Iniquitous (The Marked #3)(77)

“Then you’ve been made aware about the prophecy,” he surmised, bouncing a glance at Trace over my shoulder before returning his focus to me.

“That I’m the Daughter of Hades? That my blood is the key to unlocking Lucifer’s cage?” I exhaled sharply. “Yup, I know all about it. I also know I’m never going to willingly open that door.”

“It isn’t as simple as that, Jemma.”

“No, it isn’t,” I agreed. “But it didn’t have to be this hard either. You could’ve worked with me instead of against me. You could have told me the truth and given me a fighting chance to live. Not because I’m only seventeen years old. Not even because I’m your niece, your flesh and blood. But because I deserved a chance to prove that I was more than some ancient prophecy…so that my father didn’t die in vain protecting me.” A thickness pressed in at the back of my throat as I thought about my father and everything he’d sacrificed so that I could live. I tucked it away in a safe place—the place I kept all my treasured things—and I pressed on. “But it’s not too late. You can still do the right thing and help me now.”

“And how would I do that?’ he asked, genuinely curious.

“Sanguinarium is bleeding into our world and it’s weakening the Realms around it. You know that more than I do.” I leaned forward in my chair and met his eyes. “But we can stop it. We can bring the Barrier back up and seal it for good.”

“How do you know this?” He appeared to be confused as to how I’d acquired so much information, especially when they’d worked as hard as they did to keep so much of it away from me. His eyes flicked to Trace like an accusation.

“Because,” I said as his eyes made their way back to me. “I was there when the Casters brought it down.”

I went on to explain how the Sisters of Roderick had been commissioned by Engel to help him bring forth The Uprising, a plot in which Revenants everywhere would come out of the shadows with Engel as their leader. He listened intently as I spoke about being locked away in his dungeon and later Invoking during the ritual, though he remained especially silent when I told him the sordid details of how I’d vanquished Engel in that field.

“Arianna thinks they can bring the wall back up,” I concluded, bringing us back to the reason I had come here in the first place. “All we need is blood from one of Engel’s sires. My mother’s blood.”

His face turned the color of ash and I knew then that what Arianna had told me was true.

“She’s been in that crypt all this time. Right under the ground I was walking on.” It took me a minute to process the reality and stifle the sudden urge to make him pay for what he’d done to me—to my family.

“She was given a dignified burial despite the choices she made in her life.”

I flinched at his implication that she’d chosen that life for herself. Trace swiftly moved in behind me and placed a comforting hand on my shoulder.

“How could you keep this from me and Tessa?” I asked in outrage.

“That was decided long before you came here, my dear, and not by me.”

“Then by who? The Order?”

“Certainly not,” he replied haughtily. “Thomas made that decision for you when Jaqueline Turned,” he said, not even bothering to hide his disgust for her. “Along with a slew of other poor decisions.”

“My father knew.” I felt as if my body was going to slump to the floor.

“Of course he knew. Why else do you think he took you and your sister away from here? He should have staked her when he had the chance,” he said quietly as though speaking to himself now. “But Thomas never could do right by that woman.”

I felt overwhelmed by questions of why and how this had all happened, but I wasn’t sure I was prepared to hear the truth—or worse, the lies and half-truths that my uncle would mostly likely tell me instead.

How could my mother do this to my father? To me and Tessa? What could have possibly possessed her to give up her family and children, her entire identity, to become the thing she was bred to hunt?

“Why did she do it?” I asked him even though I wasn’t sure I could stomach the truth.

“Jaqueline is the only one who can answer that question,” he said as shadows from the past flickered through his eyes.

I suspected he knew much more than he was letting on, but it was obvious he wasn’t going to tell me anything. The past was a twisted tale of horror that he kept hidden inside of him like a second heart, and I had to make peace with the fact that I may never see it. Not from him anyway, but maybe from the source.

“I want to see her.” My demand surprised everyone in the room, including me.

Up until now, my only focus was on getting her blood to seal Sanguinarium, but suddenly, I felt myself wanting to see her; to know who she was.

“Absolutely not.” He shook his head with finality. “It’s out of the question.”

“But she can help us! Her blood can—”

“She will do no such thing!” His voice boomed across the room as he slammed his hands down on the desk. “Jaqueline Morningstar will never see the light of day again.”





34. WICKED DEEDS


The storm-clouds darkened outside the windows as I stared speechlessly at my uncle across the desk, the sound of his boisterous voice still echoing through my head like gunfire. I couldn’t imagine what my mother could’ve done so bad that it warranted her an eternity in a box. It just didn’t line up with any of the things I’d been told about her growing up. In fact, I couldn’t remember a single time my father spoke an ill-word about her.