This Wicked Fate (This Poison Heart #2)(9)

“I know I’m not supposed to be here,” I said. “That you probably don’t want me here.”

Circe angled her head and pushed her glasses up. “It’s very hard for me to look at you. You look so much like her it’s a little scary.”

“You mean Selene?”

Circe nodded. “I feel like I’m talking to her.”

“I’m not her,” I said. It’s the same thing I’d told Alec when I went to see him in the hospital. In his confusion he’d thought I was her.

“No. I know,” Circe said. She bit her bottom lip and her eyebrows pushed together. I prepared myself to get my feelings hurt. “Let me be real clear about this. Did I want you here? Did Selene? Yes. Of course we did. But it was just too dangerous. Redmond wasn’t the first to come after the Heart. But you’re a part of this place, which is, I suspect, why fate brought you back.”

“Not really fate,” I said. “More like a murderous, hateful, lying-ass piece of—”

“I get it,” Circe cut in. “Believe me I do.” She looked thoughtful. “I’m glad she’s dead. I would have liked to see it.”

“I saw it.”

Circe took a deep breath and let her shoulders slump down. “Gods, I wish you hadn’t.” She took off her glasses and sandwiched the lens between the folds of her T-shirt, cleaning off the smudges. “If I’m being honest there was a part of me that was hoping you’d come back someday when it was safe.”

“Is that why you left the map?”

Circe let the air hiss out between her teeth. “I was careless, but I was also tired. Hell, I’m still tired. I drew a map, left the key. I thought if you came back someday and I was gone maybe you’d stumble on it.”

“You were gonna let me stumble on the Heart?”

Circe pressed the back of her head into the wall. “I don’t know what I was thinking. It’s my responsibility. I knew it wasn’t right to try and pass it off on you, but I wanted to put the burden down, Briseis. You have no idea how badly I wanted that.” She stretched her legs out in front of her and pulled her wrap forward, tucking her stray coils under it. “The pressure of continuing a tradition that’s been going on for thousands of years. I’m supposed to give up my life, people I love—”

“Like Dr. Grant?” I asked.

Circe’s eyebrows arched up. “What? Hold on. What did she say to you?”

“Nothing,” I said quickly. “She didn’t say anything but it’s kind of obvious.” The way Circe had spoken to Dr. Grant—people only do that when there’s a history there, when feelings are still involved.

Circe shrugged. “Yes. Like Khadijah. She was—is—brilliant. I loved her. I still do. But after Selene died I just kind of cut myself off from everybody. The grief was so heavy. You can’t understand.”

“I do understand.”

She turned and looked me dead in the face. “I’m sorry. I wish you didn’t. I wish for that more than anything.”

We sat in silence for a minute before I worked up the nerve to ask the only real question I had. “I’d like to know why she chose adoption,” I said. “Why, if this is our responsibility, the task only we can do, why try to keep me from it?”

She sighed and let her arms flop to her sides. A glass half-full of red wine tipped over and splashed across the floor. She looked at it and laughed.

“You’re sixteen and a few months,” Circe said. “You probably don’t even know that you can’t get drunk yet.”

“Huh?”

She laughed lightly. “A very unwelcome side effect of this power. You take something intoxicating into yourself and neutralize its effect. Alcohol is a byproduct of plants, and we are immune to its effect.”

My ex-best friend, Gabby, and I had shared a wine cooler once, and she was so tipsy she couldn’t stand up. I was sure she was faking it because I didn’t feel anything at all, but maybe there was more to it.

“I still try.” Circe tapped the wineglass. “But it’s just expensive grape juice to me.” She sighed and tipped her head back. “Selene was funny. She had a comeback for everything. She loved music. She was stubborn and beautiful and I miss her so much it hurts.” She clutched her chest like her heart was breaking all over again. “She chose adoption because she understood fully that what we do, what we are, has brought so much loss, so much pain, she wanted to try and keep you from it. I think we both understood that you had gifts and no matter where you were they’d probably manifest themselves. But it was your safety that concerned Selene most. She wanted you to be far from here so that the people who’ve been trying to get their hands on the Heart wouldn’t hurt you.” She laughed drily. “I didn’t know she’d allowed you to keep the name she gave you. I didn’t know it was an open adoption.” Tears streamed down her face. “Maybe there was a part of her that hoped you’d find your way back here someday, too. But I know she wouldn’t have wanted it to be like this.”

“You don’t want me to stay?” I asked. It was just a question, but in that moment I realized that I wanted her to tell me she wanted me to stay.

Circe turned to me. “I don’t know if that’s what I want.”