Page 25 of Ever Dark Academy: Volume 6

Roan shrugged. “I know you think that, but I am telling you the truth. Your mother has more of a call to death than to life.”

Grayson thought of his father’s spirit. Could Roan see him? Of course, he could.

“Like I was saying, I couldn’t figure out how you were doing it. How you were escaping, eluding every trap, managing to best everyone and everything I sent at you,” Roan said. “It wasn’t luck and it wasn’t these fools either.” She gestured at the others in the room. “No, it was you. Something about you. So I had to truly figure out who you are and who would better know you than your mother?”

Roan let out a soft, almost tittering laugh. It caused the hair on the back of Grayson’s neck to stand up. She was crazy. Deeply, deeply crazy. But smart as well and ruthless. He recognized someone in Roan that would not be an easy enemy to overcome.

“I can assure you that my mother knows nothing about me. I left home long ago,” Grayson said.

And I’m not the person she thought I was.

Roan nodded and stroked her chin. “Yes, but it was why you left that finally made things make sense.” She lifted her eyes to him and, for a moment, he swore that they glowed silver. “With all of the Immortals coming back, I wondered if there would be anything to differentiate you as humans. Balthazar had strokes of luck, you see. At cards especially. No one could bluff him. And if someone was lying in any circumstance, he always knew it. And then, he seemed to also always know just what to say and do to get what he wanted.”

“Is that why you chose to turn him?” Grayson asked.

“Yes, he was clearly special. Marked by the gods.” Roan grinned, showing too many white teeth and pink gums. It wasn’t his mother’s smile at all. “I just had no idea that I was bringing back one of my oldest enemies. Foolish me.”

“It’s actually good that you’re not completely dead, Roan,” Fiona said almost sweetly. “Because it gives Balthazar a chance to kill you all over again. Elgar got his shot in. Maybe I’ll get one too. What do you think?”

“I think that you’re the fool this time, Wyvern,” Roan said over her shoulder. “You are hanging about with him.” She jerked her head towards Ryder. “He ripped your wings right off you before. You couldn’t teleport away. And then he took your head. Drank your blood too.”

Ryder’s jaw clenched and his eyes narrowed. But he said nothing. Grayson feared that meant it was true. But he’d been out of his mind. Still, what would Fiona think?

“It was no less than what I would have done to him back then,” Fiona said with a soft, sad laugh. “If you come for me, you can’t come at me with half measures. All of it or none. And he came with all.”

“But you’re still on his side?” Roan asked.

“We all got our hands dirty, Roan, in the War. You most of all,” she said. “You want me to judge Weryn, but not Kaly? Not you? Only Ashyr and Daemon had nothing to do with the War.”

“Ah, yes, Ashyr!” Roan grinned again. It was a death’s head grin and Grayson feared what having Roan’s soul in his mother’s body was doing to it. Would it even be usable after this? Caemorn would be able to fix it. If they could get him here. Was Balthazar listening to their minds? To this conversation? Roan wagged a finger at Grayson. “Using your mind to slam an over 200-pound man against a wall and cracking his skull like an egg, Grayson? Well, that’s not normal. I will say! Like Balthazar, you are special. And then I thought: could you be an Immortal, too? And, if so, which one?”

Grayson made his face appear like a blank slate.

“Come now! Charlie, you’re the only one who doesn’t know! Guess! Which Immortal could Grayson be?” Roan asked the Mirryr Vampire.

Charlie’s silver eyes slid to him and then away. “I’m not someone who gives away other people’s secret identities. I mean how gauche can you be!”

Roan’s eyes narrowed. “Do you know why there are so many Mirryrs left after the War, Charlie?”

“We know when to leave a party before it gets the wrong kind of dangerous or dull,” Charlie answered.

“It’s because you’re all cowards.” Roan grinned. “You basically all changed your appearances and disappeared in the populace. You didn’t clump all together. You just kept moving and changing faces and bodies like other people change clothes. But what else could you do? It’s not like your gift gives you any fighting abilities.”

Charlie buffed his nails against his vest. “No, you’re quite right. We’re lovers, not fighters. There’s very little worth fighting about. The War is proof of that. I mean what did you win? Daemon’s back. The Immortals are all coming back. The whole world is going to be under Vampiric sway and you… Well, you don’t get to be a part of it.”

“You’re right, Charlie,” Roan said, which seemed to shock Charlie even more than Grayson. “Unless we receive a dispensation from Daemon himself.”

Fiona snorted. “Highly unlikely. After all you’ve done?”

“You think that Caemorn would let you live?” Ryder asked. “Or, excuse me, let your soul be free? We both know he’s going to make pendant lights out of the lot of you.”

Roan’s expression went sour as Ryder said this, obviously agreeing with him. “He would think he had the right to do that, because we are him. But we are not. I am not.”

“The last Roan we captured was crazier than a shit-house rat and still wanted to overthrow Daemon. Do you have different ideas?” Grayson asked.

She waved a hand through the air as if to discard the last Roan. “Some of my selves are a little hung up on old ideas.” She put that hand to her chest. “I am all for the future.”

“Which includes squatting in my mother’s body and holding her soul for ransom?” Grayson lifted an eyebrow.