Eye of the Storm by Emmie Mears (Ayala Storme #4) by BHC Press

PRAISE FOR THE

AYALA STORME SERIES STORM IN A TEACUP

Mears’s world is creative and fast paced, her characters witty and engaging. ~ Ellie Ann, New York Times Bestselling Author ~

ANY PORT IN A STORM

My favorite new series…if I could give it more stars I would…highly recommended. ~ RabidReads.com ~

TAKEN BY STORM

The world, creatures, social, and magic systems Mears have created are very unique. ~ OneBookTwo ~

EYE OF THE STORM

Mears has a way of writing that really elicits the feels! The Storme Series has...amazing emotional depth; it’s full of love and betrayal and family and sacrifice and triumph and despair. ~ OneBookTwo ~

Cover design by Jessica Negrón

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher. This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published by Indigo an imprint of BHC Press Library of Congress Control Number: 2017936399 ISBN-13: 978-1-946006-91-2 ISBN-10: 1-946006-91-2 Visit the author at: www.bhcpress.com Also available in ebook & audio

ALSO BY

EMMIE MEARS THE AYALA STORME SERIES STORM IN A TEACUP ANY PORT IN A STORM TAKEN BY STORM

THE SHRIKE SERIES THE MASKED SONGBIRD RAMPANT

THE STONEBREAKER SERIES HEARTHFIRE

STANDALONE NOVELS A HALL OF KEYS AND NO DOORS LOOK TO THE SUN Available in trade paperback and ebook. Select titles in audio.

rologue

AS FAR AS MY memory of history goes, it’s taken approxi-

mately ten to twenty thousand years for the societies of humanity to build the civilized lands we so know and love. We’ve done it with hell poking holes in our reality and trying to bleed in. We’ve done it even though sometimes we’d rather kill each other than protect this place. We’ve done it poking holes in our own ozone and polluting our air. But perhaps against all odds, the four— now five—species of humanity made something work. We found a common ground enough to hold off the hordes of all six hells. We created monuments, space travel, wifi. All the moving parts of economies, cultures, races, religions. All those grinding gears that sometimes rub too close and spark or flake off bits of rusting metal and other times turn so smoothly you can almost hear it all purr. All the people who built something here. A life. A job. A stack of bricks called a house. Tiny squawking baby people. Globs of mixed color on canvas that somehow tug feeling from

your chest. People who sit and think about thinking. A way to get from Nashville to Mumbai in a day. Thousands of years of trial and error. What amazes me is how, in a handful of days, it can all fall apart. We’ve made our home upon this earth. I can’t help but wonder—will she notice when we’re all dead? Will she mourn our passing? Will she even feel us go?

1 GREGOR GASKIN’S HEAD FALLS with a wet thunk onto

the floor of the Summit amphitheater. Well, what’s left of his head. It’s mostly chin and lower jaw. Let it never be said that Alamea Virgili lacks a flair for the dramatic. It’s so quiet in the room that even if Gregor’s head had been the size of a grain of rice instead of the size of a basketball—okay, maybe it was never that big—even the Mediators and psychics hovering at the farthest reaches of the terraced rows of seats would have heard the plip of it hitting the floor. Instead, the first few rows give a twitch, pairs of bright violet irises trained directly on that head on the floor. After a moment, the rest of Gregor Gaskin follows. Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk. Alamea is over six feet tall flat footed, but it’s neither her natural height nor her heels that make her look like a giant

