"I showed my best friend this amazing discovery," Mom said, her voice trembling. "We came through the Grand Nexus. When she discovered how weak the humans were, how she could feed from them, she began to toy with them, to exploit them. On our world, she had long sought power, but never attained it. In this world, she had more power than she could have ever dreamed."
I grimaced. "How in the hell could Daelissa be your best friend?"
"She wasn't always like this," Mom said. "She was once a leader for reform, but failure and disappointment jaded her. Turned her bitter."
"Why didn't you stop her?"
"I tried, Justin. I tried so hard." She sounded miserable. "At first I was just like her. I enjoyed the power and the way it made me feel. Then I realized these people were so much like us, but helpless against our abilities. By then, others knew about the mortal realm, even though I'd told her to keep it secret."
I thought back to my conversation with Mr. Gray. "What about your government? Why didn't they step in?"
"Feeding from humans gave us so much more power. Because the Grand Nexus was a secret very few of us knew about, Daelissa and the others were able to leverage this new power and overthrew our government. They invited allies to create their own kingdoms in the mortal realm."
"Like Methuselah?" I said.
"His real name is Fjoeruss," she said. "He used the name Methuselah in the mortal realm. Others used names you would find quite familiar as well."
Mr. Gray is Fjoeruss? "How did the war with the Darklings start?" I asked.
"Daelissa's twin sister," she said.
Despite the difference in hair color and skin tone, I already knew who that was as well. "Nightliss."
"Yes. The Darklings were oppressed, considered second-class citizens. I sought Nightliss's help. She saw the mortal realm as a new world for the Darklings to settle in. She wished to create peace."
"That didn't turn out so well," I said dryly.
"No. It sparked a civil war on our world and here."
"What part did you play in the war?" I asked.
"I still haven't rediscovered all of my memories, Justin, so I can't recall many details. Sometimes, I see flashes of memories. I remember leyworms appearing from the depths as we fought our way toward the Grand Nexus. I remember one of them sweeping Brightlings from our path. Daelissa and her people turned on the leviathan and killed it, though not before it took several of them with it. I remember Nightliss saving me from an attack. Our people closing in. An old man with a staff—ah, the leader of the Arcanes. I barely remember his name. Moses I think."
"Did you say Moses?" Bella asked, eyes wide.
Mom paused for a long moment. "The Cyrinthian Rune was there. I knew how to remove it."
"How?" I asked.
"Let her finish," Shelton said, his face captivated.
"Not by force, but by aligning the perfect pitch in my head with it," she said. "But before I could get there, someone else removed it by force." She gasped. "Moses knew something was wrong. He opened the portal to take us away. He led his people through, but Daelissa slipped through after him. Something happened and the portal closed. Nightliss and I were trapped along with many others." She cried out. "The memories hurt, Justin. I don't know if I can stand it another minute longer."
"It's okay," I said, pounding on the trailer. "Let it go!"
"The leyworm charged us. It was the largest one I've ever seen. It swept us into its maw before I could react. Somehow, I managed to hold onto one of the shards in its gullet. It sliced my hands, but still I held on, the glowing pit of aether threatening to consume me like it had Nightliss. And then there was a flash so bright I saw the skeleton of the beast highlighted all around me."
The Grand Nexus. It must have blown up at that moment.
Mom continued. "My insides felt as though they were being turned inside out. My skin blackened before my eyes. My grip faltered. The world faded." She whimpered. "My first remembrance of that time would not come for thousands of years."
"Holy angels in hades," Shelton breathed. "I hope somebody is writing this all down."
I was in shock. It sounded as though Mom had turned into a husk—a cherub. Had the leyworm protected her and Nightliss? "How did you come to be with the Conroys?" I asked.
"They raised me from childhood," she said. "I do not remember how they found me, or where they found me, but for some reason, I was an infant when they did."
I shared glances with Elyssa, Shelton, and the others. When she'd turned into a cherub, she must have fallen into the aether inside the leyworm and ended up as a cupid. Had the same thing happened to Nightliss? "When did you start remembering the past?" I asked. If she remembered her past, it meant the cupids would eventually remember. It also meant they might return to their evil ways.
"Bits and pieces have been with me since I reached my equivalent of your teenage years," she said. "I suffered recurring, violent dreams as I aged. The Conroys eventually told me they'd found me asleep in a preservation spell. I can't imagine how many centuries I must have been there, or who put me there in the first place."
