"Speaking of, where is Izzy?"
Finley winced as she patted her bandage into place. "She probably went upstairs already." We all said good night then, bringing an end to what might have been the most bizarre twenty-four hours of my life (which said a lot). Aislinn told me I could keep the bedroom I'd been in earlier, and after hugging Mom-who was apparently going to stay downstairs to finish her discussion with Aislinn-I trudged back up the dimly lit staircase to my room.
Izzy was standing outside my door, a folder clutched in one hand. "Hey," she said, sounding a little sheepish.
"Hey. Look, Izzy, I'm really beat, so whatever you want to talk about-"
"Here," she said, thrusting the folder into my hands.
"I just...I wanted to say thank you. For trying to save Finley and for...I don't know. Being nicer to us than you had to be." I smiled at her, and for a second, we did that "are we gonna hug?" dance, both of us moving in and out, our arms held at our sides. Good to know awkwardness apparently ran in the family. In the end, we just kind of patted each other's shoulders before Izzy went back downstairs, and I headed into my room.
I leaned against the door as I opened the folder Izzy had given me. That ended up being a good thing, because as soon as I saw what was inside, my knees gave out. I slid down the door, one hand over my mouth as tears flooded my eyes.
There were only two things in the folder. One was a grainy color photograph that looked like it was some kind of surveillance shot. The other was a piece of paper with a few lines typed on it. The photograph showed a vampire I knew well -Lord Byron. Yes, the poet. He'd been a teacher at Hex Hall, and once he'd left the school, I'd seen him at a club in London. And now here he was, strolling down a street, a scowl on his face. But he wasn't alone.
Jenna was walking next to him, looking nervously over her shoulder at something. She was thinner than normal, and paler, if that was even possible. But there was no mistaking that bright pink stripe. I ran my fingers over her image before looking at the paper.
New vampire joined Lord Byron's nest, the note read. Female, age TBD, possibly one Jennifer Talbot.
There was a date under that. Taking into account those three weeks I'd missed, the picture was taken less than a week ago.
Jenna was safe. Jenna was safe and not burned up. She was with Byron, who may have been a total jerk, but who would take good care of her.
I closed my eyes and hugged the picture tight to my chest. If Jenna was alive, then maybe Dad, Archer, and Call were, too.
CHAPTER 8
The next morning, Izzy took me on a tour of the compound. As promised, there was barbed wire and bunkers, but the main thing I took away from the place was how still and barren it was.
"We've always lived here, and the other Brannicks used it as sort of a halfway house. They came here for extra training, for strategy sessions, whatever," Izzy told me as we walked through the basement. There were a couple of cots down there, all covered with the same scratchy-looking blue blankets. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead.
"Where's your dad?" I asked her, sitting down cross-legged on a cot. "I mean, you obviously have one." Izzy fidgeted with her hair. "He's hunting supes on his own. Boys aren't allowed to live with Brannicks.
They just come for, uh, visits and stuff. We usually see him every three months or so."
"That's very...Amazon Woman of you."
She sat down next to me and began picking at the blanket. "It sucks," she muttered.
I caught myself going to take her hand and then pulling back at the last second. "Thank you for Jenna's picture," I said, changing the subject.
Blushing, Izzy suddenly became very interested in one of her nails. "It was nothing. When you said pink hair, I remembered that picture we'd gotten in last week, and I figured it was her."
"I don't guess you happen to have any other pictures lying around?" I was so relieved to know that Jenna was okay, but that didn't lessen the hollow feeling in my stomach whenever I thought about my dad, Cal, and Archer.
Izzy shook her head. "No, that one came in from a friend of Mom's that specializes in hunt-um, keeping up with vampires." She ducked her head, looking up at me from underneath her bangs. "You're still really worried about your dad, aren't you?" My voice was a little strangled when I replied, "Yeah. I am. I'm actually worried about a lot of people. Do you think...That dude in the mirror, Torin. Would he really know where my dad is?"
Something flickered across Izzy's face, and she pulled back a little. "Maybe. But he'll just say a bunch of smart-ass stuff before maybe telling you anything real. That's what he does."
Standing, I said, "I think I can hold my own in smartassery." I jogged up the basement steps, determined to go have a little word with Mirror Boy.
Until I knew that all the people I cared about were safe, I couldn't even begin to wrap my mind around this whole Casnoff thing.
But when I got to the War Room, Mom was inside, leaning against the big table, arms crossed, facing Torin. Whatever they'd been talking about, they stopped as soon as I entered. I didn't like the expressions on either of their faces.
"Um, hey," I said, rapping my knuckles on the door-frame. "I was actually just coming to talk to you."
"Okay," Mom said, but I shook my head.
"Not you. I mean, we definitely need to talk, but first, I want to talk to you. " I pointed at Torin.
He grinned at me. "Certainly. Although I'm guessing that your inquiries are the same as your mother's. Where is James, is he alive, is there any way to reach him..."
"You were asking him about Dad?"
