Reapers - Master of Souls (Reapers Chronicles Book III)

26 - Siblings (1 of 2)

Keep me dumb, keep me paralyzed

Why try swimming? 

I'm drowning in fable

You're not that saint that you externalize

You're not anything at all  

26 – Siblings

Alex kept trying to connect to me through the link as I followed Cairo to where the Grimoire was supposed to be hidden.

"It could be a trap," his voice echoed inside my head like it was my own conscience. "Vincent is losing his mind, Aramis."

I expected some weird satisfaction from Vincent's misery. None of it came, though. If anything, I felt guilty. I said I loved him. That I wasn't expecting anything in return except that he let me stay by his side. And here I was, doing the exact opposite.

Big talk.

In the end, I shut Alex out just like what I did to Vincent.

It wasn't until we had rounded the unmarked northern boundary to Centralia that my train of thought was interrupted. Plumes of smoke rose up from the ground like giant pillars. There were more sinkholes than before. Only, there wasn't a single Stray in sight. I never thought Centralia could be even more bleak.

Alex had warned me about this place. He wouldn't let me near my Dad's house. He thought Legion was holing up in these parts.

"Troubled?" Cairo glanced at me.

Pretentiously, I looked around. "This is the part where the net springs up and I'll be hung upside down from a tree, right?"

Cairo stopped, his eyes narrowed as if in question.

"It's a trap, obviously," I scoffed at myself. "Every time... Every single time I mess up, I'm still surprised how well I do it. No wonder a lot of people want me dead."

His face showed no trace of understanding, or any reaction for that matter. With a sigh, he walked ahead, searching for something from the pocket of his coat as he did. It was a white cloth pouch with crescent moon embroidery that somehow looked familiar to me.

He stopped at the edge of the nearest sinkhole and sprinkled the contents of the pouch around him. It looked like a mixture of dried leaves, flowers and wood shavings.

Kneeling on the ground, he drew the amethyst pendant he was hiding under his shirt, pressed it onto his lips and closed his eyes.

"How long do you plan on gawking at me like that?" he muttered, unmoving.

I followed him. "What are you doing?"

Glancing at me from the corner of his eyes, he recited "Absinthe, willow bark and sandalwood. Amethyst rune. Powdered skull of a feline and several other things, which would take precious time to enumerate."

My left eye twitched involuntarily as a wave of familiarity infiltrated my system. It was like jolts of electricity awakening my sleeping memories. It awed me how easy, how natural it felt to remember; that pouch, the pendant.

They were from me.

"A Scry?" I gasped before my mind could even process the ingredients.

"You remembered," he replied, his voice quiet like the sound of rain. "After all, it was you who taught me these things."