Page 66 of Creed

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Trent toyed with the cut open leather of the journal, reexamining the spine where the leather strips had been tucked away.

“Why go through so much trouble just to hide that information?”

Surprisingly, it was Ellis who spoke up. The man usually preferred to say quiet and follow Brody’s lead, so the sound of his voice filled with confidence, was extremely unusual.

“It’s in the name.Mothers of the Mountain. They escaped fromThe Tamed Soulsand dropped their children off at orphanages in order to protect them, so they wouldn’t be dragged back into the cult. But they also couldn’t bear to completely cut off all ties to their children. So, they kept this information recorded but hidden. That way no one would ever find out, but they could still hold onto the hope that they might be able to find their children again one day.”

His conclusion was mostly speculation. There was no evidence that what he was saying was correct, and human motivation was always hard to predict.

Yet, some instinct in me said that Ellis was absolutely right.

“The information was still hidden until now,” I couldn’t help but point out. “That means they never were able to track down their children again. The entire population of Emberwood referred to them as mothers, but they spent their whole lives separated from their actual children.”

They’d probably been waiting for a day whenThe Tamed Soulswere no longer a threat to them, but despite living to an old age, that day never came.

As the six of us sat around, looking down at the remnants of the Milford sisters’ final secret, we all silently mourned for these women who had lived over a century ago.

We gota call from Deputy Hillard a few days later.

Chester Grieve had died in custody.

The man was old, and the stress of having been arrested—as well as having his plans thwarted—had apparently been too much for him. He’d suffered a heart attack while in custody, and despite the efforts of several doctors, the man hadn’t survived.

I couldn’t say that I was saddened by this news at all. Chester Grieve had not only kidnapped me and Kayden but had also been behind all the shit that Brody and Magnus had gone through recently.

Good riddance.

With him gone,The Tamed Soulscult had no reason to continue coming after us. According to the investigation against them, most of the cult hadn’t even known what Chester Grieve’sultimate goal was, and the few that did know weren’t as convinced as he was that we actually were descendants of their founder.

When Chester Grieve died, the cult’s motivation to pursue us died as well. Now, maybe we could finally sleep soundly at night.

At least, that was my hope.

A few hours after getting the call from Deputy Hillard, I sat on Brody’s front porch, going over the blueprints for my own house. It would take a while. The foundation hadn’t even been laid yet, but the future was finally looking bright, and it was the perfect time to continue moving forward.

Plus, I didn’t want to live in the spare bedroom forever. Kayden and I needed our own privacy.

I would have been with Kayden right that moment, but he was busy talking to his editor trying to explain why he wouldn’t have an article for her.

Trent and Ellis were also away. Trent had returned to look after his antique shop in town, and Ellis was continuing his job hunt. He had an interview at the local hardware store that looked promising. It wasn’t glamorous work, but it would give him something to do while he figured out what he wanted to do.

Overall, it was a peaceful day.

That peace only lasted a few hours and was shattered when Magnus approached us with a guilty look in his eye.

“Hey, guys. Can I talk to you about something?”

Brody and I both looked up from the blueprint we’d been studying.

“What’d you do?” we said in unison.

“Nothing bad,” he insisted. Although, he then muttered under his breath, “At least, I don’t think so.”

Taking his own seat on the porch, he handed us each a file. Just from the weight of it, I could tell that it only held a few pieces of paper, but I had no clue what it might contain.

“So, I know we concluded that Chester Grieve was probably crazy, but I was curious, so I ran an ancestry test on myself.”

“Please tell me you didn’t use one of those commercial DNA tests,” Brody said with a shake of his head. “Those things are public. We don’t need some distant cousin you’ve never heard of knocking at our door.”