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  Okay, I guess that makes sense. But that doesn’t explain what he’s doing in my kitchen.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  “Would you stop trying to hit me with your energy? It’s not going to do anything other than eventually wear you out.”

  Michael sounds sure, but I don’t think he’s witnessed Ophelia’s stamina before. Wearing out isn’t in her DNA.

  “It’s best not to goad her on, Michael. And with the two of us together, things might not just roll off you,” Mr. Hamilton says.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see him move to stand next to my mom. I look back to Ian and see he’s been tied to the chair with thick black rope.

  Where in the world did the rope come from? Last I knew, rope wasn’t something we stocked in the kitchen.

  “You’re only going to end up hurting yourselves. I am at least three times older than both of you.”

  Which makes him about five or six times older than me. When age means power, Michael has the advantage in this situation.

  “You think that’s going to stop me from trying to protect my daughter?”

  Ophelia is making that clear with a whirlwind of energy that she throws in Michael’s direction. The amount of energy isn’t something she could just store inside herself, even at her age. She has to be pulling it from other sources. With how strong Mr. Hamilton feels, my first thought is him, but a glance in his direction shows he’s not on the floor fighting to stay awake.

  There’s no way it could be coming from Ian, but I check on him just in case. His face doesn’t look like he’s downed a whole bottle of tequila and is trying to pick up someone to take home. Do I get points for most words used in a description? No? I didn’t think so.

  “Are you calling what you’ve been doing since you got here protecting your daughter? Because if you are, I think you should spend a little more time with a dictionary.”

  I don’t know what Michael’s goal is, but if he’s trying to rile her up, he’s doing a great job. She’s about to blast him again, when he snaps his fingers and the energy in the room rushes towards him and dissipates. It feels like a giant vacuum just came in and sucked it all up.

  The void left behind is eerie. The energy had raised the hair all over my body, probably even on top of my head. The second it seeps away, I feel everything fall.

  “I know you enchanters are action first, talk later, but we don’t have time to play with your anger right now. Especially since you have no idea what you’re angry about.”

  There are the rumors that people are told about my temper and to refrain from engaging in a way that would incite me. I haven’t heard the same about my mom, but if there was one, the number one thing would be not to tell her she didn’t know what she’s doing. Michael may be right about the emotion guiding our magic, but it’s pretty clear he doesn’t understand us.

  “Oh, I understand just fine, Jazz. I am the foremost expert on everything in your life, so I know exactly what to say to get your mom to the boiling point.”

  “Don’t you talk to my daughter.”

  “Ophelia, I admire your gumption, but let’s be honest. I know more about what’s going on than anyone in this room, and if you don’t stop, I’ll reveal why you really came here.”

  Whoa. Angel boy thinks he knows secrets. I look to my mom for her reply and see her fighting to keep her hands at her side. She’s pissed, more than I have ever seen her, but she’s trying to keep it contained.

  What’s that tell me?

  Just that whatever secret Michael is talking about is real and she doesn’t want me to know. It’s not the first secret she’s kept from me. I’m sure she’s got hundreds.

  But, it sounds like this one is a doozy, which only makes me want to know it more. I can deal with secrets when I don’t know about them. When it’s clear something is being hidden, the need to know what it is has been known to drive me crazy.

  “You don’t know more than everyone in this room,” Mr. Hamilton says.

  “Really?” Michael challenges. “I’ve known Audrey was cursed for a while now. How many people did you bring in who said there’s no sign of life?”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” Ian asks. “You pretended to care, even though you acted like I was crazy for talking to her.”

  If he was smart, Ian should’ve kept his mouth shut. I understand he’s not happy about what was just said, but the Fae conversation doesn’t need human input.

  “Oh, I care very deeply about the curse your mom is fighting against. I even care that your dad was cursed when you were barely out of diapers. It’s all tied to getting Jazz here now, so I care very much.”

  Michael glances around to everyone in the room before his eyes land on me. I’ve got to believe he knows how creepy all that sounds to me. With all the voices in the conversation, it’s been scattered. And truthfully, I’m still kind of stuck on the secret aspect.

  “I don’t recommend lingering on that too long. Since they’ve activated you, they’re not going to be able to keep secrets very much longer. You’re not ready to learn everything, so let’s focus on the bigger issue at hand.”

  There’s a bigger issue? I know I use the word confused a lot, but you can’t blame me. I’m so lost that I’m ready to just clear my mind and decide which frozen mountain top sounds the nicest to live for the rest of my life.

  “Quit trying to baffle her. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Ophelia leaves her post and walks over to me. I let her grab my hand, but I’m not sure I should. She’s my mom and has had to deal with me for two centuries, so I trust her on paper.

  The problem is that we’re not talking about paper here. She didn’t deny there was a secret. I don’t blame her for that. I just don’t know what to think right now. I have a feeling that’s the point of all this.

  “I know that you and her father have spent her whole life trying to protect her, even hiding the fact that she’s his kid. You did a good job, but there are forces at play here who figured it out and have been waiting with a long game plan.”

