Nathaniel stood up and began pulling on his clothes.
“Then what are you waiting for Sparrow? Use your powers and save them!”
I was taken back by the sudden flare in Nathaniel’s sweet temper, but the entire situation seemed to make him just as anxious as me. Though his own powers weren’t so strong, he was able to multiply and even enhance the powers of others. A very rare gift, but also a great burden. Similar to Damien, he was forced to bear every emotion felt by others. Nathaniel was also full of yin energy, which made him more vulnerable to the chaos of other people’s emotions.
And right now, it seemed to be overwhelming him.
Sparrow took him into his arms as he looked at me.
“I’ll need something of both of them; it doesn’t matter if it is hair or a piece of clothing. I need the smell to trace his magic in the water…”
“I’ll get it, be ready at the Ancient Springs when I return,” I said and quickly left the room.
I didn’t care how deep I was forced to dive beneath the surface if it meant bringing her back. She was all I cared about and ever since she vanished without a trace, the ache in my chest hadn’t eased for a second.
Desperation gripped me as I stormed into Damien’s bedroom, quickly grabbing his hairbrush and one of her night gowns draped over the edge of the bed, the faint scent of her still lingering in the fabric. My throat tightened as I smelled it. I needed her so fucking much right now.
Without wasting another heartbeat, I ran to the Ancient Springs, where Sparrow was already sitting in his fish-tail form. His posture was unusually still, his normally teasing expression serious.
Nathaniel was kneeling at the edge of the water, his hands tight around one of Sparrow’s arms. He was breathing heavily, as ifthe emotions were pressing physically against his chest with the aim to crush him.
My brother turned to me slowly, one hand reaching out to take the items from me. His iridescent eyes fluttered shut. Then, with surprising gentleness I wasn’t used to from my brother, he took Nathaniel’s hand and laced their fingers together. Almost as he needed him as an emotional support.
Although my powers weren’t the best in water, I felt a current of air rippling forward.
“Hmmm…” Sparrow exhaled. “Their essence… his dragon magic is here, but deeper.”
Suddenly, a pulse of pressure rolled through the water, the surface shimmered and then the water was unnaturally still again.
Sparrow looked down, dipping his head shortly into the water, disappearing for some seconds, his fingers still laced with Nathaniel’s.
“Something down there… in the waters, it’s changed.”
“What do you mean?”
“There is a portal, Xavier,” Sparrow said.
A portal?
And then the water swallowed him whole, leaving nothing behind. Fear and shock spread through me.Where was he going? Why didn’t he say a single word before vanishing?
My gaze drifted to Nathaniel who was gripping the edge of the marble stone, looking at the water where my brother had just disappeared.
“He’s searching for them…”
I knew I should wait… my kind wasn’t meant for water. I could barely make use of my shadows there. I once tried it with my sister when we were kids and wanted to trick her. I failed, and instead of wrapping the shadows around her ankles to make her fall, I wrapped them around the entire pool and carved out theentire water. But I couldn’t just stand there and wait for my brother to save both of them. I looked down at the nightgown clenched in my fist, her scent lingered there. Pears, cherries and flowers. It was home. She was my home.
“I’m not waiting,” I stated, adjusting my hair with my hairbands before jumping into the water.
“You’ll drown…” Nathaniel said. “And Sparrow will kill me for it.”
I grinned at his comment. “I doubt my brother would be the first siren in history to kill his mate,” I replied, before I dove into the water, the cold slamming into me like ice.
The energy of the portal tugged at my senses like a magnetic force and all that mattered in this very moment was her. Although I couldn’t breathe underwater, the energy around the light made me able to take a breath. It felt like a cocoon filled with air in the middle of the ocean. The moment I crossed the threshold, the pressure vanished, and so did the water around me.
It felt like falling.
Was this how Gwendolyn felt when she fell through the portal into our world?
