Head bobbing, Trent pulled a cookie apart to get to the filling. “Average people.”
“At first,” I agreed. “Then it hit Al. Me to some extent. Perhaps the baku was trying to find Al and the others got in the way.” Trent eyed me in concern, and I fidgeted. “Or maybe it was weak after its extended capture and needed to build up its strength before tackling a foe that knew how to fight it. Dali said it nibbled away at the soul, shell by shell, which implies it takes time to destroy someone completely before it can take them over.”
Okay, it had been Hodin, not Dali, and I looked at his ring when I took a sip of coffee.
“Shell by shell?” Trent asked, voice intent. “Are you sure those were his exact words?”
Embarrassed for not only my lie, but that Trent didn’t catch me at it, I nodded. But I didn’t want to admit it had been Hodin. I wasn’t afraid of his death threats. No, it was that damned feeling of kinship born from separate but identical trials that was keeping my mouth shut. I knew him, his desire to belong, and the fear that went with it. Rachel, you are a Turn-blasted fool.
“Souls have shells?” I asked as Trent rose and went to one of his glassed bookshelves.
“I’d call them layers, but sure.” Trent’s back was to me as he unlocked the cabinet with a key hidden on the shelf next to it. “You can see it in how the girls are developing. Almost by the day their emotions are becoming more complex, but they started out very simple.
“Give me a second,” he said softly, distracted as he opened the door and scanned the spines of a small section of what looked like theme books. “I think this was it,” he said as he chose one near the beginning and closed and locked the cabinet again. “This is one of my mom’s journals,” he said as he came back and sat beside me.
“I thought she was a genetic engineer,” I said as we sort of slid together again, our heads bowed over the yellowing pages filled with a careful script. A warm feeling of belonging stirred as our body warmth became one and a faint thrill crept through me. Trent was many things: a drug lord, a politician, a philanthropist, a cold-blooded killer, a student of magic and science both. This was the Trent I liked best, intent on solving a problem others could not, where his skills dovetailed so beautifully it was almost a crime.
“She was.” Trent confidently flipped through the pages. “But she had to give up her career after she married my dad. It was the sixties, and the more well-to-do you were, the more you had to conform. She spent a lot of time recovering lost elven magic. They called it a hobby. A hobby,” he said, clearly disgusted. “She worked harder than anyone I know and got zero credit for it.”
“Mmmm. I’m glad we live in more enlightened times,” I said, appreciating the way Trent smelled when he got excited. All cinnamon and sugar. Like a cookie.
Oblivious to my thoughts, Trent kept shifting the pages. “She kept a diary from the day the Turn started until she died. I’ve read them all at least twice to try to remember her. There’s a lot about my siblings until they died—mostly good; my dad—mostly bad; her horses—all joyful.”
My eyes traced the faint frown lines now furrowing his brow. I’d forgotten he’d had older siblings once. “I’m sorry,” I said, and he flicked a distant smile at me before returning to the text.
“She doesn’t mention her magic studies in her diary very often, which makes me think there might be another set of these somewhere.” His lips pressed in what I guessed was an old annoyance. “She was first a scientist. I can’t believe she didn’t write everything down. This one here was a few years after she got married.” Slowly his smile faded as he flipped a page, finger running down the careful cursive. “Quen worked for my dad even back then. I think she’d be delighted to know that Quen had a little girl named after a witch-born demon.”
“That’d be me,” I said as I tugged him closer, wishing we had more afternoons like this.
“Here it is,” he said, and I looked down.
“‘My heart hurts,’” I read aloud when Trent remained silent. “‘And now that I can sleep, I