Page 17 of Fated

Roomwas not the right word, however; here, evensuiteseemed like an understatement.

This space was massive, a kind of luxury I’d never experienced before. A sharp pang of grief twisted in my chest as I thought of Mom. She would have loved this.

In all those years when she couldn’t afford to take us on a real vacation, she would rent a hotel room just to let us escape for a while. We would check out the pool, order room service, binge on an unhealthy number of snacks, and watch movies all night.

The memory made my throat tighten, and I fought to hold back the tears threatening to spill over, doing my best to block out every emotion, to numb it all.

My eyes swept over the room.

Glossy white marble floors stretched across the entire space, leading right into a spacious living room where an opulent large couch faced a generous-sized TV mounted above a grand fireplace. Floor-to-ceiling windows lined the far wall, offering an uninterrupted view of the cityscape and its tiny pinprick lights twinkling in the dusk.

To the right, a full kitchen gleamed with granite countertops and stainless-steel appliances, while to the left, a hallway led to what I assumed were the bedrooms.

Not knowing what else to do and unsure if my legs could even hold me anymore, I made my way to the couch, sitting down. Calyx dropped the duffel bag he had been carrying and sat on the opposite end. I clasped my gloved hands tightly together in mylap in an attempt to keep them from shaking. Then, I cleared my throat, trying to muster steadiness in my voice.

“What is Gardonia?” I asked, hesitant but determined.

Calyx flashed me a grin. Good. Getting him to talk might be easier than expected.

“You really know nothing? Your mom didn’t tell you anything?” He raised a brow.

“My mom didn’tknowanything.” I couldn’t help the bite in my tone.

“Huh.” He leaned back. “That’s hard to believe since Gardonia was her home, too.”

My heart sank into my stomach. My mom had known something about all of this, and had been keeping it from me? No, it couldn’t be. We’d never kept secrets from each other.

I forced the thought away, refusing to let it settle.

“So, you and Ash—you guys have magic?” It was a terrible attempt at sounding intrigued.

“Yeah,” he said, sounding bored.

“And I also have magic?” I asked cautiously.

He took a moment to consider, then nodded.

“So, yes and no. You’ll settle on your twenty-first birthday; that’s when your transformation will happen, and you will receive your full power. You might have started to notice small things already, bits of power breaking through. That’s called manifesting. But until you settle, your human body won’t be able to hold your power, especially power like yours.”

I tried my best not to react, not to show him what a complete lunatic he sounded like. I had never manifested a hint of anything, and highly doubted I ever would. Biting down on the inside of my cheek, I debated my next question, but kept returning to the same thing.

“Did I kill my mom?” I blurted out.

He looked at me for a moment, and then, I realized, he was doing his best to suppress a smile. A few seconds passed before he burst into laughter.

My fists clenched in my lap, my teeth grinding together so hard I thought they might shatter.

“Did you seriously thinkyoukilled your mom?”

He gasped and smacked his hand on his leg as if it was the funniest joke he had ever heard.

I stayed silent, seething.

“Ok, ok,” he said, reining in his amusement. “So, here’s the deal; we’ve been looking for you for a really long time. Sixteen years, to be exact. Our king needed us to find you before you settled. Luckily, Ash got to you just in time. He tried multiple times to take you, but one of those damn bracelets had a protection spell. He tried to compel you to take them off. Shit, he even had someone else try to take them off you. Eventually, he figured the only way to get those bracelets off was for you to remove them yourself.”

My mind flashed to last night at the arcade, to Ash’s command to remove my bracelets, and to the way the waiter had lunged at me.

A cold shudder ran through me, tears pooling, unready to hear what came next.

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