  “Stop.”

  There’s a whirl of energy with Ophelia’s word. I’m sure if it hit me, I’d once again not be able to speak, but Michael isn’t me.

  “Why? You questioned what I know, so I thought that meant you wanted me to fill you in. Thinking moving here would help keep her safe was exactly what they wanted. You played into their hands.”

  For the most part, Michael has been a cool customer. Deflecting and scolding without really putting any emotion behind it. His last few words show me that he’s pissed. Not just a little angry that whatever plan he’s talking about is working. He’s blaming Ophelia, and that’s not going to go over well.

  “Who is they?” I ask.

  There’s been a lot of talking about me like I’m not here. Mom originally said that we moved here to see if I could grow up and break the curse. I have to wonder if she meant that literally or was hoping I’d activate this whole truthseer thing.

  Could that be the secret? She wanted me to find a new curse.

  “I said you need to focus on the bigger picture at hand, so let’s do that. Who are they? That’s something you should focus on,” Michael says.

  “Is he reading your thoughts?” Ophelia asks as she squeezes my hand.

  I’m not sure why she has to ask. She likes to read them herself. She could just listen in to know without asking.

  “She doesn’t want to admit it, but I’ve made it so no one else can listen. And I don’t consider what I’m doing reading your thoughts. I hear everything like you’re saying it aloud.”

  That explains our very single-sided conversations. I don’t know that I understand the difference between what Ophelia does and what he’s saying. If you can figure that out, clue me in, please.

  “Can you hear everyone else?”

  That’s got to be annoying if he can. I guess that could be the difference. When enchanters listen, it’s a concentrated action. I imagine
Ophelia can hear more than one person if she wants to, but it’s not a twenty-four-seven open channel.

  “No, just you.”

  “Why is that?” Ophelia asks.

  A similar question was about to escape my lips. Part of me feels the answer is something between me and Michael. I don’t know why that is. The fact that he claims to only be able to read me feels personal.

  “It is personal, which is why I won’t answer her question. Ask me again about who is after you.”

  His lips don’t move, but I hear his words just the same. It’s not just a whisper in my head. He might as well be speaking for the whole room to hear.

  “Okay, who’s after me?”

  “You can speak to her, too.”

  Ophelia’s words aren’t a question, so I don’t know why she says them. I already explained as much to them at the dance.

  “That’s a great question, Jazz. We all know you’ve angered people over the years. What I doubt you know is that your mother was a holy terror, quite literally, when she was younger. Ophelia made a lot of enemies when she helped your father circumvent his destiny, and her general distaste of authority is well known. There are groups in my kind that have been trying to right wrongs your parents made.”

  “By targeting my daughter? Who are they? I’ll find and kill them myself.”

  Evidently, Ophelia missed the part when he said they were angels. Sure, they could be younger than him, so maybe all her energy attacks will at least sting, but killing them would take a miracle.

  “You would try, and they would kill you, leaving her totally unprotected. That’s why I’m here. You guys got her into this mess. I’m going to get her out of it.”

  I hear my mom take a breath and see her mouth open out the corner of my eye. With my other eye, I see Michael hold his hand up to silence her. Not magically, as far as I know, just the normal gesture.

  “We’ve had enough drama for one night. I think your male guests should go home, and you guys should rest up. Tomorrow’s Friday, so it’s a school day. I expect I’ll see you bright and early.”

  The last words are for me. After everything that’s happened today, he honestly thinks I’m going to be able to go to school. I couldn’t make it an hour around other people.

  “Tonight was meant to prove a point. Tomorrow, I’ll help you hide what’s happening. I know there was talk of leaving earlier, but this isn’t something you can run from. Audrey is waking up, and she’ll have stories to tell anyone who will listen. You need me to protect you. For now, sleep tight.”

  He doesn’t say anything else before he disappears. I don’t know if it’s the weight of the day or his words, but I’m feeling incredibly sleepy. Rather than wait around to listen to everyone digest things, I zap myself to my room. I don’t even bother taking off my dress before I curl up on the bed and close my eyes.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  “Wake up, Jazz.”

  I hear Ophelia’s voice and feel her shaking my body. My eyes feel like anvils, though. It can’t be more than a few minutes after I fell asleep.

  “I’m going to maim that angel for making it so I can’t hear your thoughts anymore. I need to gauge your reactions to him, and I think he’s hiding it from me. He’s waiting downstairs for you, by the way. The whole talk about you going to school today evidently wasn’t a sick joke. He wants to drive you to school himself.”

  I hear noises as she moves around my room, drawers opening, things being shuffled around. Blinking a few times, the sleep starts to clear from my eyes. I can’t say the same for my head.

  “Who does he think he is? Coming into my house and saying I don’t know how to take care of you. Where was he to keep you out of trouble the last two hundred years? I didn’t see him showing up to deal with the Council.”

  “Do you have to rant and rave this early? Some people are trying to sleep.”

