Page 74 of Gift from the Source
My chest clenches painfully. I don’t have to be told who the person that got close was.
They got more than close. They knew.
Corentin, Cas, and Draken shift closer in my direction, sensing immediately where my emotions went. They each caress my bond, and I guess collectively, we all decide we aren’t going to elaborate at this time.
“Can you take the illusion down?” I ask.
“Not from here. I have to be close to him. I can cast them and leave them for all of time at this point in my life if I want, but to bring them back down, I have to be within my range of them. I don’t know the distance since I’ve never had to bring them down other than to immediately reapply them. Stronger,” he grits out.
“It’s obvious you don’t know his name. But can you tell us anything about him? What does he look like?” I ask.
“Like your father—”
“Franklin,” everyone at the table other than his Nexus corrects.
“Sorry. Franklin. They were the spitting image at one time. Now…”
“What?”
“He’s…the Summum-Master no longer looks like us. I can’t even say he looks like a person. He hasn’t sprouted extra limbs or anything like that. But his arms, up his neck, I assume everywhere, now has dark, black veins that are visible through his sickly pale skin. Even his once upon a time brown eyes are completely black.”
He paints the picture of a monster, and I swallow roughly because I’ve felt that evil that slithers all over him. I’ve seen those black eyes. There’s no telling the condition of his soul at this point and it’s no surprise that his body is now changing to match.
“It’s that damned relic, I swear it.”
My eyes flash back up to Xander’s and the way he reacted to it back in the nonmagical realm comes back to me. “You think the relic is changing him?”
“I know it. That thing is evil,” he spits out and I share a look with Oakly and Gaster.
I don’t know if that’s true. At least, I don’t believe it was always true.
“So we know he once looked normal, now he doesn’t. He’s got a shitload of stolen gifts and dark powers. But we still have no clue abouthis identity or why he started this fucked-up bring the realm down plot,” Draken says, running his hand through his hair.
“We know he’s bad. He’s who we need to bring down. Why does his identity even matter at this point?” Trex asks.
“Whatever he believes the realm and the Vito family did to deserve his hatred starts with who he is. If we knew his history, it could lead to his motivations, habits, patterns, where he’s from, and possibly where he’s been hiding himself. Plus, we simply just need his name to have it. He doesn’t get to die a masked coward without us all knowing who he was,” Caspian growls.
“Not only that,” Keeper says, and we all face him. “Names have power.”
“Names have power,” Cas mimics quietly.
“So how the hell do we figure out his identity? I’m pretty sure the two people who knew who he was are both dead,” Draken says.
“I’ve already told you, that knowledge has already been provided to the one who would look for it,”V says and we look at him while Trex, Codi, Dec, and Xander flinch in surprise.
“When did he tell you that? Who hasn’t been looking for it?” Caspian asks.
“You have not been looking, little Shadow God.”
Caspian slices his shadows through the air, attempting to catch V when he hoots and flies away. It’s pointless and shocking.
Faster than my eyes can follow, the magical bird disappears into the sky.
“What the fuck is he talking about?” Cas asks, turning and glaring at Draken.
“I have no clue.”
A furious sound falls from Cas’s throat, then he too disappears through a cloud of shadows.
