There was a pause as Jeramiah considered her words. It was as though his brain was working at half the speed it should. Then he nodded slowly, and he murmured, “I suppose… I was mistaken. About you… maybe even about Aiden Claremont… Maybe my father deserved to die.”
At this, none of us responded. In my eyes, obviously my brother had deserved to die for attempting to murder the love of my life. But Jeramiah had already received an ample dose of my opinions.
Attempting to disrupt the awkwardness, I re-entered the room and walked over to my nephew. Stooping down, I withdrew the key to his charmed manacles from my robe and removed his chains. My nephew stood up, and then, not quite level with me, looked me in the eye. His face had a sickly grey tinge to it, and his eyes were hollow. Empty.
I was unsure of what to suggest now and, it seemed, so were my three female companions.
Then Jeramiah cleared his throat, his gaze passing over the others. “You may call yourself my family but… I don’t believe that I belong here. I wish to leave.”
Still, none of us spoke. He certainly wouldn’t be welcomed on the island by our residents and none of us were about to lie that he would. I wouldn’t be surprised if Aiden and Kira lunged for him the moment they laid eyes on him. In many ways, it was best if he decided he wanted nothing to do with us and left. But I found myself worrying about him. Where would he go from here? How would he piece his life back together?
“We can transport you to wherever you would like to go next,” I said. I guessed I could pay him at least that much of a courtesy after what I had just put him through. After what I had taken from him.
“No,” he murmured, shaking his head. “I’ll… I’ll find my own way.”
“What do you mean, you’ll find a way?” Vivienne asked. “You do know that you’re in The Shade right now?” She shot me a quizzical, almost accusatory, glare.
And I realized that I had not told Jeramiah exactly where he was. I’d just assumed that he would’ve guessed.
Jeramiah nodded. “I know,” he replied hoarsely. “If you would just give me a boat with some kind of covering, some sacks of blood for the journey… I’ll be on my way.”
I exchanged glances with Sofia, who simply shrugged. We both had too much on our minds regarding our own son to be able to put much more energy into someone else’s.
“Okay,” I said heavily. “Come with us. We’ll take you to the Port.”
None of us exchanged another word as we exited the chamber and led Jeramiah along the winding tunnels, through the depths of the Black Heights until we arrived in the clearing before the forest. Rose suggested that she race to fetch some blood and catch up with us at the Port. I let her go, and as the remaining four of us headed for the forest path, I silently prayed that we would not bump into anyone on the way who would recognize my nephew.
I moved forward brusquely, setting the pace for the rest of them, although Jeramiah was slower than I would’ve liked. By the time we reached the Port, Rose had already caught up with us, carrying a bulging backpack. She handed it to Jeramiah, who took it with a murmur of thanks. I walked onto the jetty and looked around for a suitable boat. We had many new additions to our fleet, thanks to Caleb. We waited for Jeramiah to make his choice, which ended up being one of the smaller boats with a wide covering.
Jeramiah stepped onto the boat, planting the backpack down in one corner. Rose, Viv, Sofia and I stood in a quiet line, watching as he began fumbling around at the front of the boat. He looked so disorientated, I wondered if he even knew how to navigate it out, but he seemed to find his way around soon enough. Just as he was about to cut the ropes that bound the small boat to the jetty, a voice yelled from behind us.
“Derek!” Corrine’s voice.
I whirled around to see the witch rushing toward me across the clearing, and then behind her six figures… three of whom made me believe that Herbert had messed with my brain after all.
Ben
After imparting upon us our strange yet wondrous bodies, the fae did not hang around. Sherus had assured me that he could track us down, and he had made his demands clear, so there was no need for them to stay longer.
Despite our terrifying lack of time, the six of us—Nolan, Chantel, Marcilla, Kailyn, Lucas and I—couldn’t help but just stand there for several more minutes, staring at each other and marveling at our new forms. It took Lucas the longest to accept what had happened. He kept running his hands through his hair, clasping his palms together, dipping down and plunging his fingers into the snow, as if he just could not quite bring himself to believe it was real, and he was expecting to wake up at any moment back in his dark pool in the deepest levels of The Underworld.
Then we could wait no longer. I was the one who drew us all out of our stupor as I said, “The first thing we should do is return to The Shade.” My skin was positively tingling at the thought of meeting my family and River. I could already picture the smiles on their faces, the tears in their eyes.
“The Shade?” Lucas stammered.
I turned my focus back on him. “Uh, yes. All my—our—allies are there. If we’re to have any chance of pulling this off, we need as much help as we can get.”
Although I didn’t want to rope my family into yet another one of my dangerous escapades, this was something that even I was not stubborn enough to attempt to do alone. I’d known that from the moment I had proposed the suggestion to Sherus.