SADIE DIDN'T SLEEP THAT NIGHT. OR THE NIGHT AFTER THAT. OR ANY after that.
She had maintained her new brave ferocity, but inside, something was wavering.
It could have been any number of things. The news Noah brought was devastating. "He played us," she'd said, neck deep in her books and notes. "Raven pretended he didn't know about the war. That he didn't know what was to come. But he'd planned every second of it."
We all felt a bit more scared, a bit more enraged, and admittedly a bit more hopeless now. But we were focused.
While my father kept training the Red Bloods, the Survivors among us recreated the power charts Noah told us the rogues had made, trying to determine everyone's power and possible weakness. But there was a flaw: Powers, passed down through the generations, began to mutate. A Survivor's power sourced from his parentage, and if they were able to determine a Survivor's parents, they thought they'd have a better shot at knowing where the physical weakness that would serve as a Survivor's Achilles heel would be on his body. Sadie had always asked questions of parentage and power, but now she had reason to go after this information. So Ben, Noah, and Sadie began tracing any lines they could between one Survivor's power and another, between one's possible weakness and another's. They covered the guest room walls in butcher paper and wrote on them.
One afternoon, I wandered in, and they were all arguing.
"We can't forget what we already know as facts," Sadie said. She stood in front of a wall where they had written the names of the fourteen elders at the top, then a line of all who they theorized to be second-generation Survivors, then third, fourth, and fifth, forming a giant pyramid. They were, of course, only guesses. "All Survivors in our family have powers that are traceable back to the fourteen elders."
"And you want to what? Figure out where everyone's power comes from to have a guess at what their weaknesses might be?" Noah asked.
"So what you really need to know," Sarah said, "is each Survivor's parentage."
Sadie saw the conflict of interest here, and sidestepped it. "We need to know the power's point of origin — its ancestry, if you will. That will tell us where the power is housed in the body, I'd assume, from the success Noah had in determining Peter's weakness residing in his windpipe since that's where his power lived." Her answer was diplomatic and didn't answer Sarah's question. But we all knew that determining parents was exactly what she was after.
Ben scoffed. "It's no use! That assumes we know which power a second or third-generation Survivor's powers evolved from, but we can't know that. There are too many variations of powers as they get passed down. Look at all the Red Bloods. They descended from only two powers — Kutoyis's and Sky's — but there are a dozen versions of inherited powers in the second generation alone. There will be no way to distinguish who a power came from, not really."
"I see your point," she said. "But name me a power that we could confuse as belonging to one elder but really belonged to another. I mean, your water power, Ben, can't have much to do with, I don't know, Catherine's ability to control Survivors' bodies."
Noah shook his head. "They all won't be that simple to weed out. Look at my power. I can sear things, burn them at the touch. But that could be as much a version of Andrew's power to control an element — fire being one of the elements — as it could be a version of electrocution evolved from John's power to harness lightning bolts of electricity or use himself as a power grid to give electricity to the whole town. And how would we ever tell which of those powers — which of those parents — mine came from?"
This brought a stiff silence in the room. Noah had just reasoned out that he was either in Andrew's line or in John's. That he either deemed himself the child of a Good Guy or a Bad Guy.
Even though I knew that observation probably sent her head spinning in a million directions I couldn't follow, Sadie wasn't deterred. She shook her head and argued, "We have to at least try. What we need — what we have always needed — is information. We need to know how to kill rogue Survivors. We need to know every power Raven might take from the Survivors inside the city, every weakness he's going to exploit. We need to know as much about each Survivor, about each enemy, and about ourselves as we can. Otherwise we'll be massacred because you can bet that whatever we don't know, Alexander does. And if Noah and the other rogues were already figuring out everyone's powers and weaknesses with Sam's help, then they have a head start on us."
She called him Alexander again.
"Can I say something?" Sarah asked softly. No one objected. "Hannah and I . . . we obviously support Sadie and all of you in your efforts to protect our family, to defeat this one called Raven, and to destroy the rogue Survivors, should you have to. But you are playing with fire by trying to trace these lines of who belongs to whom, or who came from where. We made the decision to raise all Survivors as a part of one family three centuries ago, and I still think that was the right decision. If you begin this dissection of the family tree . . . the damage may be irrevocable."
"But Sarah . . ." Sadie said.
