Page 27 of Cherish

I turn to my grandfather, my heart racing. “Like the Bloodletter and the Crone?”

“Not quite,” Alistair says but doesn’t elaborate, as though this is a story he wants Jikan to tell in his own way.

Jikan takes the measuring cup Eden hands him with a nod of thanks. “At first, she and the wizard thought everything was fine—in the first few years of their lives, both twins thrived. Sure, one was a little smaller, a little more sickly than the other, but supposedly that can happen with twins. Still, both were fine. Until…” He pauses, shaking his head sadly even as he dumps a ton of chocolate chips into the measuring cup and tops it off with a second one of shredded coconut.

“Until they weren’t,” I press, deliberately ignoring whatever gastronomic misstep he’s about to do next.

“Precisely. Even worse—” He pauses just long enough to dump the chocolate and coconut into the peanut-butter mixture on the stove. “The sickly little girl’s well-being was tied to that of her sister. The stronger and healthier that one sister grew, the weaker the other became. But part of the time wizard’s spell had worked—as long as their souls were linked, neither could ever die.”

“Did the strong one feel bad?” Heather gasps, and she’s literally wringing her hands right now, completely spellbound by the story Jikan is weaving.

He appears equally fascinated as he turns to stare at her. “You’re a human,” he says suddenly.

She arches a dark brow. “Is that a bad thing?”

“I haven’t decided yet.” He seems to think about it, his head tilted to the side for long, painful seconds as the kitchen fills with a noxiously sweet odor.

In the end, Jikan shrugs and answers her original question. “Siblings are complicated.” As though that says it all.

I glance between Hudson and Jaxon and have to wonder if maybe it does.

“What happened next?” I prod, both intrigued by the story and also wanting to get to the end so I can ask the real question I came here for.

“What do you think happened? It didn’t take one twin long to figure out that every time her sister got hurt, she grew stronger.”

Heather isn’t the only one who gasps this time. The whole group of us exchange horrified looks, totally disgusted at the turn the story has just taken.

But it’s Flint who finally says what we’re all thinking.

“She started hurting her sister in order to become even more powerful.”

Jikan looks Flint up and down like he’s seeing him for the first time. “Looks like you’ve got far more going for you than your royal spleen after all, dragon.”

Flint seems confused, like he’s never considered his spleen before—royal or otherwise. But I can see the second he decides to just roll with the compliment, because the wide grin that’s as much a part of him as his dragon spreads across his face. “Thank you.”

Jikan harrumphs, then pops a lid on the pot of pasta that’s only been cooking for about two minutes before carrying it to the sink to drain. I can only imagine the crunchy mess he’s about to unveil.

“What did she do?” I press once the drained pot is safely back on the stove. “Did she end up killing her sister?”

“How could she kill her? I already told you the time wizard performed a dark-magic spell to make the girls immortal by irrevocably tying their souls together.” He takes the lid off and reveals what looks to be perfectly cooked linguine—apparently the God of Time doesn’t have to abide by basic cooking times—and pours the icky peanut-butter mixture over the pasta and begins to toss it slowly. So, so, so slowly that for the first time, I realize Jikan is stalling.

“Is Cassia back, Alistair?” he asks out of what seems like nowhere.

My grandfather shakes his head, but it’s impossible not to see the sudden empathy in his eyes. “Not yet.”

Something passes between them, a look that’s so much more than a look, and I realize that Jikan iswaitingfor my grandmother. He doesn’t want to tell the rest of this story—at least not without the Bloodletter here. But what does she have to do with shadow twins? It doesn’t make sense.

“So, if she couldn’t kill her sister, she just tortured her over and over again so that she could grow stronger and stronger herself?” Heather asks, her face wide with shock. “That’s horrible.”

My skin chills, and I glance over at Hudson. He’s still leaning back against the edge of the counter, texting like he doesn’t have a care in the world. But his jaw is so tense, I’m afraid he’s going to break a fang. At first, I don’t think he even notices I’m watching him, but then he shifts a little, and I realize he is very deliberately not looking at me, though I know he can feel my gaze on him.

I hate that he won’t look up, that he won’t let me share this moment with him. Because I know he’s thinking about the same thing I am right now—the way Cyrus tortured him over and over and over again. Sending his son back into Descent every month for nearly two hundred years because he, too, wanted to be more powerful. It’s not the same as what happened between these two sisters, but it’s not all that different, either.

The bastard. Maybe eternity locked in the Bloodletter’s cave isn’t enough of a punishment for him. Or for that bitch of a shadow twin, come to think of it.

Then again, it wasn’t her vicious behavior that upset a god. It was her mother’s. I shudder a little, even as I ask, “What did the queen do?” And how could it possibly have been worse than what the dark shadow twin did?

Jikan lets out a long sigh as he reaches for the Oreo cookies. Several seconds pass as he crumbles them in his hand while staring down at the noxious pot of “dessert pasta” he’s just assembled. Eventually, though, he drops the broken-up Oreos on top of the pasta and reaches for a kitchen towel to wipe his hands.

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