Finally I stumbled out of the house and into the garden in the courtyard outside the kitchen. An hour ago, it had been a beautiful spot, with thick stands of flowers and plants and trees and bushes, all arranged around a gurgling stone fountain. But part of the house had collapsed onto the fountain, smashing it to pieces.
And that wasn't the worst thing I saw. A man's arm stuck out of the rubble there, his blood a bright crimson against the white, pulverized marble.
I stopped and looked at the arm. Whoever it was attached to had to be dead, even though blood still dripped off the ends of the fingers. And I realized that I'd caused this too. That I'd used my magic to crush someone to death, even though that hadn't been my intention at the time. The thought made my stomach twist, and for a moment, I thought I might vomit. But I swallowed down my hot, bitter, sour bile and moved on. I'd feel guilty later. Right now, all that mattered was finding Bria.
I slipped past the bloody arm and crushed fountain and headed for the far side of the courtyard, where a set of stairs climbed up to the second level of our house. The stone stairs were actually hollow underneath, with a secret chamber inside. A couple of months ago, I'd dragged a table, some chairs, and Bria's favorite doll house into the chamber so we could be comfortable in there while we played. It was also my favorite place to come whenever Bria and I were playing hide-and-seek, because she never thought to look for me in there. But then again, she was only eight.
After I'd seen the Fire elemental murder Mother and Annabella, I'd snatched Bria out of bed, put her in the secret chamber, and told her to stay there until I came back to get her. Nobody knew about the hollow stairs but our family, so no one would find Bria there. At least, I hadn't thought they would until I'd heard my baby sister scream.
I rounded another wall of rocks, and the staircase came into view. I looked up and froze, my heart plummeting to my feet like a cold, lead weight that had been dropped off a bridge.
Because instead of the hollow staircase, all I saw now was a pile of rubble.
"Bria?" I whispered.
She didn't answer me.
"Bria!" My voice grew louder, sharper, as the panic set in.
I hurried over and dropped to my feet beside the rubble, trying to dig through it, trying to claw my way through the stone to get to Bria, who surely had to be trapped underneath. But the rocks were far too heavy for me to move by myself. Only one thing to do. So I stood up, wiped my tears away, and lashed out with my Ice and Stone magic, just like I had before when I'd been tied down to the chair.
One by one, I blasted the rocks out of my way, not even caring that the flying shards stung my face like bees. Blood ran down my hands and cheeks, mixing with my own hot tears.
Finally, I found the thing that I was dreading most. Because instead of Bria, instead of my baby sister smiling up at me out of the rocks, all I saw was blood.
So much blood.
Too much blood for anyone to lose and still live.
Bria was dead. I'd brought her out here and hidden her so that she would be safe from the Fire elemental and her men. She probably had been-until I'd used my Ice and Stone magic. Until I'd lost control and lashed out with it without thinking. I'd caused our whole house to crumble-right on top of my baby sister.
I'd killed my own sister with my magic.
My knees buckled, and I crumpled in the rubble, screaming once more, this time with grief. Bria was dead ... dead ... and I'd killed her-
I woke up with my mouth open in a silent scream and cold sweat dripping down my face. For a moment I was back there again, trapped in the rubble of my own house, slowly realizing that I'd killed my younger sister even while I'd been so desperately trying to save her. It was as fresh and raw to me as if it had just happened.
Then I remembered who I was. Where I was. And that I was safe now. And so was Bria.
I flopped back against the pillow and turned my head, my eyes going to the phone resting on the nightstand beside me. I reached for it. I thought that I'd lost Bria once back then, and I'd carried the guilt of her supposed death with me ever since. I wasn't letting her go a second time, no matter what it took for her to accept me. No matter how long it took.
The phone rang three times before she picked it up.
"Hello?" She sounded as wide awake as I was right now, despite the late hour.
For a moment, I found myself searching for words, the way I always did whenever I called her. I drew in a breath and forced myself to speak.
