Page 130 of Incoronate
And that single second told me everything I needed to know about just how long we’d really been gone.
42. THE ONES WE LEFT BEHIND
“What are you doing here?”
It was the first thing that came out of my mouth, not because it was the most important question, but because I had no idea what else to say, and that seemed like a good enough place to start.
Jaqueline blinked at me, as though the sound of my voice had knocked her sideways. As though she’d momentarily forgotten how to speak. She was dressed in black from head to toe, combat-style boots laced tight, her sleeves pushed up high enough to show the glint of a knife strapped to her forearm.
“I stay here sometimes. Check on things,” she said, tucking the wooden stake into the back of her waistband before brushing her hands off on her dark cargo pants. “When I’m in town.”
The way she said it, casually, as though she’d already come and gone from Hollow Hills several times over, hit somewhere deep in my chest and refused to move.
“What happened to our house?” I asked, my voice coming out rougher than I intended, my throat suddenly too dry to work properly.
She shook her head, the stunned stupor never leaving her face. “They burned it to the ground.”
“The Order,” I surmised, not surprised in the least.
She nodded.
I wasn’t even sure why I bothered asking. I’d known before she confirmed it. I had felt it the moment I’d stood in those ashes with the gray sky open above me where a ceiling should have been. But I’d needed to hear it from her mouth,for someone to say it out loud and confirm what I’d already known.
“Where have you been?” she asked gingerly, her voice strained and unsteady. “All this time. I…I thought you were all dead.”
“Not dead. Just trapped in Sanguinarium,” I said, as though the words didn’t taste like something I’d be rinsing out of my mouth for the rest of my life.
“Sanguinarium?” The color left her face entirely. She took a half step forward, her brow pulling tight. “I don’t understand. Nobody comes back from Sanguinarium. It’s a death sentence.”
“I’m aware,” I said bitterly, fairly certain that was precisely what the Order had been banking on. “I’m sure that was the intention, but lucky for us, I don’t die that easily.”
She didn’t look amused by my joke.
I slid the Sword of Angelus back into its sheath and blew out a breath. “Despite everything we’ve all been told about Sanguinarium, it’s not exactly the one-way ticket they want everyone to believe it is. At least it wasn’t for me.”
She shook her head, her gaze moving briefly to Trace and Dominic behind me before coming back. “I’m not following. What does that mean?”
I wasn’t even sure where to start so I just dove in headfirst. “Well, for starters, we didn’t get thrown in there with Cinderdust. Alford ported us there, so it wasn’t hard to figure out that if he was able to get in and out without Cinderdust then that meant there had to be another way for us,” I said, shifting my weight, and suddenly very aware of how bone-tired I was. “The entire Realm is built using Anakim magic. It’s what’s keeping the walls up and everyone trapped inside. It’s what strips everyone of their abilities the second they set foot there. But I’m not just Anakim.”
Her eyes widened as a crack of thunder split the sky. Rain began to tap against the window glass, slow at first, then faster as the storm rolled in from the dark, but I didn’t take my eyes off her.
“The second I realized it was their wards that were blocking us, I stopped trying to fight fire with fire and drew from my Nephilim abilities instead. Enough to tear a big enough hole in the seam and port us out of there,” I explained, lifting one shoulder in a small, humorless shrug that didn’t come close to matching the weight of what I was saying. “If it wasn’t for the devil blood running through my veins, I don’t think we would have ever seen the light of day again. Not in this world anyway.”
Shock flickered across her face first, then anger, then something deeper that she tried and failed to hide before relief relaxed her features, the kind that only showed up after you had already convinced yourself there was nothing left to hope for.
I knew that look well. I’d worn it myself enough times to know exactly what it cost to carry it, and exactly what it felt like to have it pulled out from under you all at once.
She pressed her fingers to her mouth as she struggled to process everything I’d just told her, but I didn’t give her very long to sit with it. I had questions of my own and I needed answers.
“What happened after we disappeared last night?” I asked, taking a small step toward her, my hands shaky at my sides. “Why is the line disconnected? Where is Tessa? Where are—”
“Jemma.” Her voice stopped me cold.
Something in the way she said my name made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. One word, and all the air went out of the room. Her eyes moved between me, Trace, and Dominic, confusion giving way to something worse.Something that made my stomach twist itself into a knot I knew I’d never be able to unwind.
“Jemma, you’ve been gone for two years.”
“W-we’ve been…what?” The floor dropped out from under me.
