“What is this?” Wilder asked as he hunched over the pages.
“It’s the journal of the last Witch Hunter, Bram Axford,” Dara explained. “It’s from the 17thcentury and Bram stopped hunting witches when he realised that they weren’t all as bad as he’d been led to believe. So, he started studying them instead. This imageshows what happens when a Shadow Witch crosses over. The theory is that they can’t take their magic into the world beyond the living, so it chooses someone to host it and hold it like a vessel, but I think it’s a combination of a vessel and a tether.”
“What makes you say that?” I asked, tracing the lines of the image.
Dara hummed thoughtfully. “Because a tether pulls you back into the living.”
That made sense. When Wilder had been pulled under, he’d been so still. At first, I thought he’d died, but whatever was happening to him had pulled him to the edge of death. His heart rate and breathing had slowed immensely, and I’d had to keep checking on him. It had been a tense few hours.
“I haven’t been having visions, have I?” Wilder’s voice was quiet, and he sounded lost.
“No,” Dara replied. “I think you’ve been communicating with the dead. Or they’ve been sending you messages.”
Huh. Did that make him a necro-postal service?
Wilder stepped back from the table looking like a deer in headlights. “This is… well, it’s a lot.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the visions?” Dara asked softly. “I could have helped or—”
“Really?” Wilder cut in, his tone harsh. “The last time youhelped, we lost everything.”
Dara tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. It was the same shade as Wilder’s, but where his fell in jagged waves, hers were soft curls that hung just passed her shoulders. It wasn’t hard to believe that the pair were siblings, even though Dara was a few centuries older.
“What do you remember about your childhood?” she finally asked.
“Why?” Wilder looked as confused as I was.
She’d certainly asked a curious question. Why wouldn’t Wilder remember his childhood?
She took a deep breath. “Because I had your memories altered.”
Wilder stepped back like he’d been physically slapped.
“You did what?” I hissed. Rage burned hotly under my skin at the thought that someone had messed with Wilder in this way.
She scowled at me, her eyes narrowed and face fierce. “You weren’t there. You don’t know what we had to escape. I sacrificed everything to protect him, so don’t you dare look at me like I’m the bad guy.”
I clenched my fingers into the wooden table so that I didn’t reach for my gun. “Then explain it now, or so help me, I will put a bullet between your eyes.”
It wouldn’t kill her, you needed specific magic laced bullets for that, and I didn’t have any on me, but it would sure make me feel better.
“Why, Dara?” Wilder asked, his voice barely above a whisper. There were tears brimming in his eyes and the sight of that made me angry. No one got to put tears in his eyes except me.
Dara sighed and her shoulders dropped. “Our father wasn’t a nice man and what he did to you was despicable, Wilder. I had those memories altered to protect you.”
“When?” His voice was a thready tremble.
“When you were fifteen,” she answered.
Wilder’s nostrils flared as he took a deep shaky breath. “What did he do to me?”
“Wilder…” Dara pleaded. “Don’t go there.”
“The nightmares are memories, aren’t they?” he whimpered, and it made me want to hold him. He was breaking apart in front of my eyes and there wasn’t anything I could do.
“Where is he?” I snarled at Dara. “Where is his father?”
I hoped to God he was still alive, because I was going to kill the fucker for even thinking he could lay a hand on Wilder.