Mom threw a dirty look at Torin. "I was. Not that it's doing much good. I'd forgotten just how annoying you were." still smiling, Torin rested his chin in his hand and said, "You know, if you'd just release me from this bloody mirror, I could go get James myself.
Providing he isn't burnt to a crisp, of course."
I clenched my fists and called him a word I had never, ever said in front of my mom, but she didn't seem particularly offended. Instead, she muttered, "Agreed," and with a flick of her wrist, dropped the canvas covering the mirror.
"He's useless most of the time," Mom said, rubbing the back of her neck. The lines of worry around her mouth were even deeper. "Aislinn should've gotten rid of him years ago."
"I heard that!" Torin cried, his voice muffled by the canvas.
Mom rolled her eyes. "Do you want to get out of here for a little bit?"
I hesitated. What I'd wanted to do was talk to Torin, but I knew there was a lot of stuff Mom and I needed to hash out. Besides, it wasn't like Mirror Boy was going anywhere. "Sure."
We ended up going for a walk. It was weird how pretty and nonthreatening the forest around the Brannick compound looked in the daytime. For a long time, we were quiet. It wasn't until we reached the trunk of a huge tree, arching over a trickle of water too tiny to even be called a creek, that Mom said anything. "This used to be my favorite place to come and think. Back when I was your age."
"I bet you had a lot to think about back then."
She chuckled, but there was nothing happy about the sound. We sat down on the fall en tree. The tips of Mom's boots touched the water, but mine were still a few inches above it.
"Okay, talk," I said, once we were seated. "I wanna hear the whole story of how you went from Baby Brannick to Grace-Oh, wow." I turned and looked at Mom. "Mercer is just a made-up name, isn't it? You're Grace Brannick." Mom looked a little embarrassed. "The night I ran away, the car that picked me up was a Mercedes. When the driver asked me my name, I...
improvised."
Names are just words. I know that. But learning that the last name I'd used all my life was fake...
"So what should I call myself, then?" I asked. "Sophie Atherton? Sophie Brannick?" Both sounded weird and made me feel like I was wearing clothes that didn't fit.
Mom smiled and brushed my hair away from my face. "You can call yourself whatever you want."
"Okay. Sophie Awesome Sparkle-Princess it is."
Mom laughed then, a real laugh, and laced her fingers with mine. We sat there on that tree, my head on her shoulder, and Mom told me her story. It reminded me of when I was little and she'd read to me before bedtime. And her tale wasn't much different than the fairy tales I used to love, the really dark ones full of scary stuff and heartbreak.
"Growing up here, life was...Well, you've seen what it's like for Finley and Izzy. It was brutal. I loved my family, but it was just training, and fighting, and hunting, and more training." Mom sighed and pressed her cheek against the top of my head. "It just didn't seem like any way to live. So when I was twenty-one, I left. Went out for patrol one night, and just...kept walking." She'd gone to England, hoping to do more research into the Brannick history, to see if there was some other way she could be useful to her family that didn't involve killing things.
"Then you met Dad," I said softly. Once again, I wondered where Dad was. How he was. If he was.
"Yes" was all she said.
"Did you know what he was?"
"No," Mom answered, her voice thick with tears. "What I told you about meeting your dad, all that was true. We were at the British Library and requested the same book about the history of witchcraft."
I gave a little laugh. "That should've been a clue."
"Probably," Mom said. "When I went over to his table to ask if I could use it...." She broke off with a sigh. "It was such a cliche. He handed me the book, our fingers touched, and that was that. I was a goner."
I thought about that first day I'd seen Archer leaning against a tree outside Hecate Hall. "I know the feeling," I muttered.
"We were together for nearly a year. And then one day, I woke up early and saw him conjuring breakfast out of thin air. Scared me to death."
"How could you live with him a whole year before knowing what he was? Izzy figured out that I wasn't human after, like, five seconds." Pushing her hair off her forehead, Mom said, "That's Izzy. Not all Brannicks have the same abilities. I can't sense the presence of Prodigium the way she can. Anyway, when I realized that I'd been living with the very thing I was supposed to be fighting, I-"
"Flipped all the heck out?" I supplied.
"Big time. And then I realized I was pregnant with you, and...well, you know the rest. All the moving, all the hiding."
"But it wasn't Dad you were hiding from." The last puzzle pieces finally clicked into place. "At Thorne, Dad said that you had your reasons for always moving around." He'd also said that he was still in love with Mom. I wanted to tell her that, too, but something stopped me. Maybe because I hoped that Dad would still have a chance to tell her in person.
"I had no idea how my family would react to the news that I was going to have a Prodigium baby. And not just any kind of Prodigium, but a demon. Now I understand that I should have given them the benefit of the doubt, but I was scared. And young. God, I was just six years older than you are now. That's terrifying." She raised her shoulder, nudging my head. "Please don't make me a grandmother in six years, okay?" I scoffed. "Trust me, after the Boy Issues I've had, I'm becoming a nun."