Page 62 of Dark Rebel's Reckoning

Donya returned with a Post-it stack and four pens, and once each of the girls had what she needed in hand, Max rose to his feet and pointed at the front door.

"Look over there," he said.

Nothing happened as far as Kyra could see, but the girls gasped and huddled together, and then Laleh got up and walked over to where the illusion was supposed to be and extended her hand.

Brave girl.

She turned to her sisters and cousin. "There is nothing here."

"Don't tell them what you see," Max warned. "If I want to, I can make the illusion tangible so you will be able to actually touch it. But for now, this is enough. Write down what you see and hand the notes to Arezoo."

Given the girls' reactions, they had all seen what Max had wanted them to see, but Kyra still didn't see anything. She waited to catch Max's eye to get an explanation, but when he finally looked at her, he only smiled. "Patience. I'll explain in a moment."

Perhaps he could control who saw his illusions.

Arezoo read over the notes and shook her head. "We all saw the same thing. A man-sized purple teddy bear jumping from foot to foot and waving a paw."

Max grinned. "Is that proof enough of my mental abilities or do you need more?"

Arezoo chewed on her lower lip, the same way Kyra did when she was thinking or unsure. "It proves that you can project illusions. It doesn't prove that you are immortal."

Max sighed dramatically. "I hoped I wouldn't need to do this, but you are twisting my arm." He walked over to where the girls were sitting and crouched in front of them. "I'm going to make a smallcut on my hand, so don't be alarmed when I pull out a knife. The cut will completely heal in minutes, so you will have a short time to get tangible proof, like dipping your fingers in my blood, so pay close attention."

Arezoo shook her head. "You could be projecting the image of your bleeding hand into our minds the same way you did with the teddy bear. You could even project the thought of us touching it and feeling that it was there when it wasn't. You said that you can make the illusions tangible."

Kyra was so proud of her niece. The girl was so smart, but that made convincing her that much harder.

Max rose to his feet. "Oh, well. At least that saves me from having to cut myself. But now I'm out of ideas. A show of fangs and glowing eyes is not going to convince this young lady either."

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Fenella huffed. "Just get on with the story, Kyra. I might be immortal but I'm getting old here."

"Please watch your language in front of my nieces."

Fenella snorted. "I doubt that translated well to Farsi."

"Nieces?" Donya asked in a near whisper. "Are you our aunt?"

Kyra nodded. "Your mothers are my younger sisters, but since my memory was basically erased twenty-three years ago, I don't know anything about them. I didn't even know I had sisters before the monster who calls himself a doctor told me why he took you and that he sent his minions to collect more of our family members."

The silence that followed felt thick enough to cut with a knife. Donya gaped, Laleh's eyes widened to an almost comical degree, and Azadeh simply stared, her face unreadable.

As usual, it was Arezoo who spoke. "You can't be our aunt. You are too young."

"I'm immortal, just like Max and Ell-rom and Jasmine. In fact, Jasmine is my daughter, but the monster who erased the memory of my family from my mind also erased the memory of the child I was forced to leave behind and her father. Since you have the same genes as I do, the so-called doctor had you kidnapped from your homes, and he probably tried to induce your transition, but something prevented it from happening."

Donya shook her head, her dark eyes skeptical. "Our mother never mentioned having another sister."

The words stung, though Kyra had expected them. She'd been erased from her family's memory—whether by choice or by force.

"She told me," Arezoo said quietly. "Mother once told me in secret that she had an older sister who went to study abroad and never returned. She said she didn't know what happened to her and that she missed her. She also told me never to tell anyone because our grandfather forbade Mother and our aunts from even mentioning her name. It was as if the older sister had never existed."

The revelation hit Kyra hard. She had existed in whispers and secrets, a cautionary tale perhaps, or a painful memory too dangerous to acknowledge openly.

Had her sisters mourned her?

Had they wondered what became of her?

An awkward silence descended over the room as each of them tried to process their emotions. Kyra was unable to move, frozenby the weight of what had been lost—decades of sisterhood, of aunt-hood, of family.

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