Guardians of the Boundary (Book 3 of The Conjurors Series)

Chapter 14

Valerie went home that night to wait for Oberon instead of staying out with her friends to strategize like she had been doing the past few weeks. It was time to stop avoiding her father.

When Oberon came through the door, the furrows in his brow were pronounced, making him seem older than she'd ever seen him. Perhaps for the first time, it hit her how ancient he was, how many mistakes he'd probably made over the centuries, and how many people he'd loved who had died.

He began to make himself tea, but his hands were shaking. Without saying a word, Valerie took over for him, putting tealeaves in steaming water as her father sat heavily in a chair at the table.

"Mom would've been proud of you today," Valerie said.

"Dulcea didn't forgive me," Oberon said, resting his head in his hands.

"But I do," Valerie said.

Oberon stood and pulled her into a fierce hug, surprising her so much that she almost dropped his mug of tea.

"Thank you," he whispered into her hair.

A knock on the door made Valerie pull back. Oberon didn't meet her eyes, and she sensed that he was a little embarrassed by his display of emotion. She left the room to answer the knock and give him time to get himself together.

Sanguina stood on their front steps, and Valerie immediately reached for Pathos, her heart rate accelerating. Sanguina had proven that she'd changed, and Valerie knew that she wouldn't have survived her last trip to the Black Castle without Sanguina. But there had been many more years when Sanguina had haunted her, making her life even more miserable than it already was, at Reaper's request. So even though she trusted Sanguina now, she couldn't stop her automatic defensive response at the sight of her.

Oberon joined Valerie at the door and greeted Sanguina with less hostility. Sanguina and Valerie's mother had been best friends, and he knew Sanguina before she had been turned into a vampyre by Zunya.

"Lydia, come in," Oberon said, using Sanguina's real name.

"It's Sanguina now," she said. "I can't erase what I did, and it would be a lie to live as Lydia again, like nothing happened."

Sanguina shuffled through the door, her gait a little uneven from her prosthetic leg. As they walked toward the kitchen, Sanguina picked up a picture of Valerie's mother from a shelf.

"I keep thinking Adelita can't really be gone," she said.

Oberon took a breath and assumed a businesslike expression. "Are you here for a visit?"

Sanguina put the picture down and turned around. "No. I would never come near Valerie and Henry unless there was a need. I know they don't want to see me."

A spasm of guilt made Valerie stare at her feet as she remembered Sanguina saving her life on the battlefield. But she couldn't deny the truth of her statement. Sanguina had mentally tortured Henry to an even more sadistic degree than she had tortured Valerie, and she would never be a welcome guest in their home.

"I have a message from a friend, a former Guardian who now lives with the merpeople of Illyria," Sanguina said. Illyria was the vast underwater world on the Globe that had cities in every major body of water.

"Who sent me this message?" Oberon asked.

"It's not for you. It's for Valerie. Leo needs to speak with you, and he asked that you also bring Cyrus," Sanguina said.

Valerie was puzzled. She had met Leo two years ago when he had chosen to leave his life above water behind and become an immortal Illyrian, tasked with managing the Akashic Records, which was the log of all knowledge in the universe. He wasn't supposed to surface very often, and he'd recently come from the depths to help them infuse their weapons with light when they had rescued Darling from the Black Castle.