  “Well, those people should tell their guardian angels not to show up at seven-thirty to take them to school. You passed out the second he left last night. The least he could’ve done is make sure you were up and ready by the time he showed up in the driveway.”

  It wasn’t the second he left. I climbed into bed that quickly, but I heard Ophelia and Mr. Hamilton going back and forth for a while before I officially fell asleep. I don’t know how they left things, but there were plenty of angel deaths being plotted.

  “Do you think he’ll buy that I don’t feel up for school?”

  My eyes are open enough that I can see it’s seven-thirty-five. On school days, I’m usually up by now, even dressed and ready most of the time.

  “You’ve got ten minutes to get down here, or you’re going to school in whatever you’re wearing.”

  I don’t think Michael raises his voice any, but it’s loud and clear. I reach up and run my fingers through my hair, which is a tangled mess. It’s going to take a lot more than ten minutes to straighten it out.

  “See what I’m talking about. All of a sudden, he thinks he runs this show.”

  Ophelia throws some clothes on the bed and storms out of the room. I’ve never seen her this frazzled. She’s always so composed that it’s refreshing to see her otherwise.

  “You’re welcome,” Michael says.

  He’s got to know how annoying he is, right? Falling asleep so quickly last night didn’t give me a chance to really decompress everything going on, but the annoying thing is a fact that I can easily pull out of the situation.

  I’m not going to get any answers lying around in bed all day. So, even though the ten-minute limit is completely insane, I roll out of bed and start getting ready.

  First order of business, ignore Ophelia’s choices for clothes. There’s no doubt in my mind that my drawers and closet did not include the modest pale-pink cardigan, the tan pants or the granny panties on the edge of my bed. I don’t know what decade she thinks we’re all of a sudden in, but I didn’t wear this crap when it was in style.

  About half of the bobby pins that held my hair up last night are scattered around my bed, which I guess is good news. It will take me half as long to get the rest of them out, which I start doing as I walk into my closet. Walking while my head isn’t fully clear is sometimes, let’s say, interesting. I tend to sway a little.

  My path is lined with the bobby pins I’m taking out, so a la Hansel and Gretel style, I shouldn’t lose my way on the trip back to my bed. I’m not saying that’s ever happened. It’s just somewhat more likely today.

  I haven’t spent time combing over the dress code at school. I wonder if they allow baseball caps and a giant sack pulled over my body. That’s pretty much the extent of what I feel like wearing today.

  Knowing that probably won’t go over well with the parties involved, including my mother, I grab a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Neither item is special, but they are comfortable. And after sleeping in a body-hugging dress all night, comfortable is my key for the day.

  The bobby pins are gone, so I wave my hand down my body – we’re talking from head to toe here – to transfer the train wreck I’m sure is there to a quick and easy ponytail and the clothes I picked out. All right, so I don’t need the full ten minutes to get ready. I already knew that.

  The outfit is complete with a pair of strappy wedges that I should think about a little longer based on my current feeling of stumbling around. The sleep has to clear from my brain soon. Hopefully, I won’t trip and fall over anything before then.

  I look over to the vanity Ophelia didn’t remove last night. I should take a look to make sure I wiped all the makeup off my face. The key word there is should. Things were already crazy in my life before I looked in the mirror, but for once, I’m not going to tempt fate. I don’t know how long it takes to undo a two-hundred-year-old curse. I just know it’s best that the process doesn’t happen overnight.

  For some extra insurance that doesn’t take me looking in the mirror, I cup my chest. Yeah, there hasn’t been any change there. I’m still not sure whether I should be happy
or disappointed about that.

  I do know that with an angel in the house who likes to read my mind, I really need to not think about that kind of thing right now. What I should be thinking about is how to block him from knowing what’s going on in my head.

  How in the world is he even able to do that for just me? There should be some kind of law against it. Wait. I wonder if he’s somehow picking up what gets sent to my journal. I didn’t think to ask my shrink whether that was possible, but that would explain a lot. And, if that’s the case, I’m going to have to somehow sever the tie.

  “It’s not. We can talk about it on the way to school if you want. I just didn’t think it was something other people need to hear about.”

  I sigh as I run my hand through my ponytail real quick to make sure all the knots are out. They are, so it’s time for my grand descend down the stairs.

  I concur with the concept of keeping other people from knowing his secret methods to read me. I just wish his tone indicated there was a way to turn it off, or that he was going to stop anytime soon. Sure, it might not be something that can be turned off, which I’m not sure I believe, but he should at least pretend he didn’t like it.

  You know how much fun it is to at least read all my crazy mind rambles. Can you imagine having to listen to them all day? Sorry, didn’t mean to make your head explode with the suggestion.

  I’ve missed a couple days of classes, so I suppose I’m going to be behind. That’s what a normal student would think, right? Most of the monotony of classes day after day seems to be lacking in this journal, but in case you were wondering, I’m practically teaching all my classes. Okay, that may just be in my perspective, but the pacing set forth is slower than molasses, so I’ve read ahead in every subject.