Chapter 777: Traitor
I could see the tension in Varity's face as she performed her necromancy.
And nothing happened.
A frown pulled at her lips, lining her already wrinkled face with surprise and frustration.
"He was young," Lula said softly. "Have you raised a baby before?"
Varity shook her head, deeply troubled as her power swirled around the skull. "I haven't," she said. "But he should have an echo."
"He was Sidhe," Mom said, bringing up the argument I feared the most. "They don't have echoes. It could be he simply doesn't have one to show."
But Alison was already shaking her head, her nerves gone, face determined as she held out her hands to Varity. For the skull. As though it were some special gift.
"Please," she said. "Let me."
Varity met my eyes, but Quaid spoke before I could.
"Just give it to her," he said, voice rough, gruff and graveled. With grief? I didn't know. But his power around me never wavered and I sent silent thanks to him for his continued support.
For his belief in me.
I nodded, sharp, impatient. Pushed forward, Quaid's hand leaving my shoulder, slipping in between Varity and the box, taking the skull myself. It was lifeless, empty. I felt what Alison meant, the black, darkness of nothing. Spun and handed it to her.
And now, hope lived without a shadow of a doubt. Certainty.
Alison was right. These were not Gabriel's bones.
I followed Alison as she went into the bones, searching. It was odd, but no more so than when I'd chase Charlotte into death. Sebastian. The principle was the same. Alison linked magic with me, shy but pleased when I latched onto her and let her lead me.
Here, she sent. You feel the weakness?
I did, like a shadow over light. But not a flaw in the bone itself. In the dark hiding the echo from us.
Alison scraped the surface, her power parting it at last.
A dull groan escaped me as a weak and wavering image rose from the skull to hover over it.
Gabriel's image.
But I didn't have time to despair, to fall into the fear Alison was wrong. Because the moment it appeared, the image began to alter, shift. Still wavering, it wasn't long before another face graced the echo, this one far different than my son's, and so fragile when I reached for it, the likeness shattered into a million pieces, dying with the cry of a child.
Silence, utter and complete, enveloped the vault as we all stared.
Until Alison spoke.
"These bones belong to a normal child," she said. "Used to carry Gabriel's impression. To pass immediate inspection." She gently set the skull back in the box. "But it was never meant to stand up to someone like me."
I grabbed her, hugged her, entire body vibrating as I pulled back, choking on air that wanted to fill my lungs, to keep me alive.
"Syd." Lula looked broken, desperate and hurt. "I'm so sorry."
I waved it off, just grateful this was true, all true.
"Why would someone want Gabriel's bones?" I shivered as Sassafras spoke up. I hadn't considered that. Hadn't I searched for him, reached out to him and came up empty?
Didn't mean anything. Except that whoever had him was hiding him from me.
Temporarily.
"No," Alison said to my demon cat. "This was the body on the pyre. I swear it to you." She replaced the lid. "It wasn't Gabriel you burned."
Rage woke again as my fractured mind made multiple connections. Tied up loose ends, bound together the whole into a hate-filled story I finally understood.
Because it makes perfect sense, doesn't it? My vampire hissed her fury.
I'm going to eat her heart, my demon snarled.
Right after we kill her a dozen times and bring her back so we can do it again. Shaylee shivered, the ground shaking under my feet.
They knew, as well as I did. Hadn't Max mentioned Fate? And the very fact he was here at all...
It had to be her.
The black emptiness on the bones. The diabolical scheme to convince me my son was gone. So she could take him.
Just like she took Liam.
"She wanted me to think my son was dead." I faced my family, the ones who loved me, shaking with so much rage I felt like I was about to bring the tomb down on top of us. "She wanted Gabriel and she took him."
Just. Like. Liam.
Mom's shock grew on her face as Lula looked at me in confusion.
Only Quaid seemed to register what I was already thinking, darkness taking his handsome face when Mom spoke up.
"Who, Syd?"
I guess she was the only one not in the know, wasn't she?
"The only person who would conceive of a plan like this," I snarled. "The same person who killed Liam now has our son."
Ameline.
Time to pay the piper, bitch.
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