“To Isabeau. He said she possesses something he wants. He was planning to trade me for it.”
Ky growls. “This is my fault. I never should have told him what happened at the bridge. The water”—he gestures toward the fountain—“was probably from the Threshold in Lynbrook Province. It would’ve taken you right to her door.”
“Ky.” My fingers twiddle, itching to touch him, to show I understand. Instead I curl them into my palms. “Why didn’t you tell me about your sister?”
“Would it have mattered?” He inhales a rickety breath. Steps closer. His chest rises and falls. He’s so close, the heat emanating from his body warms me. How is he not cold?
“I’m sorry. I’ve been so awful to you.” My own breathing quickens. I inch backward, looking at the gate, the trees, anything but Ky’s purposeful gaze.
“Don’t be.” He shrugs one shoulder. “I didn’t exactly give you the best first impression.”
“What happened to her?”
He breathes one word. “Crowe.”
Hatred bubbles for the man who rips families apart without a second thought.
“Come on.” Ky jerks his head toward the inn. “We don’t have to worry about Gage anymore tonight. The fountain is already draining. Even Magnets have their limits. Unless Stormy stands there, focusing only on the water, it can’t remain.”
“Could you explain this whole Calling thing to me? I’m getting a little confused.”
“We’ve got hours until the others wake. Might as well. What do you know?”
I relay what I’ve learned from Joshua, Robyn, and Wade. I stride beside Ky, keeping a respectful distance, our pace unhurried. The cottages are dark. It’s a ghost town, minus the gunslingers and saloons. Even before night fell, the Village was dead. Is this how these people live? In constant fear? The Haven is large, but it’s still a prison. No matter the breadth between, walls are still walls.
“So, David explained about Evers?”
I nod, my conversation with Joshua seeming Reflections away.
“How about Shields?”
I shake my head.
“We’ll start there then. As you know, there are seven Callings, all unique to each person. I’m a Shield, but so are Makai and Haman. I can paralyze my enemies with a look, yet I can’t inflict internal wounds or render myself invisible.”
Makai seemed to disappear the night I followed him. And when Ky attacked him—he definitely vanished then. What did Gage call my uncle? An invisible babysitter?
“Shields are defenders, making them ideal Guardians. Their ability can be offensive, defensive, or both, but all stem from the mind. A Shield cannot harm a human in an alternate form, such as Lark’s owl. And most importantly, they are unaffected by others of their kind. I can see Makai, even when no one else can, and Haman can’t injure me without the use of physical contact.”
Ky’s using a knife on my uncle makes sense now, but, “If you could see Makai, why would he turn invisible in the subway?”
“Who knows? He was probably trying to spare you from seeing him struggle.” He kicks a rock and it click, clack, clicks across the cobblestone, lands in someone’s lawn.
Wow. My uncle really does care for me. “So you’ve always been a Shield?”
“It’s different for everyone.” His shoulders slump. “Children are given Threshold water as infants, but it’s not known if they have a Calling until several years later. If one doesn’t manifest by the time they turn eighteen, it never will. I was seven when mine revealed itself. I’d really hoped to be a Physic, like my mother. Though the Callings aren’t genetic, they usually reflect an ability of a parent or close relative. Probably because we share similar attributes with those near to us. I just hoped I was more like my mother than my father.” His fists clench. “Apparently not.” Halting, he tugs his shirt collar down to reveal his shoulder blade.
My breath ceases. I can’t help but run my fingers along the crimson-inked tattoo no larger than a tennis ball, a banner fashioned of foliage and vine. And at the banner’s center, a rose blossom framed in thorns.
No words form. The tattoo is . . . beautiful. I draw my hand away, touch my right cheek. The image almost reminds me of—
No. I lower my hand, concealing it in the jacket’s sleeve. That’s crazy. My birthmark isn’t beautiful.
Ky adjusts his shirt, and we resume our lackadaisical pace. A weather vane on one cottage sways, squeaking as the breeze kisses its ends. In a yard, two lawn gnomes smile merrily, their painted rosy cheeks puffing out, chipped in places. Some things here are so familiarly American, I can almost imagine I’m on vacation upstate. Then Kuna turns into a merman or Joshua comes back from the dead, reminding me I’m nowhere near home. If only I could click my heels three times and be back in my own bed. Then again, without Mom, New York isn’t home at all.
“The rose represents power and protection,” Ky says, drawing my attention back. “A sight to behold, but get too close to its thorns . . .” An exhale clouds the night air. “When the mark surfaced during my seventh year, my father was thrilled. I would be a Shield, just like him.” His last words exit through clenched teeth.
I say nothing. Whatever transpired between Ky and his father, the wound is still fresh.
“The day after the rose appeared, my training began. I hated it. Father took me away from my mother. He said if I was going to be a soldier in Crowe’s army, I had better start young. I tried to be everything he wanted, but I was never good enough. When I didn’t meet his expectations, he’d punish me.”
Ky doesn’t elaborate, leaving me to imagine the cruelties his father inflicted. How could someone be so horrible to a child? No wonder this Reflection is becoming a Shadow World.
“When I was ten, my sister was born, and Mother feared for her life. To my father, having a daughter was the epitome of failures. He wanted a son.”
“But he already had you.” Just hearing about the guy makes me want to pummel him.
“Not good enough.” He kicks another pebble, and it pings a lawn gnome’s pointed hat. “I was adopted. My father wanted a son of his own flesh and blood. Just another of the many ways I was a disappointment to him.”
Sheesh. And the Worst Dad of the Year Award goes to . . .
“The Void had its claws in him,” Ky says. “At that point he was unrecognizable, veins blacker than night from skull to toe, eyes masked in fog.”
“Her eyes and skin remain unaltered.” Robyn’s words. Realization dawns. “Your father was Soulless?”
A nod. “Think of the Void like a disease—one afflicting the soul. One to which only children are immune. Just as a Threshold sourced by the Verity empowers the Callings and guards young souls, so a Threshold contaminated by the Void has its own influence. To my father, his Shield Calling wasn’t enough. So he drank from Midnight Lake, the Threshold within Shadow Territory, hoping the Void would give him something the Verity hadn’t.”
“Did it?”
“Yes. It was like a drug to him. He could no longer feel pain. Or love. The more he consumed, the sicker he became. The illness fed on his cruelty until there was nothing left but a numb shell of the person he once was . . .” His voice trails.
Does the memory of his Soulless father haunt him?
“So my mother took me and my sister, and we fled to her childhood home in the Third. We had to keep our Callings hidden, as most people in the Third hold no belief in the Verity, the Void, or the Callings. Some do, but they conceal their abilities well, opting for a quiet life rather than becoming a science experiment in some test facility. It’s a completely different world, the Third. But I’m sure you know that.”