“Kyat woke up,” he goes on. “I was in and out of consciousness at that point. I didn’t realize what was happening until it was over. Elon and I were both spell weaving, just trying to stay alive, to heal as best we could. Oront was dead, and that meant Elon was hit with the transference. It gave him the extra boost he needed to battle the injuries he’d sustained, but we were both dangerously weak. Kyat had the blade in Elon’s throat before either of us could so much as lift a hand to stop her.”
I gasp in shock. It wasn’t Oront who popped back up like the serial killer in every mainstream horror film, it was his fucked up mistress who survived to wreak havoc.
“Elon pulled the knife out on instinct,” Rogan continues, his voice cracking with emotion. “I couldn’t work fast enough. He was too hurt, and my magic was fucking useless.” He trails off for a beat, his eyes suddenly lost before they refocus on me. “She laughed as he died. I can still hear her deranged cackle as I pulled Elon to me and tried to stop the inevitable. And then she came for me.”
I stare at Rogan, heartbroken for him, dumbfounded by what he’s saying. He watched his brother die? But then, who the hell did I watch walk off with a hiking pack and Elon’s familiar, Tilda? I can feel the truth in Rogan’s words, but I can’t help the doubt that starts to spread through my chest as I try to make sense of it all. He watches me, and I can see that he’s reading the skepticism and uncertainty in my eyes.
I believe him in my heart, but my mind is arguing that I just got epically ghost-storied. It’s as though my rational brain was right there along for the ride, enraged, devastated, shocked, and then the story comes to an end, and it’s realized that this is all bullshit. Impossible. The storyteller got us. My heart argues to look past what we think we know and see the truth, but I can’t deny that I feel torn and suddenly very lost.
“I woke up in a private room three days later,” Rogan continues. “Elon was in a bed next to me, which made no sense because I’d watched him die. I thought maybe I imagined it, that my injuries were so severe that it all caused me to hallucinate. It wasn’t until my mother, father, and two other High Council members dropped by that I realized what I saw and feltactuallyhappened.”
“How?” I ask, stunned disbelief spilling out of the simple word.
“Help apparently arrived just after Kyat shoved her knife through my heart. They were able to detain her, but Elon and I were gone. Everything was kept quiet as they tried to piece together what had happened, to make sense of why Oront was dead and what he had been doing. But then everything changed. A day or so later, out of nowhere in the witchery morgue, Elon’s heart started to beat. Then mine followed suit. Our injuries began to heal, and no one could make sense of any of it. It should have been impossible, and the High Priestess demanded to know how the hell we had come back.
“Kyat had been questioned while we were out. My mother and her trusted inner circle were able to put together what Oront had been up to. The Druid ritual that Oront was using was known, it had been attempted before and was always documented as a failure. But Elon and I were proof that somehow something we had done made it work. They couldn’t suss out what it was though that activated magic long thought dead.”
“You’re not fucking with me, are you,” I realize, my tone hollow and distant. I can see it in his face, feel it in my gut. My head wants to argue, but it’ll catch up eventually.
“No,” he answers evenly. “Elon and I weren’t renounced because we defended ourselves against my unhinged uncle. My mother and the High Council renounced Elon and me because we wouldn’t tell them how we did it. We wouldn’t tell them the details and sequences of actions that somehow allowed us to cheat death,” he growls, his eyes filled with conviction and veracity.
We stare at each other in silence, the wordimpossibleteetering on the tips of my lips despite my heart clapping at my mind that it needs to get with the program. Rogan’s stare burns into me. And he steps forward until he has me pinned between him and the counter, corded arms boxing me in from the sides.
“I know this sounds crazy. That it shouldn’t be possible, but would that be more impossible than the existence of magic and witches in the first place?” he asks me softly. “How about lycans and vampires? Humans say that the Druids we come from were nothing more than make-believe, but tell meOsteomancer,” he practically purrs, “are they right?”
I think through his questions, unable to argue with the logic.
“Don’t cast the truth aside just because you don’t understand how it works,” he tells me, as though he can read my mind and the struggle I’m having putting both feet firmly on belief. “Fuck, Lennox, Elon and I don’t even understand how it works. But I swear it’s the truth.”
We stare at each other for a long weighted moment. And I feel everything settle into place in me as one resounding question flashes to the forefront of my mind. If Rogan can’t die, and I’m tethered to him, what the hell does that mean for me?
“So where does Prek fit into all of this?” I ask, hoping the answer is something easier to swallow. I need a life preserver of some kind, or I’m going to drown in everything that Rogan just sloshed on top of me.
“His aunt was Kyat.”
“Does he—”
“No,” Rogan interrupts. “He suspects there’s more to the story, but he runs into nothing but walls when he tries to look into it. Kyat was purged at the end of her inquisition. Her family were told that she was murdered along with Oront. It didn’t matter that Elon’s transference ceremony was weeks away and that things didn’t really add up; people believed what they were told. The High Priestess said that’s what happened, and that was that. All loose ends were dealt with, and Elon and I are renounced until we come to our senses and help our parents and their friends achieve what we did.”
“Does this factor into why Elon is missing? Does it have to do with what happened?” I press, finally able to see the picture more clearly.
“I don’t know,” Rogan answers, dropping his head as though he’s too tired to hold it up any longer. “I’ve asked myself that, but I don’t see how anyone would know or why the other Osteomancers would be missing too. There would be no need for that, which makes me think it has more to do with your grandmother’s vision or some other unrelated motive that we don’t know about yet.”
“What am I supposed to do about the Order? Are they coming for me because of my connection to you?”
Rogan looks up at me and shakes his head. “Right now, what happened to us is information less than a handful of witches know. I don’t see my mother risking the secret getting out to anyone else in order to ask you outright. If you didn’t know but figured it out because of something she said or hinted at...I just don’t see her being that messy about it. It’s possible that something’s changed, that they’re now more desperate for answers. Or it’s possible that whatever the Order wants from you has nothing to do with me or Elon. As annoying as it is, we just have to wait on Marx for answers to that.”
“Would they hurt me?” I question, needing to know what I’m up against when it comes to his mother and just how badly she wants answers from her sons. I mean, obviously bad enough to ruin their lives, but does that vitriol extend to the people around them, to the people who dare to get close?
“I’m not going to let them get near you, Lennox, you have nothing to worry about there.”
“That isn’t exactly an answer to my question,” I point out.
His eyes drop from mine. “I want to say no, but I don’t know. It’s been ten years since she renounced us. The High Council has left us alone for the most part, but I don’t know if their tactics are changing,” he admits, and I nod in understanding, my accompanying sigh filled with anxiety and sudden exhaustion.
“So what now?” I press, needing some kind of plan or way to prepare for what might be coming our way. “Elon is missing, which may or may not have to do with the fact that he’s now magically immortal. The Order wants something from me, which may or may not have to do with my connection to an immortal. I mean, I’m only a couple of days into this whole Osteomancer thing, but I think it’s safe to say that I amkillingit,” I declare on a laugh that sounds hollower than I intended.
“Technically, the jury is still out on the whole immortal thing,” Rogan interjects, a teasing gleam in his eye and a smile tempting the corner of his lips.
