Legacy (Keeper of the Lost Cities #8) - Shannon Messenger Page 0,199

pieces now?

It doesn’t matter. I’ve already checked them.

That doesn’t mean they won’t trigger what you’re looking for.

Once again, he hesitated.

And she had to remind him again that she would find everything on her own—and who knew what else she’d discover along the way?

It’s a waste of time, he insisted.

But his mind still shifted and rattled, as if he were pulling open some sort of inner mental barrier, revealing a new light up ahead—a dim, icy glow that definitely wasn’t inviting.

Sophie followed it anyway, into a chilly nook tucked into the darkest part of his consciousness where thousands of memories flickered in the shadows.

Thousands of glimpses of Lady Gisela.

Smiles.

Scowls.

Glares.

Laughter.

Though something about her always looked a little… calculating. Especially when she gazed at her son.

You see that too, Lord Cassius noted, and Sophie realized she’d transmitted that observation.

It just seemed so… obvious.

Hindsight brings a strange sort of clarity, doesn’t it? Lord Cassius asked her. It’s so easy to hate yourself for missing something so glaring. But every moment has shades of meaning, and how we interpret it comes down to the knowledge we have in that instance. Like now, for example—you sit there stewing in your disgust for me, convinced I’m cruel and callous because that is the information you have. Just as I saw a wife and mother who was as determined as I was to help her son find success and reach his maximum potential—which, I suppose, IS still who she was. She just had a very different vision for his future, apparently.

Sour dread mixed with Sophie’s other emotions, and she couldn’t tell if it came from her or Lord Cassius.

And I’m assuming you have no idea what she means when she talks about Keefe’s legacy? she asked.

I don’t—and I wish I did.

She could tell he meant it. Which was why she decided to answer when he asked again for the specific words Lady Gisela said to Keefe in London—and she didn’t just tell him. She filled his mind with her memory of the conversation, letting him watch the scene play out for himself.

And when they got to the part where Lady Gisela told Keefe to “embrace the change or it will destroy you,” something shifted in his mind again.

A soft quiver that grew stronger and stronger.

A mental earthquake that drove a deep rift through his consciousness.

And three new memories emerged, each one crackly and scratched, like watching a projection of a ruined piece of film—the same way Keefe’s recovered memory had looked. The sound faded in and out, and the scenes sometimes played too fast or slow or dropped away altogether. But Sophie soaked up every detail she could pull from the damage.

In the first memory Lord Cassius found his wife nearly convulsing on their bed—with five empty vials strewn across the floor. Her mouth had a strange glow as she murmured to herself, “Embrace the change,” over and over, and Lord Cassius scooped her into his arms and sprinted for Candleshade’s vortinator to get her to a physician. The scene faded out after that, and faded back in when he was standing under the Leapmaster, with Lady Gisela begging him to take her back—to let her rest—swearing it was nothing he needed to concern himself with. She told him it was a treatment that took a few minutes for her body to accept. And he’d felt how strongly she meant the words—how desperate she was to be alone—so he’d brought her back to bed.

The second scene was much harder to watch.

There were five vials again, this time flickering and glowing on the bedside table. And Lord Cassius sat next to his wife on the edge of their bed as she tried to convince him to drink them.

The memory distorted most of their conversation, but Lord Cassius didn’t seem to find anything familiar about what she was suggesting, so his other memory must’ve already been taken. And the soundtrack sharpened again as Lady Gisela promised, “This treatment will make you powerful in ways you can’t even imagine. You just have to embrace the change.”

She’d whispered something else Sophie couldn’t hear, but whatever it was, it convinced Lord Cassius to gulp down each of the vials.

And then there was pain.

Burning and freezing and stabbing and tearing and crushing and twisting and writhing.

Unending.

Unsurvivable.

Except somehow, he did.

Somehow, when he stopped fighting it, he became the pain.

And then everything faded into a black, dreamless oblivion.

The third memory was the shortest.

Lady Gisela leaned in and licked a silver panel on a glittering crystal wall,