"No buts. If you discover what you hope to, if you reveal our family's secrets to themselves, you are forcing Survivors to confront truths they may not be ready to. I cannot condone this," she said. Sadie looked displeased and turned her back on Sarah, staring at the pyramid on the wall. "Please just think about it." With that Sarah left the room. Hannah followed her.
Sadie's face was intently focused on the wall. "Everett, close the door." I did as she asked.
"What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking we already know how to reveal secrets," she said. "Where's Lizzie's book of Elixirs and Incantations?"
Fateor. Of course. We did know how to reveal secrets: all it took was making the Fateor elixir, and opening Sadie's skin to retrieve her blood. This had served as a point of contention between Sadie and me.
Ginny appeared in the doorway with the book. "It's genius," she said. "I can't believe we didn't think of it before. I've got Mark coming so he can help with the healing."
"Okay, mind-talkers. Time to clue us in," I said. "I've gathered you want to use Fateor, but what exactly are we revealing?"
"Symbols," Sadie said. "Noah, did you notice the symbols on Peter's wrist?"
"Of course. They were so strange," he said.
"When did he get them?" she asked.
"Early on. I think it was the first time he returned to us talking about acquiring powers. I assume the symbols had something to do with the power he'd acquired," Noah said.
"Can you draw them for me?" she asked.
Noah obliged, sketching out three symbols on a piece of paper.
"These two V shapes are blue," he explained, "but the big one is green."
A look of awe dawned on Sadie's face. Quietly, she said, "The symbols weren't about the powers. They were about the person. Sam had the same symbols on her wrist when she was in Sam form. They stayed with her when she shifted into Peter's form when she impersonated him. And I'd bet anything, those two little symbols tell us who the person's parents are."
"What makes you say that?" I asked. That was the only piece of logic I couldn't follow.
She didn't look at me when she said, "Call it more than a hunch." I swallowed uncomfortably, and I wasn't the only one. Relenting, she added, "Something Sarah said. She said "dissecting the family tree.' You remember all those symbols in the cave at Ephesus? In a pyramid like this? I think they were a family tree."
"Whose family?" Ben asked.
"A family of Survivors," she said. "Likely one Alexander killed."
"How sure are we about that?" Ginny asked.
"We've only ever seen the symbols on one other wrist: his. And it's just a cross. And at the top of that pyramid of symbols . . ."
"Was a cross," I said.
"He's the creator," she said. "A self proclaimed alpha and omega. The Point of Origin. I'd be willing to bet he puts himself at the top of the pyramid, unwilling to admit he came from anywhere other than himself. And the rest of us came from him."
"Do you think that is where he came from? That he really had no parents? That he just . . . came into being?" Noah asked.
"I think he's working very hard to forget that he came from somewhere, just like we all did," she said quietly. Something chilled me about this. She was not talking about Raven's evil or his actions or his war. She was speaking of his self and his psyche. I didn't want to think about him as something tangible and three-dimensional. I liked him as an abstract creature, an omnipresent threat. I did not like him as a person.
Sadie interrupted my thoughts. "If we want to figure out powers, we have to figure out parents. And if we want to figure out parents, we need to see the symbols on everybody's wrists. The Fateor will show us, and then, once and for all, we'll know."
Ginny mixed the ingredients of the elixir with a mortar and pestle. Mark used Ben's blood this time, to spare me, I'd guess, but he had to take him outside to get the blood and heal the wound. We all knew better than to open any creature around Noah.
Ben spoke the prophecy aloud because it was his blood in the mix, and when the potion turned silver, as it always did, Sadie dropped some on Ben's wrist.
His wrist began to glow crimson, but seconds later, the glow dissipated and Ben was left with three crimson symbols on his wrist.
She did Noah next, and three symbols app eared on his wrist too: one crimson, one green, and the larger, center one in black.
"Do me!" Ginny said. Her wrist turned a solid black, and then the three symbols appeared in the familiar triangle. Her upper left symbol was green, upper right a glowing white, and her center one black, like Noah's.
"This is . . ." Sadie trailed into silence, lost in thought. She stared intently at the symbols on all three wrists.
