Page 27 of My Blood Is Yours

“Did Forsythe kill my mother?”

Evandriel’s mouth slackens from around the lip of his pipe, eyes widening a fraction as if I’ve caught him off guard. The reaction is gone so fast, it makes me wonder if I’d just misinterpreted the expression. Taking a deep breath through his nose, his broad chest expands before exhaling surprising weariness. “Not intentionally.”

His words gradually sink in like quicksand, and my mind becomes so distant from my body that it takes me a fewmoments to recognize the warm water spilling over my cheeks are in fact my tears; that the sharp pain in my curled fists is from my nails digging into my flesh.

For all my softness, lying beneath the surface of my flesh is a dormant creature—even if only within my mind—that when summoned has a thirst for blood.

The part of my mind that martyrs itself beneath the weight of guilt and constantly reminds me that I owe a great debt—to whom, I’ll never know—because my mother and I were rescued from the streets and everyone else was left behind, tiptoes around the awakened, bloodthirsty beast in an attempt to reason with it in some milquetoast voice.

But he employed you, clothed you, fed you…

Righteous or not, it does not matter to the beast—the demon inside me—because whether or not heintentionallykilled my mother, Forsythe is going to die.

Evandriel hesitates for several moments, studying me with a look of unmistakable sadness shadowing his eyes. “He was trying to cure her.”

Somehow, the words make me even more angry.

Cure her.

Now that Evandriel has revealed a modicum of truth, my mind is now able to puzzle various things together—like the fact that her mental affliction only escalated to a physical affliction when Forsythe came into picture.

Saline seeps across my lips, pressed in a grim line to try and stifle the grief threatening to crumple me beneath its weight. My voice is a tremulous whisper. “Cure her from what?”

Some part of me has always had some ideabut I’d been too young at the time to grasp the reality of it.

“Her gifts.”

My brow hardens as my throat works, unable to form words. Sensing this, Evandriel elaborates.

“She was a seer. Had no one to help her control her gifts. They consumed her. The doctors thought her schizophrenic. They wanted to lobotomize her. Forsythe was the one to convince them otherwise.”

“That doesn’t explain her death.”

Evandriel draws in a deep breath, as if to steady himself, and it’s then that I finally recognize the signs of exhaustion etching his features. “Forsythe found a way to temper her visions by draining them. And apparently, trying to drain too much of someone’s magic will drain their life force. While her visions decreased, so did her health. Forsythe tried to convince her to stop using the device he’d given her to do so, but she said she would rather ‘be weak in body than in mind because’…”

A tremor that began in my hands has now taken root throughout my entire body as the revelation strikes me.

“Because why?”

Evandriel shakes his head. “She loved you more than anything, Elowen.”

I can barely hear him over the pounding of blood in my ears. With a few bold steps forward, I fist the lapels of his woollen coat. Evandriel doesn’t flinch as my tears and spittle pepper his cheek when my words rush out of me in a hissed reply.“Because why?”

The sadness creasing Evandriel’s begrudgingly handsome features is painfully sincere. “She wanted to be there for you, Elowen. She felt tremendous guilt for how her mental health—or rather, her inability to control her gift—had affected you and your childhood…”

While it is true that my mother couldn’t hold a job because of her condition?—

Guilt churns within me at having spent all these years calling it such a thing, as though it were a disease, when truly, if Evandriel is to be believed, it was a gift.

“She just wanted to be there for you in a way she had never been able to before.”

My grip on his lapels tightens, as if it’s the only thing keeping me from sinking into the wet cobblestones beneath me, before my forehead lands squarely on his chest.

Fuck, what I would give to be in Sariel’s arms.

I’m not sure why I don’t immediately recoil when Evandriel’s heavy arms wrap around me. Instead, I allow myself to crumple against his chest as I finally release a held-back sob.

“I’m sorry, Elowen... I wish more than anything she was still here too.”

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