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right now. Her dark brown skin is smooth and clean. Her linen wrap shirt is immaculate ivory. Her toenails are pedicured, and her waist-length thin locs are arranged in a crest that spills down her back and over one shoulder where here and there silver clasps glint in the glaring fluorescent lights. She managed somehow to drop all of Gregor’s post-rigor bits on the Summit floor without splashing any fluids on her outfit. For months, the Summit has been fractious and volatile. I’ve never seen this room as full as it is right now. I’m in a seat on the dais, just to the left of the podium with all-too-clear a view of the pile of Gregor on the floor. My nose has an all-tooclear a path to the smell of him as well. At my side are three Mediators: Mira, Devon, and Ripper. Behind us—a tactical move, considering most of the other Mediators in this room want them dead—are a line of all the shades who remain alive. There are only twelve of them. There used to be scores. On the other side of the podium is Gryfflet Asberry, the witch who is pretty much the reason we’re all sitting here. The air in the amphitheater is cold, the HVAC silent. If I had to guess, I’d say that is tactical as well. Alamea wants everybody in this room to be uncomfortable. I don’t think she really had to worry about that at all— from the moment the group of us set foot in the Summit lobby, I could almost feel the collective blood pressure of every Mediator and Mitten present raise into the red zone. She steps over Gregor’s bloated hand and looks out at the Mediators and witches and psychics who make up the Summit, the former by birth and the latter by choice. “Too long, this Summit’s members have behaved like a herd of bickering toddlers squabbling over who gets the bigger piece of sandwich. From this moment forward, if you have issues with my leadership you will leave them until after the world ends. I will not brook in-fighting in this Summit when hell is camped out on our doorstep. You will treat the shades sitting behind Mediator Storme as allies, or you can feel free to

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leave Nashville and try your luck in the countryside in the coming weeks. If you remain in this room when I finish counting to one hundred, you hereby acknowledge my leadership, Mediator Storme’s full reinstatement, the shades here as allies, and Gregor Gaskin as a known traitor to this planet and the Summit. One.” Alamea begins counting, her enunciation so crisp that I think if anyone were to budge from their seats, it would slice them to ribbons. Not a single soul moves. I know as well as Alamea does that their silence and stillness doesn’t mean the breaks in the Summit have healed—hoo, doggies, is that not possible—but I hope, perhaps foolishly, that it means they’ve at least managed to yank their heads far enough out of their asses to be able to see that we have more important demons to kill than whatever plagues their throbbing fee-fees. I hope. When Alamea reaches one hundred, no one seems to know what to do. Evis, my brother the shade, pokes me in the shoulder and whispers quietly enough that no one beyond ten feet from us could understand. “I’m bored. Was that all?” “I think so,” I whisper back. I see the first two rows of Mediators staring at me, and I can only imagine what they think my brother is whispering in my ear. Time was I’d pretend not to care, but right now I can’t afford their suspicions to raise any higher than they already have. “My brother is as bored with the Summit’s childishness as Alamea is,” I say loudly, and my voice cuts through the growing hum of murmuring Mediators. Now more than the first two rows of people are looking at me. Good plan, Storme. I give the original staring folks a bland smile. “And so am I.” Alamea looks between me and the audience, her expression calculating. “If any of you feel the need to question Mediator Storme’s experience in the current situation in which we all find ourselves, I’m sure she’d be happy to share. If you can’t

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be bothered to ask her yourselves, keep your speculation buttoned down. Gossip is lazy, and the Stormes have a point.” I watch the ripple of shock go through the audience at the way she addresses Evis and me as the Stormes. Turns out I was wrong telling Evis that was all, because once the murmur of talking dies down again, Alamea addresses the crowd again. “It’s now confirmed that there have been hellkin sighted in cities across the country between sunrise and sunset. The Stormes here took out a pack of slummoths on Demonbreun last week themselves. I don’t care who it comes from, but I want a city-wide evacuation plan on my desk by the end of the day. If you’re not working on that, you’re training Mittens, working on inventory in the arsenal, or on patrol. All hands on deck,” she says. Now no one looks like they want to be snotty. Looking around, a few of the younger Mediators and Mittens swallow. “Hardy and Sal will be in charge of setting up the groups and rotations for patrol. If you want to work on the evac plan, see Billy Bob. I don’t want fourteen different plans. Work together. Don’t leave this room until you have your assignments for the day.” With that, Alamea barks at a pair of Mittens to clean up the Gregor mess. If I expected them to be skittish about it, I’m immediately proved wrong when both of them, two girls probably around fifteen, spit on Gregor’s severed head before hurrying away to get gloves and splat-duty smocks. Alamea comes over to us, and a large number of eyes track her, not even trying to pretend they’re not paying attention. “What should we do?” I ask. Beside me, Mira’s quiet. Behind me, I can hear one of the shades’ bellies rumbling. “I think you’re best doing as you’ve been doing. You and your brother ought to return to the cabin. Miles and Saturn can stay here in the city with the other shades who have been in Nashville. Who’s still here?” “Harkan and Holden,” I say. They’ve been scarce since we found out Gregor betrayed us all. I can’t say I blame them. “But