"It's Gin," I finally said. "Can we talk?"
Chapter 30
The next day was Christmas Eve. The Pork Pit wasn't officially open for business, so I'd given all of the waitstaff the day off with pay, but Sophia and I had a few last-minute orders to see to before we closed down for the holiday. And I had some last-minute shopping to do, because I still hadn't decided on a present for Owen, and time was running out.
In between cooking and giving people their party orders, I kept one eye on the clock on the wall, counting down the hours until my visitor arrived. Finally, three o'clock rolled around. At one minute after, the front door opened, causing the bell to chime, and she stepped into my restaurant.
Detective Bria Coolidge. My baby sister.
She looked as cool and professional as ever in her long coat, sweater, jeans, and boots. Her badge glinted a warm gold on her leather belt next to her gun. She stood in the doorway, as if she wasn't quite sure what she was doing here. That made two of us.
Sophia and I both looked over at her. Then the dwarf turned her flat, black eyes to mine and gave me a small, encouraging nod.
"Back," Sophia grunted in her broken voice, disappearing through the swinging doors to give us some privacy.
I wiped my hands on a dishrag, stepped around the counter, and approached my sister. "I'm glad you came."
Bria just shrugged, as though she didn't trust herself to speak yet.
I locked the front door behind her so we wouldn't be interrupted. We settled ourselves at one of the booths next to the storefront windows-the same booth that Jonah McAllister and Elektra LaFleur had sat in when they'd come into the restaurant a few days ago. This time, though, the irony didn't bother me. Because LaFleur was dead, and I wasn't.
"Do you want anything to eat? Something to drink?" I asked.
Bria shook her head and looked at me, clearly wanting me to go ahead and say whatever was on my mind. Okay. I could do that. I hoped.
I drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out. And then, I started, telling her all the things I'd longed to for so long now.
"I called you so late last night because I had a dream about you-about the night that Mab murdered our mother and Annabella," I said in a low voice.
Bria frowned, as though she didn't quite believe me. "You had a dream? About me? About that night?"
I nodded. "I've been having them a lot lately. For a couple of months now. Only they're not really dreams, so much as memories of that night. Last night, I dreamed about when I went to find you, after I used my magic to collapse our house. I remember picking through the rubble, trying to find you in that secret playroom under the stairs, but realizing that the stairs had collapsed along with the rest of the house, and finding only blood instead. So much blood."
My voice dropped to a whisper, and I had to swallow once before I was able to go on. "I woke up screaming then, because I thought you were dead, that I'd killed you with my magic. It's a dream I've had a lot over the years."
Something flashed in Bria's blue eyes. It might have been guilt, but I ignored it. If I didn't get the words out now, I didn't know if they would ever come to me again.
So I sat there and told Bria everything.
How I thought that she'd been dead for the last seventeen years until Fletcher Lane had left me a folder of information about my family's murder with Bria's picture inside. How I'd searched for her with no success, and then had been startled to discover that she'd come back to Ashland on her own-as a detective with the police department, no less. How I struggled with how to tell her who I really was and all the things I'd done in the meantime to protect her from Mab. All the people I'd killed to keep her safe.
And then I told her the real reason our mother and older sister had died that night-because Mab thought a member of the Snow family, a girl with both Ice and Stone magic, was destined to kill her someday.
"She thought that I was you, didn't she?" Bria asked. "That I had both Ice and Stone magic?"
I nodded. "From what I've been able to piece together, yes."
"And that's why she wants me dead now." Her voice was cold and flat. "Because she thinks I'll kill her one day with my magic."
I nodded again.
To my surprise, Bria threw her head back and let out a short, bitter laugh. "Well, I suppose that serves me right for being such a coward in the first place."
"What does?"
"Because I ran away that night," Bria said in a low tone. "Like the coward that I was."
I frowned. "What do you mean?"
