Chapter 31

Gislee grabs a tray, her chubby fingers latching on to the rim of the silver platter, and shoves a cookie into my face, pushing one in Leander and Aaliyah's directions as well. She wants nothing to do with Draven, so she doesn't look at him. It's as simple as that, or so she thinks.

It's not easy to be indifferent to indifference.

I nibble on it, metaphorically testing the waters, cautious of what could be hiding in the small dough turned pastry. Nothing so far. Hopefully there will be no later side effects a few days from now. I already have this rolling nausea to deal with, I don't need any of Gislee's juvenile pranks on my plate to add.

I subtly gesture to the doorway that leads back into the kitchen, my fingers twitching in the direction. Gislee catches my eye, holding it. If I can get here, I'll be able to access the basement and then the select few legacy heirlooms I need for the upcoming days.

Another wave hits and I almost double over, barely able to keep a grimace off of my perfectly groomed features. The feeling of pain is a familiar friend, but I hate it all the same. This can all end in the next few days, hopefully in the next twenty eight hours. Gislee just has to agree to help me finish ascending.

"Gislee, why don't you show them around? I need to grab a few things from my room." I propose after she ignores my previous question in the form of twitching fingers.

She nods her head at me, half ignoring me as she says something about fabrics to Aaliyah. I pick up my pace as I walk through the kitchen, barely hearing Gislee start to speak to, "I think a green suit would look darling on you, young sir. And you, you would look great in something cream colored. Hm?"

A faint smile dances over my lips, testing itself and deciding that it fits perfectly into perfect features.

I unlatch a door, murmur a few words. I walk down. The stairs are steep. I can't control the black goo working it's way up my throat this time as I fall over myself, hurling goo as I tumble down the last few steps.

I don't exactly feel the pain of the fall. I know that it is there, but I don't really feel it. I feel nothing at all. My fingers are numb and I feel like Thallium poisoning is invading my system and at last taking me hostage in its iron grip of silence.

I close my eyes, disheveled and drowning in an endless sea. It feels like my lungs are collapsing and my chest is falling in on itself. On rewind my heart beats and I wonder why.

I gasp up, grabbing at the ground, trying to find purchase. I will not be driven to the depths I find myself in often. I see red hair, like a flame in the night, a beacon in the dark. I will not die because that hair, just a flash of it makes me feel at peace, I'm in a state of calm, if only for the briefest moment in the vast span of all things.

Feeling- not feeling- it is a sharp edge that I dance daily.

I see a million faces racing through my mind's eye, with it comes a million memories, a million facets of darkness, each its own variation of twisted perversion.

I've touched a million lives.

I've died a million deaths, suffered a million pains.

All of it to get to this point in time.

Here I am, kneeling on the dirt floor of a basement underneath a secret city, and here I am, seeing flashes of beautiful red hair and a million lights go off in my heart because I am home. At last I am home.

Yet still I know that every road I am about to go down is Hell on my heels.

I scramble up and reach blindly, flicking a flame to life in my hand, the room immediately lighting up. I drag a box off of the top shelf of a stack and tear the lid off, digging through, frantically searching with fear to hold me back.

A bracelet of emerald and onyx, carved with delicate vines, weaved into a tapestry of perfection and beauty unmatched by any object I've ever seen.

So much power in something so small. I grasp the wrist cuff tightly, the gems cutting into my palm, blood spilling.

I can't help but think how lovely emerald looks with brighter shades of red. I wish that I could stop myself, but I can't. For the first time, I can't for the life of me know why this is so important, but it is. I clearly have no restraint.
I reach up, tearing through open space, settling the bloody cuff into a small compartment. Hopefully Valerie checks on this drop soon and is able to retrieve the stunning emerald black heirloom soon.

Before I close the open space, I pull a large glass jar of blood out of the box. Aculiac blood. A drop of every Aculiac lives in this jar. Aries is in here. Marulia is in here. Irene and Scarlett are in here. Jezebel is in here even if no one remembers her.

I'm the end, all that's left of their legacy, history and power is a drop of their blood. After millions of years of life, everything they ever were and became boils down to a single pinprick. It's kind of sad.

It's sad that I don't even know who some of them were. That their legacy has been somewhat forgotten.

I can't help but see myself as one of those forgotten queens. Not that it will be easy to forget the damage I've caused, but I'm sure that someone powerful enough will be born and someday erase the memory of me from the worlds.

I edge back up the stairs after I close the open connection to the in-between and put the box back up,sufficiently done with the room.
The flame in my hand flicks out, I open the door and shut it just as swiftly. That basement has too many awful memories for me to stay down there long. It drives me insane, forces my mind to test its reaches.

I come back into the room and it's just as I left it. Gislee is her usual bright self, Leander and Aaliyah going along with most of what she says and Draven sulking in the corner.

I lean against the archway that connects the back kitchen and staircases that leads upstairs to the main room where customers can buy goods and linger- stay to chat. The bakery must be closed today, then. This place is never empty.

Gislee takes a pause in whatever she's telling Aaliyah now and take that as my time to speak, "Gislee. We need to talk,"

She turns to me annoyed, her brows raising in indignation, "now?"

I cough into my hand, feeling somewhat awkward. I don't belong here, even with the woman I consider to be family, "yes, now."

She huffs, "fine then." She turns to Aaliyah and Leander, "stay here. I'll be hearing more about this Haley woman."

They nod, but say nothing.

Gislee comes behind me, pushing past my frame and leads me to an upstairs room with a sizable brick fireplace.

"What?" She blurts out, her eyes focused not on me, but on the sky as she looks out the window.

I scratch at the base of my neck and shift a little on the balls of my delicate feet. "How do you feel about ascensions?"

Her gaze hardens just as I knew it would, "absolutely not."

My eyes shut involuntary for a split moment, "the ley lines are poisoned with dark magic. I need a big enough surge of power to clear them."

"I can't." Not after Ravenna is what she wants to say but can't.

I open my hand, showing her the blood splatters, "it looks like this is affecting me too. It probably won't kill me, but it will weaken me until I can't move, much less fight."

She stares at my hand, her face tight, a thousand things flashing across her hazel eyes. She takes a breath, rakes a hand through her mass of naturally curled hair, "maybe." She knows just as well as I do what this means. There is no point in bullshitting each other when we've seen how badly the ley lines can mess a person up.

I let the breathe I've been holding free and she continues, trying to lighten the air and distract me from my grim set of options, "I've never touched the ley lines directly, maybe when I do, something fun will happen. Maybe I'll have a dream about that Atkinsons boy being skinned alive." Her attempt at humor falls flat. It falls off of a high tower and hits the stones with a resounding splatter.

I sigh, "he's having a hard day."

She, determined, replies, "I don't like him."
"I know."

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