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WE’RE BACK AT THE cabin before nightfall, not that the sun’s path has anything to do with level of danger. Anymore. It feels strange to see Jax settle in to play Halo after going to visit Nana, like nothing in the past few days happened. Carrick and Gryfflet put their heads together over the dining table, the faux-grain vinyl covering peeling away from one edge of the surface. It keeps catching on Gryfflet’s sweater. A loop of gray yarn dangles from his stomach. Neither of them appear to take any notice of me, but I can feel Carrick’s awareness, just like I can feel Evis behind me, Jax on the sofa, and Mason somewhere out back with the two new shades who have no names. He’s laying feed for the deer, trying to coax the animals to come in closer. And trying to teach the new shades how to hunt things that don’t walk on two legs. The shades have learned the hard way that even with the warding we’ve beefed up around the cabin, roaming too far is a recipe for blood. And because they’ve spilled enough deer blood around here, I’m not sure any of the local whitetails will fall for Mason’s lines of hay pellets. I guess we’ll see. Mira heads right for our room and shuts the door. Our room. It feels so strange to say that, too. Yet another complication I’m not sure either of us are really ready to face. Evis pulls up a spot on the couch next to Jax and grabs a controller. The two of them spend the next hour gleefully head-

eye of the storm

Alamea, I’m a little tough to summon in a pinch from there.” My objection is pitched to be quiet, my tone carefully modulated so as not to seem argumentative. For the sake of the Mediators eavesdropping, not for Alamea. “It’s not ideal,” she agrees, but she doesn’t offer an alternative, so I know I’ve been given my orders. Not ideal. That’s one way of putting it.

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shotting aliens and each other, their reflexes good enough that they’ll probably even school the throngs of adolescents in the multiplayer lobbies once we can get them hooked up to proper internet. About an hour and a half into their shooter session, the sound of Carrick’s and Gryfflet’s raised voices protrude over the volume of artillery. “I don’t have what I need here!” Gryfflet bangs his fist on the table. His sweater is snagged again, and he looks down at the trails of yarn like they’re that straw and he’s the proverbial camel spine. “Couldn’t you have thought of that while we were still in Nashville?” Carrick’s voice, by contrast, is somewhat measured, though the fact that he’s speaking loudly is evidence enough of his irritation. “If I’d have known I’d need the library, I would have just packed that into the trunk.” Gryfflet turns snide, and I get up from my perch on the arm of the couch. “You two. What’s the problem?” Out on the porch, I hear Mason thump up the stairs, but he doesn’t open the door to come in. I ignore him and the sudden dearth of pew-pew-pew from behind me. “The Summit library contains all the relevant texts for studying the imbalance,” Gryfflet says. “And the Summit library is not here.” I meet Carrick’s eyes, and it doesn’t take a lot of empathy to feel the same annoyance he feels. “Nobody thought of this before we left Nashville?” “We’re having to take a different angle on this.” Gryfflet sounds like he’s talking to a two-year-old and trying to explain why it’s a bad idea to wedge one’s head between the bannister bars. “When we left, we were trying to tackle how things changed that allowed the demons to change our weather.” “Didn’t we decide that’s the new shades’ doing?” I can feel them out back with Mason, their minds tempests and their reflexes still jumpy after the fight. If I weren’t inside their minds,