Bria drew in a deep breath. "That night, when you hid me in the playroom under the staircase, I got scared sitting there in the dark all by myself. So I went back inside the house to try to find you, even though you told me not to. And I saw-I saw Mab torturing you. I didn't know who she was at the time, but I saw her and Elliot Slater duct-tape your spider rune medallion between your hands, and I heard her ask you all those questions about me."
This time Bria was the one who had to stop for a moment.
"And I-and I heard you scream when she heated the rune and it melted into your hands. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to help you, I wanted to use my Ice magic, but I was just so scared, so terrified that I couldn't get it to work. So I-I just ran. I ran away. Out of the house and back toward the secret playroom. I thought that what was happening to you was my fault for leaving and that if I went back there, everything would be okay. Stupid, I know."
Guilt and self-loathing gave her lilting voice a harsh, ugly tone. It looked as though I wasn't the only one who had carried around the emotional baggage of that night for all these years. I didn't blame Bria for what she'd done. There was only one person at fault in all of this-Mab Monroe. And she was going to pay for what she'd done to us, more than she'd ever imagined.
Bria wouldn't look at me, so I slowly reached over and took her hand in mine. Her fingers felt as cold as ice against my own.
"You were eight years old, Bria. Just a kid. There was nothing you could have done to help me, nothing you could have done to stop Mab."
She stared at the tabletop. "You were just a kid too, Gene-Gin. And look what you did. You sat there, and you didn't say a word about me. Not one word. And I know how much Mab hurt you. I heard your screams all the way outside the house, even after I went back out into the courtyard. I had to put my fingers in my ears to block the sound."
We didn't say anything for a few minutes. Instead, we just sat there, staring at our hands stacked one on top of the other.
"What happened then?" I finally asked. "After you-left?"
Bria shrugged. "I don't remember a lot of it. I ran back through the house for what seemed like forever, stopping to hide every time I saw one of Mab's men searching for me. But finally I made it all the way back to the staircase where you'd told me to wait before two of Mab's men spotted me. One of them grabbed me, and I started screaming."
I remembered the sound of her screams that night. The awful, awful sound. The one that always made me wake up in a cold sweat.
"Anyway, I don't really know what happened after that. I guess it was you and your magic, because the house started to collapse right on top of us. Part of it fell on one of the giants and buried him."
That must have been the one whose arm I'd seen near the fountain.
"I jerked away from the other giant, ran past the staircase, and managed to make it out of the courtyard. But he wasn't as fast as I was. I saw the staircase fall and crush him to death." She gave me a tight smile. "I know it's horrible now, but at the time, I remember thinking that his blood squirted out of him just like juice from a tomato. I imagine that's whose blood was on the rocks you found. His, not mine."
It wasn't any more horrible than all the things I'd done as the Spider, but instead of telling her that, I just nodded.
"Anyway, I just kept on running, going deeper and deeper into the forest around our house until I collapsed. After that, things get a bit blurry," Bria said. "All I really remember is that sometime later, this man found me out there in the middle of nowhere. I don't really remember much about him, just that he had the greenest eyes I've ever seen. All slick and shiny-looking, like glass or something. Anyway, he took me ... somewhere. Fed me, bathed me, and made sure that I was okay. The next thing I knew, I had a new mom and dad. They were wonderful people, Gin. I think you would have liked them. But it wasn't-the same. It wasn't ever the same."
I looked over at the wall beside the cash register and the photo of Fletcher Lane that was hung there. In the faded picture, a young Fletcher held up the catch from his fishing trip, beaming proudly at the camera. Somehow, I knew that the mystery man that Bria was talking about was him.
And once more, I was stunned-simply stunned. The old man had found Bria all those years ago? Had given her to her foster parents? Why? Had he been looking for me as well?
More importantly, had he known about Mab's attack on our family? Had he been there that night? Had Fletcher been there as the assassin the Tin Man, as one of Mab's men? That horrible thought slammed into me with the force of one of my own silverstone knives, slicing my heart in two. Had the old man in some way been responsible for the murder of my mother and older sister?