She took a step back, a deep breath, and then focused intently on each of them, one by one. Then she said, "Well I'll be damned. The colors I read off you are the colors of your largest symbols. They aren't just telling us parentage. They're telling us species. Yes, it makes sense. Noah and Ginny have black symbols in the middle, and I can read blackness off of them — and you — so that must be the vieczy color. They each have a green symbol in their smaller symbols, but that was Sam's main one. That must mean that nosferatu, or maybe all shapeshifters, are green. Noah has one red symbol, just like Ben. Those must be Survivors. Ginny's white symbol must be Adelaide, and that must mean a regular witch. Ben is all Survivor, and so he is all red. I bet the blue marks are humans because Sam had two blue marks, and the nosferatu are born of humans," she explained.
We all looked at each other. Strangely, she made sense.
"Try it on yourself," I said. If she was right, this would tell us once and for all what Sadie was.
She looked nervous, but dropped the Fateor on her wrist.
A myriad of colors came from her wrist then. Blues and crimson, black and green, mixing and melting together.
But this time, five symbols appeared.
A red upper left symbol: Survivor. A smoky green upper right symbol: shifter. Lower symbols were the V and inverted V of Sam's symbol set, only one was white, a witch, and one was blue, human.
And in the center, a symbol we'd seen before. It was the same color as her eyes. Blacker than purple, more violet than navy. Brighter than any color that dark should be. The color of Sadie.
She started breathing hard. "Go get Kutoyis," she demanded.
Ginny bolted, following the order.
"Ben, go with Mark. Take the elixir and have him take you to a human. See what symbols appear on their wrists," she said quickly. Ben looked frightened, but went quickly.
Then it was just Sadie, Noah, and me. "Noah, let me see yours." He sat down next to her on the bench and lined his wrist up to hers.
"Our top two symbols are the same," she said. "If these are parents, like we think, then you're my brother. My real brother."
"More than that," he said. "Born at the same time? If we have the same parents, that makes us twins."
"Twins," she said softly, and nodded. Her face was stricken with some kind of emotion I couldn't read. With some kind of emotion she couldn't handle.
"Twins," I said, thinking of Kutoyis and Sky. The connection between Kutoyis and Sadie continued to deepen.
Ginny and Kutoyis appeared in the doorway. Sadie took the last of the Fateor and put it on his wrist.
Five symbols appeared on his wrist too. One red and one green, identical to Sadie's and Noah's top two symbols. One blue and one white, identical to Sadie's lower two symbols. And then a mark of his own in the middle that was slightly darker than Sadie's but otherwise just the same.
"What does this mean?" Kutoyis asked.
"It means that we came from the same place," she said. "And it means we really aren't normal."
"How can someone have four parents?" Sadie said aloud, pacing hours after the initial discovery when she continued to tear the observations apart.
Ben and Mark had tested two humans, a male and a female. Both had the same blue V and inverted V symbols in the parent spots, and then each only had either the V or inverted V symbol as the larger one.
"I'm sure this doesn't mean you have four parents, princess," I said. "You're jumping to conclusions."
"I'm sure it is exactly what it means," she said.
"No one can have four parents. To begin with, you'd have two sets of DNA."
Sadie stopped. "Can we look at my DNA?"
Ginny laughed. "Yeah, sure. Let me grab a strand of your hair, hop up to my lab, and map your genome." The sarcasm dripped from her words. I shot her a look.
"You don't have to be mean about it," Sadie said defensively.
I narrowed my eyes at Ginny. In 1974, Ginny received a PhD in microbiology. Add that to her M.D. she had from years before, and some other degree she had in genetics, and she might more or less be considered an expert when it came to DNA. We might not have the equipment lying around to do it (when did that ever stop my siblings?), but I knew for a fact that she could, in fact, hop up to a lab and map Sadie's genome. So why, then, pretend like that was an impossible feat?
Gin saw me looking at her, and she stared back at me blankly, the Don't Say It threat in her eyes. So I stayed quiet.
Sadie continued. "It has to mean something other than parents. You say you and Noah are twins, and yet you think you have different parentage? How can you argue that, princess?" I reasoned.
"I have nothing better to go on!" she fumed. "Look, let me do it to you," she said, reaching for Mark. "You'll have symbols that are the same as Ginny's, if we're right."
"No way. Tattoos aren't my thing," he said.
"They aren't tattoos!" she whined.
"Do you know how to get them off?" he asked.
She sighed. "Fine. Everett," she said pointing to me.
I wouldn't have minded, but behind her, Mark was subtly giving me a Don't Do It look. Added that to Ginny's weird evasion, and I wondered what they were hiding now, not just from Sadie, but from me. But because he was my brother, I trusted him and followed his lead. "I'm with Mark. It's not my style."