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if I weren’t tied to them with the absolute certainty that Mira and Gryfflet are safe with them because I will it, I wouldn’t have let them within a mile of this place. But I am in their minds. And I know exactly what they feel. They won’t so much as pluck a stray hair from a t-shirt without permission. I’m their alpha, but alpha or not, they’re more demon than human. “We did, but there has to be more to it than that.” Gryfflet shoves his chair back from the table, running a hand through his greasy hair. He showered this morning—used up almost all the hot water—but he’s been fiddling with his hair so much that the oils from his hands make him look like he hasn’t bathed in days. “You really can’t do anything here?” I don’t like this. From the look on Carrick’s face, he knows where this is going, and so do I. “Not enough for us to have a real chance at anything.” Gryfflet plucks at the dangling loop on his sweater. “I should go back to Nashville. I have my car. I can make it to the Summit.” “Not so fast, witch,” I say. “With demons daywalking, you’re about as safe in a car as a fish is in a bowl with a tiger in the room. Plus, not to go all Leia Organa on you, but you might just be our only hope, so I’m not letting you get dead, Obi Wan.” Gryfflet blinks at me. “At least you admit I’m one of the good guys now.” “The Jedi have questionable morality, but that’s not the point.” I look at Carrick again. If Gryfflet needs the Summit library and trusts the Summit Mediators not to flambé him the second he turns around, maybe it is our best shot. I don’t like it. But I guess I don’t have to. I can count on one finger the things I like about our current situation, and from the look on Carrick’s face, that one finger is about to crook into a half. I can deal with the situation because most of the people I love are within shouting distance of me. But I can’t let Gryfflet try and get to Nashville alone.

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Carrick’s mind has already made the short sidestep to the same conclusion. “I’ll go down with him. My mind’s of more use than my biceps right now, anyway.” There’s a thud on the back porch, and it makes me twitch even though I know it’s just Mason and the two nameless shades. Looks like they got themselves a deer after all. Or maybe a wild hog. I glance toward the back door, the wheels in my mind trundling along. “How about you take the new two with you? They already recognize you as my second-in-command, and they’re…capable.” I can still feel Gregor’s brain squishing against my knuckles. They weren’t really even my knuckles, but they might as well have been. All I had to do was think how much I wanted Gregor dead, and these two new shades made it so. The thought is more than a little unnerving. Carrick doesn’t immediately object, but Gryfflet looks like he wants to. In fact, he looks positively green at the idea of spending an hour in a car with them. Jax and Evis have stopped all pretense of playing Halo at this point. Evis puts his controller down on the coffee table. “Do you think that’s a good idea?” Jax asks, his words careful. That doesn’t help the color of Gryfflet’s face. “I think Carrick can handle it, and they won’t hurt anyone because I don’t want them to.” It sounds stupid when I say it out loud. “We can’t trust them like you can,” Gryfflet says. He stands up, closing the book on the table in front of him. “I know. But you’re going to have to trust me.” Carrick nods. “I think she’s right.” “When do you want to leave?” I’m embarrassed by the hitch in my breath when I say leave. I don’t want them to leave. I want them all here, plus the shades still in Nashville, plus Wane and Alice and Laura and Alamea and everyone else I give a shit about. I want to stay right here in this little cabin

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where we have the illusion of safety and where goodbyes don’t feel as final. “Even if it doesn’t matter, I’d feel better not leaving until sunrise,” Carrick says softly. Just that little declaration assuages some of my nerves. We’ll at least get another night. I probably won’t sleep much, but if they leave now, I for sure won’t catch any winks. Mason and the other two shades come in, the porch door scudding against the jamb behind them. I’m certain he was listening out there, and the two nameless new shades both smile at me with the innocence of children. Really, really scary children. They already know what I want them to do. I suppress the shiver that wants to run up and down my back. I wasn’t born a morph. I never expected to be alpha of any pack.

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2 CARRICK, GRYFFLET, AND THE two new shades leave at

daybreak, driving off into a thick, heavy fog that still bears the deep blue-grey of pre-dawn. I feel the fog in my fingertips, its weight without wisps that envelops the cabin. Mira, Jax, and Evis stand with me on the front porch, but Mason’s nowhere to be seen. Back inside, I set the kettle on to make hot cocoa. Mira half-heartedly cracks our last few eggs into a bowl. Peering into the freezer, she sees the filet mignons I bought for the shades when we were hunting hosts barely a couple weeks ago. There are six or seven of them left, and the rest of the freezer is stacked with venison. “Yo, Jax,” Mira says. “Mind if I thaw these out and Ayala and I eat a couple?” “You want to eat our meat?” Jax asks, settling back onto the sofa. He’s becoming quite the couch potato. “Well, I plan to cook it first.”

