Abigail snapped her fingers in the air, shouting, “As long as he recovers Paisley first!”
Ethedra nodded down at her, her eyes narrowed. “Of course. Paisley is most important; my babies are secondary.”
Abigail nodded viciously. Damn right. She looked around, her mind whirring fast. She put a hand to her head, muttering, “How can I possibly meet with thevodvodCrew Arcoal? He can dig into my mind. If I block his attempts, he’ll know immediately what I am, and then he’ll arrest me, and if he arrests me, the seal is broken, and all is lost. If I don’t block him, he’ll know immediately what I am, then he’ll arrest me, and if...”
Her voice trailed off as the only way out filled her mind. She hooked a finger at Ethedra, hissing, “I know what to do and I need your help.”
10—Abigail
Abigail hurried across the room and pulled an empty coat rack from a stack of equipment. She brought it near the slab and set it down, talking to Ethedra.
“I'll have to separate my essence and meet thevodvodCrew Arcoal without it.”
One of the pegs of the coatrack had a clip on it. Abigail took hercaskoff her shoulders and carefully clipped it to the coat rack. She touched the mouth of thecask, and it opened wide. She was dimly aware that Ethedra was saying something, but her mind was on her very important task. Nothing was more important than that things went perfectly with thevodvod. She probed the belly of the fox and found it satisfactory, so she looked around for—
Ethedra sparkled mini fireworks around her, bright and loud, distracting Abigail from what she was doing. “What?” she snarled.
“This is your plan?” Ethedra said, arms out wide, then she put them on her hips. “Separate your animal essence before you go meet with the wolf? You’ll be so confused.”
“It’s the only way to keep him from knowing what I am.”
Ethedra crossed her arms and gave Abigail an incredulous look.
Abigail shook her head. She threw her hands in the air, shouting, “Just listen!” She hurried to a utility shelf, gathering an empty bowl and a pitcher of water, saying, “True, it will take all my memories since I reconnected, and that’s what I need you for.”
Abigail took the bowl and pitcher back to the slab, then went across the cavern to another shelf, periodically turning around to shout sentences at Ethedra. “I’ll take my memories... I’ll form them into something thevodvodwill accept, then separate my essence… You’ll take it for safekeeping… I’ll implant the modified memory, then you’ll send me to my store.”
Abigail gathered some salt in two large clay bowls, and some magical implements. She took it all back to the slab, thoughts of Paisley constant on her mind.
Ethedra looked down her nose at Abigail. “You’ll never pull it off.”
Abigail swung her way. “Do you have a better plan?”
Ethedra stayed silent.
“That’s what I thought! This’ll work—it has to.”
She turned back to the slab and arranged the equipment just the way she needed it, she couldn’t stop the words from falling from her lips. Words she’d never said to anyone before.
“I first separated my animal essencewhen I was… 20 or 21 years old and hiding from myfather.” She spat out the word, hate, fear, and bitterness filling her as she tried not to remember the horror of serving the demon. “I don’t know the year exactly, 1720 maybe, or 1730.”
“Long time,” Ethedra said.
Abigail leaned against the slab, taking a few seconds to rest, wondering where to start. “What do you know about me?” she asked, not sure where the Augury ended and Ethedra began.
After a beat of silence, Ethedra said, “Your father is the Devil of your world and he pursues you and your family constantly, seeking servants and playthings. Your kind is shunned by the othershiften, thewolvenespecially, as they lie to themselves about your origin. You were stolen from your mother at four years old. Your father snatched you from under your mother’s nose, then slammed the mind-gate to the Pravus shutin her face. He marked your chest and demanded your allegiance and obedience. You ran from him again and again, he found you and brought you back, beating and subjecting you, until finally you escaped for good. You’ve been hiding ever since, and now you have generations of progeny to hide as well. You’re not immortal, but you seek to be as long as the Tether is not broken, because your spirit will go directly to the Pravus when you die.”
“Shit,” Abigail whispered. “When you put it that way…” She turned to the slab, fingers weak, arms heavy. She poured water into the bowls, then salt, then awkwardly mixed the water in each bowl with a metal rod, the weight of the years dropping in a little more every second. She thought of Paisley and determination filled her.She wasn’t dead yet.She slammed her hand to the slab, and a metal cup appeared with a finger of Everclear in it.
Abigail drank it in one swallow. “My mother…” she began, her fingers tightening on the rod. Her throat clenched and her lungs seized as painful memories tumbled through her mind and the liquor burned her tissues.
“Serenity Saint Clair,” Ethedra offered unhelpfully.
Abigail’s throat tightened in a vise grip. She couldn’t swallow, couldn’t breathe. Her heart sped up, threatening to break her ribs.Serenity Saint Clair.Abigail had loved her mother with all her heart. After four years of a rough but loving life with her mother, the demon had stolen into their lives and pulled Abigail and Boe into the Pravus, where he’d terrorized them and brutalized them for years, before sending Boe to the Ula to plantfoxenseed in human bellies, making more and morefoxen.
Abigail had never understood why her mother hadn’t come for them. She’d expected to be rescued, even while laying in her own blood and fear, all the way up until she was a preteen, when she’d finally realized she had to rescue herself.
She bent over the slab, her hands to her throat, willing it to relax. Little by little, it did.
