“Amazing,” he scoffed, turning to his sister. “It’s my curse. That’s the legacy, right? Every Revelare has magic, but they also have a curse. Mine just happen to be one and the same.”
“How can you say that?” Sadie argued. “You can use it to help people!”
“Most people don’t want to hear what they need. Most people—normal people—have secrets for a reason. I don’t want to know that shit, trust me. And you wouldn’t either.”
Florence looked back and forth between the twins, unsure of her place.
“When did you know?” Sadie asked. And when Seth didn’t answer, she asked again, demanded in a voice that brooked no argument.
“Before I left, I started, I don’t know … feeling things. Hearing them. Seeing people’s wants, needs, desires. It was driving me insane. I couldn’t control it at all.”
“That’s why you really left,” Sadie whispered.
“Yeah,” he intoned, his lips pursed as he nodded.
“You left?” Florence asked.
“I guess it’s in his blood,” Sadie said, regretting the words the moment they were out.
Seth looked mutinous.
At that moment the fireplace in the living room sprang to life, the wood suddenly popping and snapping as though it had been roaring for hours.
“I’m sorry,” Sadie said, shaking herself and turning to Florence. “I didn’t mean that.”
Didn’t you?
“Sugar, you have every right to how you feel,” her mother said, and it was so similar to something Gigi would say that Sadie’s throat tightened. “And you have every right to hate your legacy,” Florence added to Seth. “Trust me, I did for a while too. But your grandmother, she believed in what we had. She used it to keep our family together, to help people, and God knows I’m far from that, but I try.”
“I’m not saying it doesn’t have its perks,” Seth said. “I know what people want to hear. I can get any job I want, anything or anyone I want. I can basically manipulate anybody to do what I need them to. When I left, I did that for a while. But none of it was real.”
“We’re more alike than I thought, then.” Florence’s smile was sad and full of shadowed memories better left to midnight. “It’s an empty life, isn’t it?”
“I never wanted to leave. But I couldn’t, I don’t know, I couldn’t separate myself. I thought leaving would help me figure out who I was apart from Sadie, apart from the stupid family legacy. But I was miserable. When I came back, I told Raquel everything. I don’t know why, but when I tried to use my magic on her, it didn’t work. So it felt safe, I guess.”
“Wait a second—Raquel knows about this?” Sadie demanded, her brows furrowing.
“She tried to help me turn it off.” He shrugged.
“I don’t know who Raquel is, but you can’t get rid of who you are,” Florence said in a voice that spoke from experience.
“I’m with her on this one,” Sadie echoed.
“Trust us, honey,” Tava said. “We’ve all tried to escape at one point or another. But every time we leave, we realize there’s no place better than with the people who love us the most.”
“You can’t imagine what it’s like, okay? I go to pay for my gas, and the checkout guy, his girlfriend is pregnant by another guy, and he’s so miserable all he wants is to kill himself. And I feel it so strongly that suddenly I feel like I want to kill myself too.”
“You haven’t felt this your whole life?” Florence asked.
“Some part of me has, I guess. But it just kept getting worse.”
“And now?”
“I’ve basically become a hermit. If I’m not here, then I’m somewhere nobody else is. I can’t go out in public.”
“Seth”—Sadie reached out to him, grabbing his hand—“why didn’t you tell me any of this? I’m so sorry.”
“Because I knew you’d try to help, and I love you Sade, but you just don’t get it. You’d want me to use it to help people. But I have to help myself first or risk losing my goddamn mind.”
“You know if you actually let someone in once in a while, maybe you’d realize that you don’t actually know everything,” she said.
“Well then,” Florence interrupted, “I guess we don’t need Sage to tell us whose life is at risk.”
“What?” Seth and Sadie asked at once as all eyes in the living room swiveled to Florence.