The Night Everything Fell Apart (The Nephilim Book 1)(8)

“Gone.”

“Gone how?”

“I’m not exactly sure,” he admitted. “I just know I did it.” He didn’t give her time to protest his pitiful non-explanation. “How did you know I would be here? I didn’t know myself, not until a couple hours ago.”

“Oh, please. There was no way you weren’t going to come here.”

He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised she’d anticipated his movements. Cybele possessed keen intuition. Female Nephil dormants, unlike males, acquired some of their magical powers before entering the Ordeal. Cybele’s talent was stronger than most and she’d worked hard to develop it. But even aside from intuition and magic, it wasn’t surprising Cybele had guessed he’d be here. She knew him better than anyone.

“I came here because I remembered this.” He touched his mother’s moonstone.

She focused on the gem. “It’s beautiful. Whose is it?”

“My mum’s.”

“It’s been here all this time? Mab never found it?”

“My father hid it. He’d stolen it from my mother when he found out she’d been having sex with—” He swallowed. “Well. My parents weren’t lifebonded. They both had other lovers. But then my mum took up with a Nephil from another clan.”

“She slept with a rival?” Cybele tilted her head and searched his gaze. “You never told me that.”

“I know.” He looked away. “I couldn’t bear to think about it, let alone talk of it. If she hadn’t done it, they’d both be alive today. My mother’s lover was the Nephil I saw that night. The one who killed her and my father.”

“Oh, Arthur. Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

He shrugged and avoided her gaze. “Too ashamed, I guess. And angry.”

“You shouldn’t have had to deal with that alone.”

“There’s nothing you could’ve done.” It killed him, even now, to admit out loud what his mother had done.

“I could’ve listened.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “Before that last night, I hadn’t realized what had been going on. A few days earlier, I’d noticed my mum’s touchstone was missing. When I asked her where it was, she just shook her head. Yesterday I saw my father’s hand sliding it into the trunk of the old oak in the garden.”

“You saw it? Yesterday?” She leaned toward him. “You mean in an ancestral memory? Your father’s?”

“Yes. It was as if I was behind his eyes, looking out.”

“Arthur, that’s fantastic! Have you seen memories from other ancestors? What about Merlin’s?”

“No. Not his. I’ve tried, but...” Merlin’s were the memories Arthur most wanted to recover. But was it even possible? Not one of Merlin’s descendants, in all the hundreds of years since the great sorcerer’s death, had received his memories.

“It’ll come.” Cybele’s voice rang with a confidence Arthur didn’t feel.

“They never came to my mother. Or any of my other ancestors.” He paused, hesitant to voice a fear he couldn’t seem to put to rest. “Maybe Merlin’s memories are gone.”

“What? That’s not even possible.”

“It could be.”

“You can’t know that.”

“No,” Arthur said. “I suppose I can’t.” It was only a feeling he had. A cold, tight knot in his chest.

They both fell silent. The wind gusted, sending a chill into the room. Cybele frowned at the broken window. “That wasn’t like that before.”

“It broke when I tried to open it.”

“Looks more like you put your fist through it.”

“I might have.” He looked down at his hand. The cut he’d gotten when the glass shattered was already closed, the scar rapidly fading. A Nephil adept didn’t suffer much with non-magical wounds.

“So you don’t remember anything at all from your ancestors’ lives? Besides the memory from your father?”

“The memories are in my head. But they’re all jumbled up. I see bits and pieces, but nothing distinct enough to sort out.”

“They’ll clear,” Cybele said. “They have to.”

“I hope so. But even if they do, my magic—” He exhaled. “Let’s just say it’s giving me a spot of trouble.”

“No surprise there. You passed through your Ordeal without a guide. Of course it’s going to take longer than usual to figure things out.”

The last thing Arthur wanted to discuss was his Ordeal. Abruptly, he changed the subject. “Why did you leave Demon’s Hollow? We agreed you’d stay in Texas until I came back for you.”

“Yes, well, that was the plan, wasn’t it?” Cybele said. “But with two weeks gone, I didn’t dare—”

“Two weeks?” Arthur stared. “Two bloody weeks? What the fuck day is it?”

“You don’t know?”

He shook his head.

“March thirtieth.”

He swore. “I had no idea. I...time doesn’t exist within the Ordeal. And since I emerged...” He hesitated, not wanting to admit the larger part of his recent memory was a black abyss. He glanced out the window. “It’s been too cloudy to see the moon.” He leaned in. “What happened after I left?”