lost my cousin and that demon she loved and I…I just wish I knew the answers, but I don’t. I was so relieved when Alex didn’t want to step foot in The Skies.”

I felt something in my chest, something that made me walk over to her and grab her by the arms, pulling her into me. She tensed a little, not from fear, but as if she was stunned. Hugging wasn’t something unheard of to me, but to say I did it frequently would be a lie. She relaxed and wrapped her own slim arms around me. There was a warmth flooding my veins and it felt familiar and friendly.

“Lilith and Isaac would have both been threatened by the potential power that baby could have grown into. It could have ruined them if Layla had wanted it to, but my cousin, she wouldn’t have wanted that, not for her child. She would have raised that baby with so much love.” She muffled against me, squeezing me.

She pushed back, placed her hands on my shoulders, and looked at me. “I never got far enough in my investigation of it and eventually, I just gave up. It’s a piece of history Heaven’s Gate tries to forget, but some people just don’t. Isaac did try, though. He started with blocks on portaling and after some time, angels just stopped creating their own portals all together. He removed all the items from the Divine Library, to erase all traces of Enchanters so that we could go back to a type of normalcy, but a normalcy he could dictate. Jonah tried to fix it, but fixing somethingthatbroken isn’t easy.”

I nodded, stepping back from her. “What happened to all those items?” My mind tried to wrap around what she had said. Lilith and Isaac would have been threatened but was Isaac the type to go through so much work to get what he wanted? Daya had mentioned him being power hungry, but would he have caused all this turmoil for one baby, for one baby whose future hadn’t even been pieced together yet? As much as I wanted to ring Jonah’s father’s already rotting neck, I knew the answers to my questions.

“Oh, I’m not sure. Burned maybe. Sent back to Oculus, perhaps. There wasn’t contact with Oculus, at least from The Skies, until Jonah took up his place.” I licked my lips, deep in my own thoughts as I tried to listen to her. Silence overtook the moment, and she suddenly clapped her hands together, as if willing away the quiet. “I’m sorry for probably ruining your entire day, sweetheart. You should know that you really aren’t the things Lilith makes you think you are.” She let out a soft laugh with a smile that met her eyes.

I realized that, just like Nicholas’s father, she had her way of ending the conversation without having to say it was over. The time for asking anymore questions would have to wait. Lilith had put that barren curse on Purgatory for some reason, and maybe this was it. She didn’t want someone overthrowing her, battling her for dominance. She didn’t like what she couldn’t control.

Lilith fucked up a family to get rid of a baby whocouldhave been her undoing. How did this fit into anything else? She just sat in her depraved prison waiting and then poof, she found me and made me a pawn in her game? She had played the long game and now, right now, she was seeing the fruits of her labors.

Notherlabors though. She didn’t do manual work, which makes her infant killing hard to fucking process. The one time she gets her hands dirty, it’s to dothat. Her endgame was still so unclear. I knew it wasn’t so simple to just claim that she wanted to break down the portals and take over Heaven’s Gate. Whoever was working with her had a stake in this as well, and something told me that the war had been their push over the edge, which would be ideal since Lilith loved manipulating the hurt and vengeful.

I felt my heartbeat pulse louder and my hands start to shake a bit with rage. I looked down at my feet, dark smoke starting to puff out. Soon, it would be a cloud of black around my ankles. I curled my hands into fists at my side, breathing in and out. Then I heard a rustling outside and almost immediately, there was twinge in my chest that slowly leveled my heart rate. I noticed the black smoke inching back into my skin. My rage was settling back into its steel confinement. That familiar warmth was starting to creep into me.

“Nick’s back,” Mr. Cassial announced. He must have come in while I was having my mental breakdown. I looked over at him and watched as Daya picked a tiny green leaf off his mustache. She kissed the corners of his mouth and went back to doing dishes.

He smiled over at me, walking past and patting me on the shoulder.

I rushed, probably a bit too eagerly, towards him, cutting him off as he tried to go down the hallway. “Mr. Cassial, can I ask you something?”

He slid his index finger across his mustache. “Sure thing.”

I rocked from one foot to the other. “Do you regret it?” I lowered my voice a little so that Daya wouldn’t hear, even though the running sink water should have drowned me out.

“Regret what?” He cocked his head to one side.

“Leaving The Skies.”

He raised both his eyebrows, realization dawning on him. Then, he furrowed those dark brows and chuckled. He answered me in the sincerest way possible. “No, Dani. I don’t. There are probably a lot of things I regret during that time in my life, but that was not one of them. I don’t look back on that decision and think I should have chosen differently.”

This made me smile. He was the kind of person you wanted to be around just because he was unapologetically himself. I moved to the side so that he could continue down the hall. I waited for him to ask me why I was asking, but he didn’t. I had a feeling he wouldn’t ever bring it up.

“Call me Maurice,” he said over his shoulder before retreating towards his bedroom.

I opened my mouth to say something witty, to say anything back, but nothing came out. I looked towards the back door and watched as the door swung open and my raven-haired angel stepped over the threshold. He looked unharmed, just like when he left. I let my eyes rise to his face and my breath caught. His face looked like he had seen a ghost. He looked tired and a bit on edge. He hadn’t seen me yet and I looked over to Daya, who started to greet him but noticed the same look on his face. I took a step forward, which caused one of the floorboards to creak, and he whipped his head to me.

I stopped as he gazed at my face. He took in my hair falling down my shoulders in waves, giving me a different look than my normal mess of curls. He raked his gaze down my body, not in a sensual way, but like he was searching for something. He scrubbed a hand down his face, closing the door behind him. Nick gave Daya a nod before walking over to me.

He grabbed my arms and looked down at me, causing me to lift one of my eyebrows in a silent question. He let out a long, low breath. “Hi.”

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