Kindling the Moon (Arcadia Bell #1)(93)

It was used to catch sacrificial blood.

Panicking, I tried to move, but my arms were bound. I was tied to a metal pole affixed to the bowl below me.

“You’re going to kill me?” I demanded in a shaky voice.

My father looked over at me, breaking away from the kiss, taking my mother’s hand in his. “We’re going to transfer your power to us through a short ritual. I’m sorry, but there is no other way. You are too weak to wield that kind of power. We have no choice but to take it from you.”

“It would be irresponsible to let it decay,” my mother agreed. “This is bigger than all of us.”

“And the only way we can siphon your ability is to harvest it when it’s captured in the blood, right as the soul lifts from the body.”

“There is no shame in sacrifice,” my mother added. “Just because you couldn’t fulfill your destiny as our messiah doesn’t mean your life is wasted. Don’t you see? Once we realized that you weren’t suited to keep the Moonchild power, and once we realized that the siphoning spell could harvest more than Heka, it all fit together neatly. We are all redeemed. Your power will live on in us, giving back to us … just as we lived on in your body, like we gave you life. It’s a fair exchange, and please know it’s done in love.”

“Love?” I repeated.

I began shaking uncontrollably, sobbing, screaming. My life, my family, it was all a sham. They thought of me as a possession right from the beginning? Something they created that failed? And now they were nothing but pathological killers, and I’d wasted my adult life in hiding, believing that they were innocent … that they loved me.

How could I have been so blind? My head felt like it was splitting open as dark recollections began surfacing, piling on top of one another, spinning. The memories that Lon saw in his visions solidified in my head.

The caliph hadn’t been the enemy. Half-remembrances tangled in my brain, quiet moments of him talking to me when I was a teenager, after my parents were wallowing in self-created shame, thinking that their reputation was ruined because they’d failed to bring a real Moonchild into the world. The caliph told me many times that it didn’t matter, and that he loved me anyway. The dream Lon had … My mother had been arguing with the caliph because he must have suspected something was wrong. Maybe he knew they were hiding something. Maybe he suspected that they were sick in the head.

“Did the caliph know you killed the other leaders of the orders?” I asked.

My mother smiled. “He was suspicious, so we did a little spellwork on him. Something to confuse the mind.”

“You performed that spell on me, too, didn’t you?”

“On you?” She shook her head. “No need. Your loyalty to us kept you blind. The caliph, however, we had to control by force.”

My mother then explained that they didn’t know what to do with me after they were accused of the murders. They knew that they had to run, and I was baggage, weighing them down. Useless baggage, because they hadn’t yet come across the twelfth-century Moonchild journal. It was easiest for the caliph to watch over me. He always doted on me, they said, so it was simple to persuade him to accept the responsibility once they’d cast the confusion spell on him to eliminate any lingering suspicion or doubts he might have had concerning their motives.

“Unfortunately,” my mom lamented, “that particular spell was not permanent. It fades with time. We are not sure whether the caliph’s spell began waning, or if he underwent a counterspell to remove it, but something changed recently. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now.”

Whatever happened must have occurred before they were spotted in Dallas, because now it struck me that the caliph hadn’t sent me after the albino demon to prove their innocence—he wanted me to find it to prove they were guilty. “The albino demon. Nivella,” I whispered.

“Oh, oui. We found the talon and seal in your clothes,” my mother said. “How did you find out about Nivella? We didn’t tell anyone about her.”

“You lied to Caliph Superior—gave him a bad description of the demon,” I realized.

“Of course,” my father replied. “We couldn’t have him snooping around and digging her up. She helped us with all the siphonings.”

“Siphonings? You mean murders.”

“Well, that’s why we removed the talon, so no one else could conjure her and find out what we were doing. It also served as a beautiful ritual dagger. When it was confiscated, we had to search for another demon with the same power. It took us years, but we found one, and were prepared to summon her tonight, but now that you’ve brought us Nivella’s talon, we can just use her. Better the devil you know, yes?”

“How did you piece together that we’d originally used Nivella?” my mother asked.

“The Tamlins.”

My parents looked at each other in disbelief. “The confusion spell—”

“They had it removed,” I said. “Mostly.”

My father nodded in understanding. “Not a particularly bright couple. We thought about killing the Tamlins when they caught us in Portland during the third siphoning, but they weren’t worth the effort. Not enough Heka to even consider harvesting.”

“They still think you’re innocent.”