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Jax shrugs. “I don’t mind.” Mira tosses two filets in a bowl of warm water and sets the eggs in the fridge. “Feel like steak and eggs,” she says to me by way of explanation. My stomach growls, but if she’s cooking, I’m not going to complain about the wait. Or filet mignon for breakfast. I’m not completely uncivilized. I can’t help but fret about Carrick and Gryfflet. It’s almost nice to fret about something very specific rather than being consumed by the fear of what’s coming. Not so nice I want to hold onto it forever, but it makes a suitable accompaniment for the grumbling in my stomach. Mason’s presence in my mind grows closer and feels… troubled. There’s nothing new about that—he’s always troubled lately; we all are—but this feels different. When he comes through the back door thirty seconds later, I see why. He’s leading a woman with him, and she’s pregnant. I’m so used to seeing the shade host mothers that for a moment my brain doesn’t even compute seeing a normal pregnancy. She looks about to pop, but for once not literally. Something else occurs to me. “The wards didn’t ping,” I say. Mira’s head snaps up, which makes me feel marginally less stupid for the delay in my own reaction. “She’s a witch,” says Mason. “The wards should still stop a witch,” I say at the same time Mira says, “Nobody’s supposed to get through the gods damned wards.” We don’t look at each other, but in my peripheral vision, I see the minute upturn of her lips. “I’m a really, really good witch,” the pregnant woman says. Mason shrugs. Jax and Evis watch over the back of the sofa. The pregnant woman is about average height. Her hair is shiny and black and looks like the prenatal vitamins have

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been working overtime. Her skin is damp from the fog, or maybe it’s that fabled pregnancy glow. Her eyes are warm brown, a beautiful brown, the kind of brown I imagine Mira’s would have been had they not marked her immediately as a Mediator instead. They’re big and ringed by heavy black lashes, framed with smile lines. The woman’s brown skin is warm too. It reminds me of the sun we haven’t seen in weeks. The tattoo on her lower jaw reminds me of Tamar Solomon and some of the other people I saw around Seattle. Instead of the three vertical lines from lower lip to chin like Tamar had, this woman has diagonal lines from the corners of her mouth to her jawline, one vertical center line, and three diagonal dots on each side of that. Above the collar of her shirt, I can see more ink peeking around her clavicle and stretching toward her shoulders. The tattoos are blue, deep blue. Her age is the only thing that seems out of of place with her pregnancy. She’s got to be in her early forties. It’s not completely unheard of for morphs and witches to keep their fertility into their mid to late thirties, sometimes a bit later, but even so. “Okay, then,” I say to the pregnant witch. “Who the fuck are you? Did Gryfflet send you?” “My name is Asher Anitsiskwa, and I wasn’t sent. I saw you on the news and realized who you were.” “You saw me on the news.” Everyone’s seen me on the news, but Asher is the first person to just turn up on my doorstep. Plus, her pronouncement doesn’t tell me anything about why she’s here. Mira meets my gaze. I know she knows what I’m thinking. If this woman could get past the wards and wanted us dead, we’d probably already be dead. Since we’re not, she probably doesn’t mean us any harm. Even if she did, at this point, it’s three shades, two Mediators, and Nana against her, and at probably nine months pregnant, she’s not getting far no matter how good a witch she is.

