Antebellum Awakening (The Network Series #2)(80)

A flicker of something dark passed through her eyes, disappearing a moment later. She peered at me through the dim light.

“I can’t give you want you want, Bianca. Unlike my sister, Sanna, I cannot save you by yelling at your monsters and scaring them away.”

“Sanna told you we met?” I asked, smiling with one corner of my lips in a sheepish way. Isadora nodded.

“There isn’t much that Sanna doesn’t tell me. She gives me a headache, most days. But that’s not what we’re here to talk about.”

My eyes fell to the floor as I thought over why I had come to talk to her. Tomorrow brought my birthday and possibly my death.

“What do I want?" I asked, hardly aware of it myself. A heavy jumble of guts, nerves, and fear sat inside me. If I hadn’t learned to control the magic the past three months, I would have been a walking explosion.

“Reassurance,” Isadora said. “You came for reassurance.”

She was right. I wanted her to tell me that I wouldn’t die tomorrow, that I’d be strong enough to kill Miss Mabel before she killed me. I wanted to know that my friends would survive the many hells that Miss Mabel and Angelina, if my suspicions were correct, would release on the Central Network. But even those weren’t my biggest fear.

I want you to tell me that Papa won’t die, I wanted to say. “Yes,” I whispered instead. “I suppose you’re right. I do want reassurance.”

“I can’t give you that.”

“You can’t help me at all?” I asked, clutching to hope. “You can’t tell—”

“No.” She shook her head. “I can’t.”

We sat in the silence while I tried to collect my thoughts.

“Did you see it?” I asked, finally giving voice to the question that had plagued me for over six months. “Did you see Miss Mabel killing my mother when you first interviewed me?”

Isadora’s aged face turned down, the wrinkles elongating into a sad expression.

“I saw much grief and struggle. I saw many graves. I saw sadness and fire.”

Many graves. The words echoed through my head.

“Will you tell me what you see now?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.

“No,” she said in the same firm tone Leda used. “I will not.”

I couldn’t blame her, not really. Deep down, I didn’t want to know the future. What if I saw something I’d never planned on? What if it frightened me into inaction? But although I’d had this conversation with Leda plenty of times before, for some reason it hurt more tonight. Perhaps I simply had more to lose.

“You said that I had strengths that Miss Mabel didn’t,” I said, recalling our last conversation. “Am I any stronger?”

Isadora paused, glancing down at my right hand, which rested on my lap near Viveet. The circlus sat there, unchanged.

“Do you feel stronger?” she asked.

“Physically, yes.”

“How about here?” Isadora tapped her heart with the top of her fingers. I pressed my hand over mine, not sure of how to answer. Was my heart any stronger? I had better control over my powers, but the wrathful dragon still paced inside me, the living embodiment of my rage for Miss Mabel. I still woke up every day wanting my mother back. I still dreaded the night and longed for the morning.

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly.

Isadora stared at me. Seeming to relent under some invisible pressure, she let out a sigh.

“I see more than you think and more than you can comprehend right now,” she said. “I can only tell you to watch and be valiant. There is much death coming, much death.”

Her voice faded, sounding morose.

“I figured that.”

“There’s more to fear than just the West, Bianca. You already know that.”

I stared back at Isadora for a moment, debating over whether I should trust her with my latest conjecture regarding Miss Mabel and Angelina. Then again, if I couldn’t trust Isadora, who could I trust?

“Isadora, I have suspicions that I can’t share.” The protective magic of the binding sent a cool grip around my voice, a warning. Isadora’s brow fell low as she regarded me. I gave her the space to sift through the memories in my head.

“Yes,” she finally said. Her face darkened, like a storm had just moved over it. “I can see what you want to talk about. You think that Mabel has found the Almorran Book of Spells and plans to use it to take over Antebellum?”

I nodded.

“There’s no proof that the book really exists. It’s all hearsay and speculation.”

“The scroll in the library—”

“Yes,” she murmured. “I know. It says it was lost, not destroyed. There’s also the matter of Angelina.”

Her eyes glazed over again, going distant. When she came back to the present, she drew in a deep breath.

“I need to do some seeing. It may take time but I should be able to gain more information about the Book of Spells and Angelina.”

Knowing that someone heard my fears took a great burden off my chest. If I died tomorrow, at least Isadora could press forward with the information I’d given her. I sank back against the chair in relief.

“Thank you, Isadora,” I whispered.