Page 332 of Fated to be Enemies

Her face was as clear in my mind as a painting, a memory captured and burned forever into my thoughts. She had a nose smattered with freckles, flaming red hair, and glacier-blue eyes, which sparkled when she smiled. She would grab my hand, her smaller fingers curling with mine, and lead me into the woods by where we’d lived. She would go on and on about how oil lamps worked by burning lard and that many were using a new kind of oil and it was better. I mostly zoned out when she rambled on about the newest discoveries she’d learned, mostly by reading the newspapers I’d steal for her but also from books that had been donated to the orphanage from rich families feeling bad around Yuletide. We’d walk around stagnant ponds, cross babbling streams, and venture into woods so striking, silent, and beautiful, we would have stayed in there forever if we knew how to survive it.

I’d always feel lost without Mona. When I wanted to joke about Miss Thompson or rant about one of the other girls being mean and Mona was in her classes at school, I’d feel so alone. She was an extension of me in many ways. She was the only one who really knew me. She had gone through the same pain I had, and when someone really understood the same torture as another, it was as if their spirit linked with the other in some way. We had gone through our healing together, and the cynical lens through which I now viewed the world wasn’t as lonely.

I shook my head as if to scatter my thoughts. I couldn’t be distracted, not when drowning in memories of the past would only destroy my future. I’d waited all these years to see Mona again. I could wait a little longer. Raiden needed me first, and he was the one truly in danger. If he didn’t stop, word of his killings, whispers of a god returning, would spread like wildfire. Out of the flames, a sea of fearful witches and warlocks would rise, pitchforks at the ready to rid Istinia of gods they believed were murderers and evil. It didn’t matter if we screamed from the rooftops that they weren’t monsters. Who would take the word of a tiny coven in Fairwik? Edmund had respect, but not enough to stop that kind of panic. Nothing would.

I reached the trees close to the spot where I’d left Maddox and Naomi, and the illusion they used to make themselves invisible lowered, revealing a disheveled Naomi with twigs in her hair, arms crossed over her chest.

“At least we know she’s not dead,” she snapped, and Maddox gave me a wide-eyed uh-oh look. “Now I can kill her myself. Where were you? We’ve been worried sick.”

“Please don’t shout, Nai.” I closed the distance between us and hugged her. I didn’t know if it was seeing Raiden so broken or seeing so many dead people at once, or even the memory of Mona, but I needed to be held. She sighed, then tightened her arms around me.

“What happened?” Her tone softened.

“I saw Raiden.”

She pulled me to arm’s length. “What?”

“He was in that house we passed. He, uh, well he may have killed all of them.”

Maddox grimaced. “I’m sorry, say what?”

“Well,” I said. “They were sacrificing people. They ran these black magic, invite-only clubs and worshipped Freya. They had killed half the party before he showed up so they could get more youth, money, and power, and Raiden stopped them.”

“Are any alive?”

I shook my head. “I did a sweep of the house before I left.”

Maddox shook his head. “I truly do believe you have a death wish. You want to talk?”

“I’m fine. I heard screaming last night. That’s why I went. Well, screaming and growling.”

Naomi shrugged her shoulders at Maddox, then looked back at me. “Now everything makes sense. Why wouldn’t you run toward the screaming in the middle of a dark forest…”

Maddox joined in. “Seems perfectly logical.”

“Funny.” I stared them down. “We need to help him. He’s utterly broken. He thinks Lucius is going to return from the underworld to finish what he started. He’s running on nothing but anger and paranoia, and honestly, I don’t know what he’s capable of, but he doesn’t deserve to die or be imprisoned again. He needs our help. I think if we can help him capture and kill Freya, then maybe…” I paused. I hadn’t actually thought beyond that point.

Maddox lifted his bag from the ground and threw it over his shoulder. “We can tell him how to kill Lucius.”

“Right.” I pointed at him. “Exactly. With them gone, maybe he can begin healing.”

Naomi’s lips straightened into a line. “If he can, Elle. Just being realistic here… If he’s as far gone as you say he is, there may be no bringing him back.”

“You can’t just give up on him. He’s our friend.”

Maddox nodded. “He is.”

“Well.” Naomi shook her hand. “I don’t know him too well. You all spent way more time with him, but yeah, I know what you mean.”

I looked at Maddox. “Where do we go?”

“If he’s hunting black magic clubs, then I know exactly where he’ll be heading to next, and if Freya is hiding behind her worshipers, then they might know where she is—or know someone who knows.”

Naomi chimed in. “You don’t think she’s in the mountains anymore?”

“No,” I said quickly. “It would be the first place Raiden would have looked, but undoubtedly, she hasn’t left the province. It’s all forest here, and she’s comfortable among the trees,” I explained, recalling how easily she had hunted in the trees when I’d watched her from her window. “She’s goddess of the hunt. Here, she’s deadly. She knows the territory. Before she emerged again, everyone always said she was suspected to be living in the mountains.”

Maddox lightly shook his head, smiling. “If only you could’ve used that logical thinking for your studies, we would have been one keeper up years ago.”

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