Page 89 of Unraveled
A spell made by someone who is part of me, a person I trusted. I tug at the threads again, but they hold tight, and it hurts if I pull too hard.
Let go, I whisper in my head, and the spell wavers a little but doesn’t ease.
My breathing turns ragged as I open my eyes, and the ceiling and walls shift over my head.
“Is it working?” I think Ash asks, but there’s another voice, one I haven’t heard in a long time, that drowns him out.
No.The familiar voice breaks through the webs that cloud my mind, louder than the whooshing of my heart.
Let go, I whisper again.
The room spins, and my surroundings change. One second, I’m staring at the moldy walls of the fae home, and the next, I’m sitting in my old dining room, staring into my father’s brown eyes as he leans over the table, pinning me with a sorrowful expression.
“The pain will only last a second, Mia. This is for your own good.”
Tears prickle in my eyes, and I hear myself say,“No, it’s not. Don’t do this.” I’m paralyzed where I sit as a glowing enchantment wraps around my father’s hands, reaching toward me. I never knew he could do magic—not like this. He’s a scientist, a man of numbers and logic.
“Don’t do this, please. No one saw me do anything—the globe just turned light blue. It’s nothing.”
A breeze that smells like shadows, pine, and mint breaks through the layers of my memories. Ash. He’s close by, even though I can’t see him.
“They don’t know who you are, and it must remain that way,” my father says, turning to the door as if expecting someone to kick it open. His magic suppresses the electric power in my veins. It’s a sedative that makes me slump onto the wooden chair.
I can’t answer him. Not even as he locks me away with a spell that he hasn’t told me how to unlock. An ache squeezes my chest, and tears spill down my cheeks as my mind clouds.
“Please,” I beg.
I feel Ash’s arms tighten around me.
“We didn’t want to do this, Mia. We wouldn’t have come here had we known the prophecy existed. You won’t remember this. It will keep you safe.”
“No. Please.”
Ash catches me before I plummet to the ground, his body almost feverish against my frigid skin. “What happened, Mia?”
The feeling of betrayal is immediate and overwhelming. But I’d rather feel this way than afraid to lose control like I did back in the castle. Ash scoops me into his arms and carries me down the hall. Darkness surrounds us, but I’m too groggy to feel scared. Too sad.
“My father... he must’ve been a strix. He helped the scientists build the veil, and we both know what they do to the lunargyres there.” My lips thin as I struggle to not break down.
Ash tenses against me but continues on toward wherever he’s taking me without a word.
“I think he locked my magic because I’m able to break your curse. It has to be.”
“Did he tell you that? You remembered everything that happened?”
A wave of nausea hits me before I can force the words out. “I remember something from that day. He mentioned a prophecy. He said, ‘They don’t know who you are, and it must remain that way.’”
Ash’s jaw clenches, and he stops in front of a black-painted door. “Can you stand?”
After I nod, he sets me back on the floor, and we stand facing each other in complete silence for a long moment before he says, “I’ve never heard of a prophecy about a hybrid that’s not my own, and I’ve been searching everywhere, including the stars, for an answer. Sometimes I feel I’m getting closer to something, but the words—the prophecy fades before I grasp it.”
“Unless.” I swallow the deep knot in my throat and try again. “Unless it’s a prophecy unknown to the unseelie, and it’s protected in Penumbra.”
Chapter 30
We letthe words simmer between us as we stand outside the room. It’s a reach to speak of another prophecy when all I have are fragments of memories and little information.
“For years, I felt something was hiding from me behind Penumbra’s veil. Something—orsomeone—that called to me,” Ash admits, and the intensity in his gaze makes my heart skip.
