Never (Never, #1) (65)

“There were five of you, weren’t there?” I ask, thinking back to my book.

She nods. “The other two are dead.”

“Oh,” I sigh, sorry.

“Ban was Mum’s brother.” Jem nudges me.

“And Vee”—she forces a smile—“was my best friend.”

I look between them, then ask cautiously,* “What happened?”

Itheelia takes a big breath.

“Ban killed her. Accidentally,” she offers as an afterthought.

“Oh my god.” I blink.

“They were a wee couple, were they no’?” Jem squints at his mother.

“Sort of.” She tilts her head. “No, but yes. Ban and I come from a very old line of magic. Old lines”—she looks at me—“they’re dangerous, like money in your world. Magic is power in ours. Ban was, since we were small, obsessed with power. And Vee…” She tosses me another look. “All those stories on your planet about Aphrodite and Venus, Inanna, Minerva, they’re all based on Vee. She’s not quite a god; she’s just…beautiful and persuasive and magically charming.” Itheelia shrugs hopelessly but still smiles as she thinks about her friend. “People just adored her. Ban adored her. Obsessed with her, he was.”

They were a complicated couple, apparently. Itheelia says they were on and off and on and off, and then one day, they were on and they found out she was pregnant. And everything was good. They were good. And then rumours started swirling around Ban and his motives. He’d been trying to gain power and favor with the fairies with relationships and bribes and blackmail, and when he couldn’t get it those ways, he turned violent.

“And that’s when we found out about the prophecy.” Itheelia sighs.

Jamison makes an “achk” sound with his throat. “It’s just a story.”

I look between them, wondering if it’s the same one Rye mentioned.

“What prophecy?”

Itheelia gives her son a long-suffering look. “When two founders meet under an oxblood moon, the true heir will rise and sit on the throne once again, and the island will be restored.”

Jamison stares at his hands, looking bored, but I frown at her.

“Restored?” I look at her like she’s crazy. “Is the island in disrepair?”

Itheelia tilts her head. “You mightn’t think so from looking at it, but then neither does your Earth look unwell, but trust me”—she gives me a solemn look—“it is dying.”

“Of what?” I frown.

She frowns over at me a little before she says it. “Hope.”

“Or lack thereof,” Jamison adds.

“Hope?” I repeat.

“Our world daesnae operate by the same rules and laws yours does,” Jamison tells me like I hadn’t noticed.

“Hopes are currency here; they’re a weighted substance. They fuel it.”

“And hope is…dying?” I ask, not quite sure I believe it.

“Not dying.” She shakes her head. “But disappearing.”

“What would that mean?”

“For us?” Itheelia squints. “Our world will rot and crumble away, and for yours—”

“For mine?” I stare over at her, a bit alarmed for my family.

Itheelia gives me a strange look.

“Hope is our biggest export,” Jamison tells me. “It’s made here but used universally.”

“Really?” I blink.

“We’re all connected.” Itheelia shrugs. “If we run out of hope here, for your world, it’s probably just another Great Depression, but forever.”

“Oh.” I scrunch my face up. “Is that all?”

Itheelia breathes out her nose, looking flummoxed. “We can’t tell why the wells are so low.”

“There are wells?” I look between them.

Jamison’s mother gives him a long-suffering look. “How do you stomach her incessant questioning?”

Jamison looks down at me for a few seconds, then he says, “Her face,” before he crosses his arms over his chest.

The way we’re sitting now, we’re sort of pressed up against each other, and I’m shamefully aware of my breathing and how benignly his arm is touching mine. Some sort of wonderful, splintering pain rolls through me that I don’t understand. My face!

“So Ban was trying to make the prophecy come true?” he asks.

His mother nods. “Vee had the baby. She tried to smuggle it away, and we tried to help her get it off planet, somewhere away from him, you know, once we knew what his motives were, but he got to her. He tried to stop her. They had a fight, and she injured him badly. So he did a spell to save himself, killed both of them in the process.”

Her face looks strained, and I make a note to myself to remember that time doesn’t heal all things.

“What spell?” Jem asks with a curious frown.

“Soul tether,” she says with a solemn nod.

Jamison tilts his head. “I’ve never heard of—”

Itheelia shakes her head. “It’s old magic,” she tells him. “Finicky. Dangerous.” She breathes out her nose and looks between us. “It only works if you’re soulmates.”