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“I don’t have time for bullshit,” I say, turning back to Asher Anitsiskwa. “Tell me exactly why you’re here and how you found us.” My tone is flat even to my ears, but Asher’s lips give a little twitch that looks like surprise. “Do you mind if I sit?” She jerks her head at the kitchen table. “Be our guest,” says Mira, sprawling back in her chair. I can almost see the flames of curiosity burning in Mira’s eyes. Mason pulls back a chair for Asher and then perches on the back of the sofa between where both Jax and Evis sit with their spines twisted around as if just turning and kneeling on the sofa to stare would somehow be too obvious, but looking like naked pretzels isn’t. The cabin’s drafty, and Asher seems to take no notice of the shades’ nudity, which either means she is used to shades or thinks we’re nudists and doesn’t care. I’m willing to bet this rent-a-cabin that it’s the former. I’m just glad that she’s not about to birth one. Asher sits, and Mira darts a glance at the thawing steaks. “Talk,” I say to Asher. My curtness is a little lessened in heft by the gurgling sound that escapes my midsection. A thousand possibilities flit through my head in answer to my own questions. She has information about shades. She’s part of a cult and thinks her baby will save us all. She’s just a big fan of my work. She’s here to bunny-nap Nana. She’s an assassin after Gryfflet. She wants to congratulate me on killing Gregor. Asher looks around at each of us, and I notice she’s careful not to let her gaze linger longer on any one face than another. None of my barely-entertained flights of fancy prepare me for what actually comes out of Asher Anitsiskwa’s mouth. “I knew your mother.”

Emmie Mears

MY MOTHER EXISTS IN such isolation in my mind.

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I never knew her. Whenever I pictured her it was always in selfish connection to myself. What I’d missed out on. What it might have been like to grow up with her, what her hair may have smelled like. If she would have liked chamomile tea or preferred coffee. What family could have felt like. What things she would have taught me if my hands hadn’t been destined for the hilts of swords. To bake bread, perhaps, or to change a tire or both. Wondering if she would have loved me. I never thought of who she might have been, what connections she may have had. Even when I saw the news article about her disappearance, I don’t remember it mentioning any family or close ties. But someone must have missed her. What if that someone was Asher? I have no memory of Eve Storme, but Evis has all of her memories. Without thinking, I move to the side of the sofa where my brother is still twisted around, his face full of confusion and every muscle on his body frozen in that rigid shade way that means he’s freaked. “You knew our mother,” I say finally, my words feeling like blocks of wood that dissolve to sawdust as they leave my mouth. “Eve Storme,” she says. “She and I go way back.” “No!” Evis blurts it out and untwists his body to get off the sofa and stand by me. He tugs at my arm as if my attention’s not already on him. “I don’t know her.” Mira’s hands go carefully to the hilts of the daggers in her belt, her lips thin with distaste. If Asher’s lying, I know Mira’s thinking we can’t just send her trundling off into the Kentucky wilderness. But none of us are keen on the idea of killing a norm, and a pregnant one to boot. I was sickened enough having to do it when it came to stopping the births of shades. I resolve that it will not come to that. That we’re even entertaining the thought of hurting this person makes my tongue bitter. I meet Mira’s gaze and shake my head so slightly it would be

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imperceptible were she not looking directly at me. No violence. Not now. Not here. Asher looks at Evis and I now, and I think it’s grief I detect in her gaze. If she saw the shift between me and Mira, she doesn’t let on. Either she’s an Oscar-worthy actor or she really did know our mother enough to mourn her. “If you did know our mother,” I say, “Evis would know you. He carries all her memories.” “Not all of them.” This time it’s not just Evis who freezes. Jax and Mason go still, and Asher sees it. “It’s unlikely that the two of you would have any discrepancies in your memories of your hosts,” Asher says to them, and her voice is gentle like waves lapping on a shore. She’s reassuring them. Why? I can’t make heads or tails of this woman. She isn’t trying to hide any emotion. She showed up here unarmed—though some witches don’t need to reach for a weapon to be dangerous—and probably days away from her due date. She’s at our mercy, and she knows it. “Please explain.” I take Evis’s hand and hold it tight. He doesn’t squeeze back. I can’t imagine what he must be feeling. I don’t even know what I’m feeling. “It’s a long story.” Asher suddenly looks very tired. “Until the world ends, it seems like we’ve got nothing but time,” I tell her. “Start with how you got through wards set by some of the Summit’s best witches.” “I used this,” she says. Asher holds out an amulet after digging it out of her pocket. Looking closer, it’s a small glass phylactery with blood in it. And not just blood. When she holds it up to the light, I see squiggles against the glass. Hair. Somehow I know without asking that the hair is the same yellow-orange as the hair on top of my and my brother’s heads. Somehow I know without asking that the blood in that phylactery belongs to my mother.