Sadie huffed in frustration. "Why are none of you willing to cooperate?"
No one answered her, so she just started pacing again, muttering Think, think, think under her breath.
"What about hybrids? What is a hybrid, really?" she asked.
"It can actually be a lot of different things," Mark said, "I mean, we come from different species, so we're all hybrids really. And even the other kinds — structural, permanent, numerical — all come from two parents, as it were, or at least just two sets of DNA reproducing into one thing."
"Not four sets reproducing one thing," she said.
"Though there are chimeras, which are weirder," Ginny said. She was lying on the bed, tossing a ball. She looked utterly bored.
Sadie rolled her eyes. "Why would Greek mythology have anything to do with this?"
Ginny looked confused, but Mark clarified. "Sadie is thinking of Chimera in the myths. She's an immortal fire-breathing monster thing. Part goat, part serpent, part lion."
"In Theogony, she's actually part goat, part lion, part dragon," Sadie corrected.
"Right, well, that's the one you'd know. Gin's talking about a biological chimera," he said. His eyes narrowed. "Jeez, why didn't we think of this sooner?"
"Someone clue me in," Sadie said.
Ginny continued with the ball. "In biology, a chimera is a single organism that has the cells from two distinct strains of DNA."
Sadie whispered: "He called me a chimera. Raven."
Everyone sat up straighter.
"In the graveyard that night. He called me a beautiful chimera. I thought he meant the monster," she said.
"But he meant an actual chimera," Mark said. It was only then I realized he hadn't taken his eyes off of her, completely tuned into this moment. I would have given anything to know what he was thinking. Or, more likely, what he was slipping outside his bulwark and letting Sadie hear.
"Anybody else just starting to notice that a lot of what Raven says is literal? And yet we stupidly think it's not?" Ginny asked.
"That's the riddle," Sadie said. "He actually tells us everything we need to know. We just don't believe that's what he's doing."
"But why would he do that?" I asked.
She looked at me, tired. "I don't know." She was lying. Looking away, she asked, "So I was born this way? In a lab? In a petri dish? From a monster, what?"
Mark shook his head. "It seems more likely someone did this to you."
My stomach caught. I thought of the first days I had Lizzie's merging power, and of the time we were practicing our skills and Ginny accidentally merged two squirrels into one, slightly larger and more powerful squirrel.
Sadie wasn't born a chimera, was she? She was born as two different things entirely, and Lizzie had made her into one girl. One girl who stood a head above her peers and had a little more power than the rest of them. One broken-hearted girl who had never quite felt whole.
She was merged. Two creatures merged together, that was my Sadie. It all made sense then. Born of one set of mortal parents — human and witch — and one set of supernatural ones — Survivor and shifter — and she became . . . a Sadie.
And if I had to guess? That thing that happened to Kutoyis and Sky after they were born, the thing no one was there to witness but it made them magical? They were probably merged too.
Ginny looked at me, eyes narrowed. She willed me to talk, to say what I was thinking aloud.
I can't, I said to her in my mind. It's just a guess. And we can't risk her losing it over a guess.
I waited, every muscle tense, to see if Ginny was going to rat me out. But she stayed quiet too, likely because I had done the same earlier for her.
Sadie sat on the bed, next to me. "I need to talk to Alexander," she said.
"That's the worst idea, princess," I said.
"Even if it isn't a bad idea," Mark said, "you know we can't. We can't find him."
"You're right," Sadie said. Only she looked like she was lying again.
"We just need to go back to focusing on the powers, the chart, the weaknesses. The rest of this was a distraction," I said.
"A distraction?" she asked. Tension emanated from her.
"Princess, it's not going to help to know all this now, not in the long run," I said.
"You're right," she said again. She didn't think I was right.
"Look, princess, let's just . . ."
She cut me off. "Stop calling me princess!" she snapped and got to her feet. "I'm not your princess. I'm not anything. Why on Earth do you call me that, of all the things you could call me?" She was heated like I'd never seen her. The rest of the room sat quiet, tense, waiting for my response.
I stumbled, taking a few tries to get the words out. "Because it's your name."
"No it isn't," she hissed.
"When we were kids, Sadie was a popular nickname for the name Sarah. That's what I always think of when I hear it. Every Sadie I knew was really named Sarah, and Sarah means princess," I said.
Sadie's face went ice-white. "Oh my god."