the baby’s heartbeat. “Why do you think I can hear her heart beating?”
“I don’t know.” She stands up, picks up the bowl, and balances it on the computer desk. “Maybe it’s because of the star or something, like how you can feel the electricity with Alex.”
“Do you think”—I drape my arm over my stomach—“she’s normal?”
She kneels down beside me, brushing my hair out of my eyes so I can see her face. “Gemma, of course she is. And do you want to know what else I know?”
I nod.
She smiles. “That she’s going to grow up living a happy life, full of love and rainbows and all that fun stuff.”
“I hope so.”
“Well, I know so.” She stands up, opening and closing her hands. “Now wish me luck.”
“Good luck,” I say. “I’ll just stay here and work on my nest until you get back.”
She snorts a laugh, and I laugh with her, sharing this weird, normal moment. Then she chants a spell, creating a cloud of vapor that carries her away, leaving me alone in an empty house.
After I eat a sandwich, I take a shower, and the water feels really odd against my wings. When I try to put on different clothes, though, the corset and boots appear on my body.
I pass the time by scrounging through Marco and Sophia’s room, looking for signs that I missed growing up. How could I have not known all that time what I was? Who they were?
I flip open a trunk at the foot of the bed and take out all the photos, none of which include me. I look at my birth certificate and think of my father trapped in his own mind, perhaps with the Death Walkers. My mother sneaks into my thoughts, her life spent in The Underworld. And now she’s dead, and I have no idea where her ghost took off to.
“Mom,” I call out to the empty room. “You’re going to have a granddaughter. You have to come back; if not for me, for her.”
The only answer is mine and the baby’s heart beating.
I curl up in a ball, curl my wings around my body, and cry until my eyes run dry.
ALEX
I’ve never been a fan of the City of Crystal or the Foreseer leader, Dyvinius, so being back here fucking sucks. It’s not just the place itself that I dislike, but what the place’s power represents. The people here know everything about you: your pasts, the sins you’ve committed, when you’re going to die.
But as Laylen, Nicholas, and I walk up the glass path above the river and past the crystallized walls, I have a sudden, crazy-ass urge to turn, march up to Dyvinius’s throne, and demand to know if Gemma and my unborn daughter survive. But I fear what I might see, fear looking ahead might mess up the future more, so instead I follow Nicholas to the massive crystal ball that flames in the center of the city and feeds power to the Foreseers.
Laylen sighs as Nicholas reaches to open the door. “I was hoping I’d never have to come back here again. This place gives me the creeps.”
“Me, too, man,” I agree, glancing around at the crystal columns and icy path behind us, searching for signs of Dyvinius or anyone else who might be pissed off that we’re here.
After Nicholas opens the door, we step inside the room where the fireball of energy burns fiercely. Lifeless bodies are chained to the massive orb with tubes running from their skin to the crystal ball.
Nicholas strolls up to the crystal, crossing his arms while whistling, acting way too casual for the situation. “It’s such a fascinating thing, watching the crystal drain life from humans.”
“It’s a pointless sacrifice,” I snap, shielding my eyes as the crystal balls blazes brightly and blinds me. I skim the faces of the people, looking for my mother, but it’s been so long since I’ve seen her I’m not even sure I’ll recognize her. “No one needs to see what happens in the future, and if it hadn’t been for a Foreseer fucking around with stuff, we wouldn’t even be in this mess to begin with.”
Nicholas tugs on one of the chains securing the bodies. “Oh, your father would have found another way.”
“That might not be true,” I say. Where the hell is my mom? “Without Foreseers, my dad would’ve never found out about the star to begin with.”
Nicholas lets go of the chain and steps back. “Well, maybe one day someone will