Page 77 of Peacemaker

Nadine cocked her hand and gestured at the suddenly pale Alejandro. “Go on, then,” she said. “Tell the story of how we’ve arrived at death’s door. Tell us who has brought the rifters upon us. Tell us who will feel the elders’ displeasure. Tell us wh—”

“Nadine,” Himself interrupted. “Hush.”

But in the corner where Al had stashed him, the collared and leashed Jamie Stone crashed to the floor as he fainted.

And just that quickly, I understood.

“The explosions on Byrd Island,” I murmured. “Jamie freed the rifters.”

“Not exactly,” Al said, watching as Jin nudged Jamie with a long foot.

Angus placed a glass of water in front of Himself then pulled out a chair and sat beside me. “Tell us everything, Alejandro.”

Al took a deep breath. “Once upon a time,” he said, then quickly dropped his smile when Nadine growled. “Sorry. Jamie’s father had relations with a witch in his prison. She got pregnant with Jamie.

“His indiscretions with a supernat prisoner would have been overlooked. His falling in love and having a child with one would not. The warden cared very much about appearances. He also cared about keeping his wife. He’d have been divorced by her and humiliated by the city had he been found out. He also would have lost his job.

“He could have killed her when he discovered she was pregnant. Instead, he locked her away in a private—and hellish—brick cell behind the prison, surrounded her with iron, and waited for her to give birth to his child.”

Jamie lay where he’d fallen. He was awake—I saw him blink—but he did not move. He listened as his story was told to strangers.

“The witch—”

“Loretta,” Jamie murmured.

“Loretta,” Al said, his voice gentle with the name, “lost her mind. The man she loved and trusted locked her away, stripped her of her ability to use her power, and ripped her baby from her arms. Any one of those things would have created a fertile ground for insanity. He gave the child to his wife to raise—claimed the woman who’d given birth to the boy had been pregnant upon intake. He’d also had the child tested, and there were no powers, or so he was told, lying dormant within the child’s blood. He was told wrong.”

My heart broke for the witch. What a horrible fate. “Why didn’t he kill her?”

Al opened his mouth to answer, then closed it. Finally, he said, “Because he loved her. And he loved his son.” When I said nothing more, he continued. “He refused to allow her to see or speak with another being for twenty-three years. He and an old caretaker of the grounds were the only two people to ever take her food or supplies.”

“Until Jamie found her,” I said.

He nodded. “When Jamie was born, before she was completely devoid of magic, she created a spell to bond them. He would always hear her. If she called, he would feel the pull. It wasn’t until he began to come to work with his father and then to eventually work there himself that she began to reel him in.”

“Don’t say it like that,” Jamie said hoarsely. He lifted his head and banged in on the floor. Hard. “Don’t ever—”

“Jamie,” Al said quietly. “You will calm.”

Jamie seemed to melt into the floor. He curled his body into a fetal position and didn’t say another word.

And I began to understand why he’d wanted Al when he’d first seen him at the prison. Al’s expression didn’t change as he returned his attention to us and the story.

I glanced at Himself, then nearly cried out. He stared in Al’s direction, but his eyes had rolled back in his head. Only a milky white showed.

He wasn’t just hearing the story, he was living it. He was the witch, the warden, and the child.

He would see exactly what had happened.

I shuddered and looked away.

“I think her hunger for revenge was the only thing that kept her alive,” Al said. “And her desire to see her child. Months after he discovered his real mother was actually a tortured prisoner on Byrd Island, Jamie began to help her plan to destroy the prison and his father.”

“But there was something more,” Himself said, startling me. I shot him a look, relieved to see his eyes were once again normal. “One of the vampires’ elders lay in the earth of the island, his mind part of the tapestry of magic that confined the rifters in their prison.”

“Yes,” Al said.

“And Loretta knew this. She had discovered the elder years before meeting her son. He was directly beneath her prison, only one of a pattern of elders all around Red Valley.”

“There’s one in Bay Town,” I realized. “Beneath the way station.”

“Yes, yes,” Nadine answered, impatient. “Be quiet.”

Al picked up the tale. “Loretta began to woo her son. She breathed life into the weak magic that lay inside him. There wasn’t a lot, but it would be enough to create the stones she would have him plant across the island. There would be enough to blow everything to bits.”

“Enough to kill the warden,” I said.

“Oh, no,” Himself said. “Loretta did not need magic to kill that man. Jamie put the warden into the cell with Loretta before he escaped the island.”

“He left her there to die?” I asked, as though the damaged young man wasn’t lying on my floor listening.

“Loretta would die with the warden,” Al said. “That was her wish. Only the swirling remains of magic that sparked inside the cell allowed her to breathe. If she’d left the building, her lungs would have collapsed. She knew she was dying long before she met Jamie. She knew she would never leave her cell.”

“Fucking sad,” I whispered. “But why would she want to send the rifters to kill the world?”

“She didn’t, really.” Al’s voice was as full of sadness as mine. “She simply wanted to free them from their cage.”