Spell Bound (7 page)

T
he 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 fallen 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 cliché. 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.”

“Well, that’s good to know.”

We stayed there, dangling our feet over the creek, talking, until the sun was high overhead. By the time we made our way back to the compound, I was feeling a little better. Sure, my life was still intensely screwed up, but at least I had some answers.

When we got back to the compound, Izzy and Finley were out doing chores. Or what the Brannicks called chores, anyway. Izzy was rearranging the targets on the training field. (I still called it the Ninja Backyard. Izzy laughed when I told her that.) Finley was set up in the converted barn just off the training field, sharpening knives. “You can help her,” Aislinn told me, once I found her. She was down in the basement, changing the sheets on the cots. I wondered why she bothered, but decided not to ask.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’m not really great with the knives,” I told her. “Is there anything else I can do? Anything less…deadly?”

Shaking a pillow into its case, Aislinn shrugged and said, “You can go up to the War Room and check our files on Hecate Hall and the Casnoffs. See if there’s any information we have wrong, or details you can add.”

Ah, yes. Files. Books. Nothing with sharp edges. Perfect.

“Will do. Thanks.”

I jogged back up the steps, stopping near the top. “Oh, and, um, thanks for letting me stay here. I mean, after everything my whole existence put you through.”

When she just looked at me, I hurried on to say, “Finley told me what happened to the other Brannicks. She said it wouldn’t have happened if you’d been their leader.”

I stood there awkwardly while Aislinn studied me. She had Mom’s eyes, so it was doubly weird to feel myself under such intense scrutiny. In the end, she just said, “You’re family.”

There was nothing really to say to that. I just nodded and hurried back upstairs.

The War Room was every bit as depressing and messy as it had been yesterday, and after ten minutes of pawing through the papers on the table, and the big, heavy boxes on the floor, I hadn’t found the files about Hecate Hall. Frustrated, I let out a long sigh.

“Problem?” a silky voice murmured.

I ignored Torin and turned my attention to the stack of notebooks near the couch.

“I am sorry for what I said about your father this morning,” he said. “It was beneath me.”

I still didn’t say anything.

“Being trapped thus is incredibly frustrating for me, and occasionally I take it out on others. Again, I apologize. Now, if you’d like, I can help you with what you’re seeking.”

Knowing I’d probably regret it, I crossed the room and yanked the canvas off the mirror. As before, he was sitting on the table, smirking at me.

“Jackass, jackass on the wall, where’s the info on Hex Hall?”

Torin laughed long and loud at that, and I saw that his teeth were slightly crooked. Seeing as how he was from the sixteenth century, I guess he was lucky to have any teeth at all.

“Oh, I do like you,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes. “All these bloody warrior women are so serious. It’s nice to have a real wit about the place again.”

“Whatever. Do you know where the file on Hex Hall is, or not, Mirror Boy?”

He leaned forward and pointed under the table. In the mirror I saw a box pushed back in the shadows. No wonder I’d missed it.

As I dragged the box out, Torin said, “Is that all you want my help with, Sophia?”

I rocked back on my heels and scowled at him. “You made it pretty clear last night that you’re big into being cryptic. I’m not in the mood to have my chain jerked right now.”

He was quiet while I pawed through the box. I pulled out two big manila envelopes with casnoff scrawled across them. There were three separate folders labeled hecate hall, and I took those out, too.

“You were stuck in a void space,” Torin said.

I was so busy flipping through the first Casnoff folder that it took a second for what he said to register. Once it did, I looked up at him blankly. “What?”

“Those three weeks you lost. You were stuck in a void between dimensions. That’s how the Itineris works, traveling in and around other dimensions. Most of the time there are no problems. But you got stuck, probably because of what you are. Or aren’t.”

When I just kept staring at him, he clarified. “You’re not a demon anymore, not completely, but neither are you human.” Torin rested his chin in his hand, a heavy ruby ring on his pinkie winking at me. “You were a very confusing object for the Itineris to digest. So it held you for a bit. You’re quite fortunate it eventually decided to spit you out.”

The words “digest” and “spit” were more than a little unsettling. “Okay,” I finally said. “That’s, um, really awful to know. But thanks for telling me.”

He shrugged. “It was nothing.”

I went back to the folder, studying a picture of Mrs. Casnoff and her sister, Lara, when they were young, maybe in their late teens, early twenties. There was a man sitting with them who had black hair slicked back from his forehead, and a mustache every bit as elaborate as one of Mrs. Casnoff’s hairdos. I guessed this was Mrs. Casnoff’s father, Alexei.

“You know, I can see more than just the future or the past.”

“Really?” I asked, paging through the papers in the file. “Can you also see the present? Because I can do that, too. Like, right now, I sense that I’m in a messy room with a total toolbox.”