King 02 - Breathless (26 page)

Again I sensed a shift in his mood. “My dad died when I was ten. He could do it, too, the time altering. Drove my mom crazy.” Rafe’s voice took on an almost wistful tone. “My mother got remarried a few years ago.”

Empathy lowered my mental block, and I could hear him clearly.
To a normal guy. Someone she didn’t have to worry about manipulating her mind. Someone who didn’t like having a reminder of husband number one hanging around, who didn’t trust that I wasn’t messing with him.

I reached out to touch his arm. “I’m sorry. That must have been rough.”

He shook his head as if to clear it. “It’s fine. My grandparents wanted me to come live with them. It worked out great.” But the pain was still there in his voice.

The silence grew around us, and then Rafe rose slowly to his feet. “I know you’re not going to tell me anything else,” he said. “But if you ever need to talk to someone who understands, I’m around.” He turned to walk down the porch steps, and then stopped and looked at me over his shoulder, curiosity etched on his face.

“When I saw you with the science teacher that day—Lacusta? Does that have something to do with your ability? Cara said she was involved with what happened last year…” His words trailed off, but I didn’t answer him. I just held his gaze.

Rafe smiled slightly. “I thought so. Like I said, I’m around.” With that, he left.

“Tell me about your own gift, Tasmyn.” Ms. Lacusta was sitting back, watching me with interest. I was momentarily confused; I’d expected her to launch right into the rest of her own story. It was also the second time in five days that I’d been asked to talk about things that I almost never discussed outside my own small circle.

I bit my lip, thinking. “I’ve always heard thoughts, as long as I can remember. When my parents figured out what I could do, they helped me develop skills so that I could live with it.”

“So your parents at first had no idea what you could do. And then once they found out, they forced you to hide it.”

“They taught me to adapt,” I corrected.

“What you can do—hearing thoughts—it’s a very great ability. Denying you their permission to exercise that gift is a terrible thing.”

It was true that I didn’t always agree with the limitations my parents placed on my talents, but I wasn’t going to sit there and listen to Ms. Lacusta judge them.

“You don’t know anything about it. You never even had—” I had been about to say ‘
a child’
, but I thought better of it. I couldn’t be that intentionally hurtful. “You were never in that situation,” I finished lamely.

“I was never given the opportunity, true.” She toyed absently with the silver disc at her neck. “All right. Let’s get down to business here, as they say. Where were we last week?”

Even though I couldn’t hear what she was thinking, I realized that she was humoring me. She knew exactly where we’d stopped. Annoyed, I shrugged.

“I think you were trying to convince me of your pure motives toward Nell. You didn’t want me to think of you as some kind of wi—”

“That’s right,” Ms. Lacusta interrupted. “I remember.” I hid a smile. I was annoying her right back, and it was very satisfying.

“I believe I was telling you about the beginnings of our chemistry club. I didn’t want to draw suspicion by focusing on Nell completely, right away, so I was pleased when the other girls became involved, too. It was obvious from the beginning that Nell had the most talent and interest, and I felt it was only a matter of time before the rest of them fell away. Then I could concentrate on Nell exclusively.”

“Why? What did you plan to do with Nell once you had her to yourself?

Ms. Lacusta tilted her head as she studied me. “I planned to teach her, to help her develop her power. I wanted to let her see her destiny unfold before her and share my own rich heritage.” Again she fingered the chain. “By the time school began again last autumn, I could tell that Liza and Julie were beginning to lose interest in our club. After all, there was only so much I could teach them. Casey was fascinated with love charms, I recall, and I did teach her a simple one, which she used with some success.”

I tried to remember who Casey had been dating last year. I couldn’t think of anyone who might have been the target of her so-called magiks. I’d have to ask Amber.

“But then… there was a shift, somehow. Nell told me that she had an idea, one she thought I’d like. And it involved recruiting one more girl into our group. I’ll admit, I was impatient. The idea of bringing in another person when I was trying to shrink our numbers… well, I expressed my displeasure to Nell, but it was too late. She’d already befriended Amber, and before I could stop her, she’d invited her to one of our meetings in the clearing.”

I remembered Amber telling me this story from her point of view, how Nell had apologized for past years of bullying and abuse and convinced her that she was genuinely interested in her friendship. So Ms. Lacusta was distancing herself from this part, denying any guilt. Interesting, but not surprising.