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“Does anyone know what that is?” I ask, hoping Mira or Mason will have some sort of explanation I can trust more than this stranger’s. Mira shakes her head, but Mason nods. “It’s like the spell Gryfflet used to track Gregor.” “I never saw any such thing.” I hope Mason’s right. I hope he is. “Only the spell maker is supposed to see it, or it clouds the path. Gryfflet got around that nuisance by managing to tie it into the apps on your phones. Or at least that’s what he told me.” I wish Carrick were here. He’d know. He helped Gryfflet make that spell. I’d call him right now, but I don’t want to distract him. “Okay,” I say. “So you’ve got a tracking spell aimed at my mother. How’d that get you through the wards?” “It’s not just a tracking spell,” Asher says. “It is that, but it’s more. It cloaks me in her essence, and the wards that are in place here are geared to your DNA. It was a gamble—I was prepared to set off any warding that existed here. But it got me through just fine.” “Good to know these wards would be useless if a shithead parent were after you,” Mira mutters. I almost say, Good thing neither of us have parents, but I stop myself because if those words came out, I’d be a shithead Ayala. I already feel like one for even thinking it. I don’t know whether or not to believe Asher about an amulet getting her through the wards. If she was desperate enough to try, though, I can let her fudge that detail. I just won’t let her fudge on the rest. “Tell me how you knew our mother.” I feel Evis next to me. His unease, his distrust, his confusion. I know what that’s like, to doubt everything you think you know. “She was my roommate in college, and my best friend for the past forty years.” Asher sees Evis’s face just as a wave of fury from him almost engulfs me, and I think it’s only my tight grip

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I have on his hand that keeps him from running at the woman. She sees it, or senses it. She stops. “Your mother was not a hells-worshiper.” I open my mouth to object, my free hand nearly pointing at my brother, because hello, case in point. He has our mother’s memories, and if he doesn’t remember seeing Asher’s face at all, what she says next better be convincing. Asher goes on, so quickly that her words jam together. For the first time she looks flustered. “Your mother was devoted to ending the threat of demons. I was with her through her pregnancy with you, Ayala. When you were born and taken from her, she became obsessed with learning everything she could about the Mediators. She wanted to learn how to help you.” Now my hand squeezing Evis’s is more to anchor myself than to hold him back. I want to believe what she’s saying. Oh, do I ever want to believe those beautiful words. I think every Mediator would love to know that their parents fought in secret to aid them. Mira looks about as trusting right now as if she’s been handed a piece of toast smeared with shit and someone told her it was Nutella. “Prove it,” is all I can manage to say. Asher doesn’t have much on her, just the winter coat she’s wearing and a small backpack. Her feet are covered in leaves and sodden, and I feel like an asshole. She reaches for the backpack. Her hands tremble. In spite of the size of her belly, with most of us standing around her, she seems very small. “Jax, go grab a couple pairs of clean socks from my room.” I turn to face him, still holding on to Evis. Jax looks bemused, but he gets up, stretching to sort out the kinks he’s worked into his back from sitting in a near-spiral. He returns a moment later, and I motion him to give Asher the socks. “Your feet are probably freezing,” I say. “Take off your shoes. Put those socks on.”