"How did you meet Dad?"
There was a long pause. "I don't know if you want to know our story, Justin."
My stomach clenched. Hearing the truth had been harder than I'd expected so far. Could it get worse?
"Are you okay?" Elyssa said, concern in her eyes.
The rest of the group stood in a loose semi-circle around me and the trailer, almost as if trying not to crowd me despite the fountain of knowledge my mom represented. Shelton, Bella, Ryland, Stacey, Elyssa—my eyes caught on two other figures I hadn't noticed. Thomas Borathen and Nightliss stood a discreet distance away. I wondered how much of this Nightliss already knew. She and I would talk. I remembered my plans to take lessons from her. Those plans had obviously been washed away by the necessity of rescuing Mom.
I offered Elyssa a small smile. "I'm okay," I said, staring at the sealed back door of the trailer. Having this conversation under these circumstances sucked. I had wanted to see Mom's face when she told me the truth. I leaned my forehead against the trailer. "Tell me about Dad," I said.
I heard her sigh. "Let me first say there's a lot I can't tell you about him, Justin. He made me swear an oath. He'll have to tell you many of the details himself."
"What a load of crap," I said, drawing my head back, and glaring at the door as if she could see me.
"It's the truth," she replied. "We love each other, Justin. But we realized we had to make sacrifices for the greater good."
"You gave my sister to the Conroys when she was a baby!" I shouted. "How is that the greater good?"
"I couldn't stop them," she said, her voice a painful whisper even my supernatural hearing strained to discern.
"You're Seraphim. How could you not stop them?"
"Daelissa did something to me to keep me weak. She wanted me to believe I was a human Arcane. She wanted me to worship and love her so when she finally revealed my true powers, I would blindly follow her." The sound of quiet sobbing came from within the trailer. "I never wanted to lose Ivy or you. It drove a wedge between David and me. He had the power to take Ivy back by force, but he wouldn't do it. He refused to start a war over our daughter."
"How could Dad start a war?" I asked. "He was Castratae—the lowest of the low for Daemos—until he did all this Kassallandra crap to get back into favor."
"I can't say more," Mom said. "Daelissa did things to my mind to prevent me from hearing the truth. She did everything possible to indoctrinate me while I matured. I didn't even know what she was until I ran away with your father, and even then, it was hard for me to believe, thanks to what she'd done to my mind."
"How did you meet Dad?"
She remained silent for a moment. "I met and fell in love with your father twice, Justin. I can't tell you about the first time, but the second time, he came to me at great risk. He convinced me Daelissa was filling my head with lies. He rescued me, and I ran away with him."
I felt Elyssa's hand tighten on mine. Mom's story sounded so similar to ours, it sent a shock of pain at the memory. Daelissa had wiped Elyssa's mind. Made her forget me. Somehow, I'd made her fall in love with me all over again, thankfully without her killing me in the process.
"Why can't you tell me about the first time?" I asked in a gentler tone.
"The oath I swore to David. Please understand—"
"Fine," I said, taking a deep breath to bolster my patience. "What made you remember your past?"
"David helped me remember at first, but it was only bits and pieces, and even he didn't have all the answers."
I held my tongue despite the desire to ask how in the world Dad could help her remember, unless he'd known her a lot longer than she let on.
She continued. "When Daelissa put me under a preservation aegis inside the astral prison, it had an unexpected side effect. My mind healed. Memories returned. I helped Nightliss because I knew it was the right thing to do even if I didn't know why." She sniffled. "You don't know how hard it is when everything is so scrambled inside your own brain. When you don't know friend from foe. I haven't trusted myself for years, Justin. I know I've made terrible choices, and I refuse to make excuses for it. All I can do is swear by all the power I have to help you rid the world of Daelissa."
"I know exactly how it is when memories are scrambled," I said. "Because you did it to me." When I was little, she'd blurred memories from my mind to keep me from asking inconvenient questions.
"I'm sorry," she said simply.
I felt Elyssa press her cheek to mine, and closed my eyes as Mom's words sank in. I was still so angry with her. Just thinking about Dad flushed my face with hot fury. Why had he sworn Mom to silence? What secrets was he keeping from me? I thought back to the first time he'd told me what I was. How he'd taught me to feed, and told me about my kind—incubus, Daemos, demon spawn.