“It was around that time that you arrived in King. As soon as I saw you, I could feel your power. I was surprised, yes, but not shocked. I assumed that you were connected with one of King’s founding families and had just moved back. I’d perceived power in other students, to varying degrees, since I’d been here, and it always turned out to be generational.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Handed down power. Like mine, in a way, but perhaps a bit more diluted, since in most cases it hasn’t been well exercised over the years.”

“Did you feel that in Rafe?” I asked.

“Who?” She was genuinely perplexed; she had no memory of him.

“Rafe Brooks. You met him my first time with you here. He wanted you to let him do the chemistry independent study.”

“Oh, the Brooks boy. Yes, I sensed power there. And it’s not diluted. Interesting... or it would be, if he weren’t male. As it is, I see it as only another tool with which he can dominate. I think I warned you to stay away from him, didn’t I?”

“Hmmm.” I was non-committal in my response, and she cut me a sharp glance before resuming her story.

“I was sufficiently intrigued by what I sensed in you to do some investigating. Meanwhile, though, Nell was becoming more and more of a problem. Some of the girls actually complained to me about her, expressed concern about her state of mind. I had begun to have my own worries, and this only intensified. Nell became more possessive and jealous of me.”

“As opposed to the open arms and love I was getting from her,” I observed sarcastically.

“Yes. Nell never hid her feelings about you. I assumed that it was because she didn’t want to share my attention with anyone else. By that time, of course, I had disclosed to Nell that I thought she was the one. My daughter’s mystical twin. She was... thrilled. In retrospect, I see that I was fulfilling her deep-seated mother needs; in her mind, I was the replacement for the woman who had proven too weak.”

I shifted in my chair, glancing surreptitiously at the clock. We were nearing the end of the class period, and I didn’t feel I had learned anything new today.

Ms. Lacusta noticed my clock-checking and sighed ruefully. “I know. And I’m stalling. But this is more difficult than I had anticipated.”

I was mystified. “You mean remembering everything with Nell?”

“Certainly that. But I’m avoiding sharing the crux of the matter with you, and that’s not like me.” She seemed almost nervous as she licked her lips.

“The unpleasantness truly began when I had to tell Nell that I had been wrong. Despite all the signs, she wasn’t the one.”

My mouth dropped. Knowing Nell’s history, and now hearing the inside details of everything that had happened last year, I couldn’t imagine what Nell’s response to that kind of betrayal might have been.

“How did you know? What did she do?”

Ms. Lacusta chose to answer my second question first. “You know what she did. She became obsessed with convincing me that I was wrong, that in fact she
was
the chosen one. And to that end, she decided to perform a blood ritual, to release her true power and her true self. I don’t know if she had always had that in mind for Amber, but I suspect that she did. Nell’s plans were usually quite… concrete.”

I shivered, and in my mind I was back in the clearing, hearing Amber’s desperate panic as Michael and I raced to save her.

That reminded me. “Did you give Nell the athame?” I demanded. “Knowing how unstable she was? How could you do that?”

An odd mix of guilt and annoyance flickered across the teacher’s face. “When I gave that to Nell, I was still under the impression that she was the one I had been seeking. It was an heirloom, something that had been in my family for generations. If I had known what she was capable of doing, of course I never would have given it to her. But by the time I knew, it was almost too late.”

“Was it her insanity that clued you in?”

Ms. Lacusta ignored my mocking tone and shook her head. “No, although her instability certainly worried me. Nell was very controlled and cunning, and as you know, she could be quite manipulative. But it was my own research that showed me the truth.”

“The truth being that Nell wasn’t the—I can’t remember the words in your language. The spiritual twin or whatever?”

“
Sacru pereche a unui lucru.
Yes. I knew that it wasn’t Nell after all, because I had overwhelming evidence that it was—someone else.”

A sense of dread began to rise within me, even as I could feel a budding eagerness coming from Ms. Lacusta. I should have seen this from the beginning. My head pounded, my breath caught, and I couldn’t speak at all.

“It’s you, Tasmyn. You are the one I’ve been waiting to find. You are my daughter’s
sacru pereche a unui lucru.”

I don’t really remember leaving the chemistry classroom that day. I only know that when the final bell rang, I was standing in the walkway across from the cafeteria, clutching my books to my chest and still trying to catch my breath.

“Tas?” Amber waved a hand in front of my face, frowning. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

I stared at her without comprehension, unable to answer. My mind was still reeling. I felt Amber’s anxiety ratchet up another few notches, and it finally shook me into awareness.