Emmie Mears Ayala storme series

Asher rummages in the backpack, but she gives me a thankful nod as she pulls out a small album of photos. “I don’t know if you’ll take these as proof.” She reaches out a hand with the album, and I step forward to take it. Evis comes with me. I get the feeling he’s holding tight to my hand for the same reason I’m gripping his. We step back to the sofa and lean, and I have to let go of him in order to open the album. The first page is two women. One is unmistakably Asher, though thinner and not pregnant, fewer lines on her face and a brighter light in her eyes. The other has hair the same color as mine and a smile so wide it looks like it’ll take over her face. They’re at a music festival, outdoors in the sun. I can almost feel the humidity, almost hear the cicadas. I hear a sharp intake of breath from Evis. My own breath freezes in my lungs as I process what I’m seeing. Our mother. Eve Storme. There she is, on the page. A face I’ve never seen, and yet bits of it are reflected back at me every time I look in a mirror. Her nose is my nose. We have the same widow’s peak. Her skin is freckled enough that she almost looks tan. The picture was taken in the height of summer, it seems. Both she and Asher are in white tank tops, both with colored bras showing throw them. Their arms are around each other’s waists, and their grins look like they’ve just been laughing about a shared secret. I look closer at this woman who brought me and my brother into the world. I’ve always wondered what color her eyes would be. It’s a shock to not see Mediator violet or shade indigo in her irises. Instead, they’re gray. She looks alive. She looks beautiful. She looks normal. For a long time, Evis and I simply stare at the picture. Neither of us make a move to turn the page. It’s obvious that this woman is our mother. I can’t help the tightness that constricts my throat or the sting in my eyes. There’s nothing I can feel, but at the same time, I feel everything. A maelstrom rages inside my head at the image in front of me. We stare so long that

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I forget there’s more to ask, a deeper explanation needed. It’s clear as day that Asher and my mother knew each other. Which means Evis’s memories are wrong. “We need you to tell us right now why Evis doesn’t remember you.” I don’t want this to escalate, but from the way I can feel the roiling thoughts in my brother’s mind, if he doesn’t get answers now, things are going to go south. Fast. “Because I set up a mental warding that kept him from knowing me.” Asher struggles to reach her feet around her pregnant belly, but she shakes her head at Mason when he steps forward to offer help. She manages to get the dry socks on while the rest of us process what she’s just said. “Why?” I ask. I can feel that Evis doesn’t believe her, and I feel the same echoes of distrust from Mason and Jax. “We thought it was safer. We weren’t sure what her son would be like or how much control the hellkin would have over him. If they could look into his mind. Demons have telepathic links, you know.” No, I don’t know. My mouth falls open, and I close it right away because that I can believe. I’m living it. It explains a lot, busting through some of the battles I’ve been through with the equivalent of red arrows pointing to moments where the hellkin shifted strategy or coordinated without speaking to each other. And in the wake of that bulldozer of information comes a question that pops out of Mira’s mouth before I can voice it myself. “Why the fuck don’t we know that? It seems, you know, relevant.” Mira sits forward in her chair now, her eyes intent on Asher. “It’s not common knowledge.” Asher seems to choose her words carefully, like she’s looking at an array of the English language and sifting through to find the right ones. I have no doubt that if I were to take the others into the bedroom to talk, Asher would hear us.

Emmie Mears Ayala storme series

“She’s hiding something,” I say bluntly, not caring that Asher jumps a bit at being spoken about when she’s sitting not ten feet from me. Mira shoots her a look, but keeps surprise from showing on her face. “Yep.” “Are we going to trust her or not?” It’s one thing not to mean us physical harm at this exact moment. It’s something else to extend that trust to the future—or keeping Asher here in our home. Whether she knew my mother or not. “What can I do to assure you that I intend only to help you?” Asher asks. Mason raises an eyebrow at me. Jax pretends to be very interested in his controller. “Tell us everything,” Evis says. There’s a red flush to his neck that I don’t remember ever seeing before. I think if I stuck a tuning fork on his shoulder, it would hum from the tension. “I can’t do that,” says Asher softly. “Why?” I ask again. “I know it’s asking a lot of you, to show up here unannounced and expect you to believe I’m a friend. I can’t tell you much more. But if you look through that album, it will at least show you that I love—loved—your mother. Neither of us ever thought I’d meet you.” Asher looks suddenly tired. She knows she’s at our mercy. She starts talking.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR EMMIE MEARS WRITES THE books they always needed to

read about characters they wish they could be. Emmie is multilingual, autistic, agender, and a bad pescetarian. Emmie makes their home on planet Earth, and (soon) more specifically in Glasgow, Scotland. They live with their partner and two rescued kitties who call Emmie and John a forever home. However you felt about the book, please consider leaving a review on Goodreads or the site of your favorite retailer (or if youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re feeling extra angelic, both). Reviews are golden to author-folk. Thank you for reading and for supporting! Visit the authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s website at: www.emmiemears.com