Chapter 115 What Remains
The elevator doors opened on the ground floor just as Victoria’s heels struck the last step of marble on her way out.
Aria had heard Maya’s voice on the phone twenty minutes ago. Urgent but contained, the way Maya got when she was trying not to panic.
Elder Morgana. Come now.
That was all she needed to hear.
She hadn’t come down here for Kane.
She hadn’t even thought about Kane until she stepped into the lobby and the first thing her eyes found was a woman she recognized standing in the center of the floor with her coat swinging open.
Aria stopped.
Her mind took a moment to catch up with what her eyes were seeing.
Victoria Blackstone.
Here.
And the curve beneath that coat, small but impossible to miss once you had seen it. Unmistakable in the way certain things were once they were in front of you.
Victoria’s eyes found hers. Something passed across her face. Something like amusement.
“Well,” Victoria said quietly. “Now you both know.”
She pulled her coat closed and walked out.
The doors swung shut.
Aria stood exactly where she was.
Kane took a step toward her.
“Aria.”
Her mouth opened slightly. Nothing came out.
Her mind was moving but not in a straight line. It kept circling the same image. The coat. The curve. Victoria’s face when she looked at her.
“Let me explain,” Kane said. He took another step. “Just listen to me for a second.”
“I…” She stopped. Shook her head once. “I don’t. I don’t have time for this.”
“Aria…”
“I don’t have time, Kane.” The words came out quieter than she intended. Almost to herself. Like she was reminding her own body to keep moving. “I don’t have time for this right now.”
She turned toward the elevator.
Kane closed the distance between them and reached for her. “Just give me a minute. One minute.”
She pushed his hand away. Not violently. But with a finality that said everything she wasn’t saying out loud.
She pressed the button and stepped inside without looking back at him.
The doors closed.
Kane stood at the elevator with his hand half raised and nowhere to put it.
“Kane.”
He turned.
Devon was standing at the corridor entrance, expression tight.
“You need to come and see something. Right now.”
Kane looked at the closed elevator doors for a moment longer than he should have.
Then he turned and followed Devon down the hall.
The elevator opened onto the corridor outside her apartment.
Maya was standing near the door, arms folded across her chest, worry written plainly across her face. She looked up when she heard the elevator.
“What took you so long?” she asked, moving toward her.
Aria stepped out. “I got held up.”
Maya studied her face and opened her mouth.
“I’m fine,” Aria said. She wasn’t. “What’s happening. Talk to me.”
Maya held her gaze for another second, then let it go.
“She won’t let anyone in except you. She sent the doctor away an hour ago. Wouldn’t even let them through the door.”
“She sent the doctor away,” Aria repeated.
“Told them there was nothing to be done.” Maya’s voice lowered. “She wasn’t wrong, Aria. I could see it when I went in earlier. She looked…” She stopped. “Just go in.”
Aria pushed the door open.
The room was dim. Curtains drawn against the afternoon light. A single lamp burned low on the table beside the bed.
It smelled like herbs and old wood and something else underneath that Aria could not name but recognized instinctively.
Elder Morgana lay in the bed.
In all the years Aria had known her, she had never once seen her like that.
Seeing her like this was its own kind of shock.
She was smaller than Aria remembered. Or maybe the bed made her look that way. Her white hair spread across the pillow. Her hands rested on top of the blanket.
Her eyes were open.
They found Aria the moment she stepped through the door.
“You’re late,” Elder Morgana said. Her voice was thinner than usual but carried the same authority it always had.
“I came as fast as I could.”
Aria crossed the room and sat in the chair beside the bed. She reached for Morgana’s hand without thinking.
It was cool.
Lighter than it should have been.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Morgana said.
“Like what.”
“Like I’m already gone.”
Aria said nothing.
Elder Morgana’s eyes moved slowly across her face. Reading her the way she always had. As if Aria’s face were a page she had been studying for years and could still find new things in.
“What’s bothering you, child?” Morgana asked.
“You’re the one lying in bed.”
“Don’t deflect.”
Aria looked down at their joined hands. “It doesn’t matter right now. I heard you sent the doctor away.”
“I imagine Maya was displeased.”
“Maya is worried.”
“Maya worries about everything.” A faint trace of warmth crossed her face. “It’s one of the things I have always liked about her.”
The lamp flickered slightly.
Neither of them acknowledged it.
“You didn’t send for me to talk about Maya,” Aria said quietly.
“No,” Morgana agreed.
Silence stretched between them.
Her thumb moved weakly against Aria’s hand.
“There are things I want to tell you,” she said.
The room felt smaller.
“What do you mean?”
“Your power.” Morgana’s fingers tightened around hers, surprising in their strength. “What lives inside you is not simply a gift. It is not simply strength.”
“It is a responsibility that was placed in your bloodline before you were born. Before your mother was born. And there are people who have known this for a very long time.”
Aria’s throat tightened. “People like Alexander.”
Morgana held her gaze.
“People like Alexander.”
Silence settled, heavy and absolute.
“He isn’t coming for your pack,” Morgana continued. “Not primarily. Your pack is a means to an end. What he wants, what he has always wanted, is what you carry inside you.”
She paused to breathe.
The effort showed now.
“If he gets it…”
“He won’t,” Aria said.
“Listen to me.” Morgana’s voice sharpened despite her weakness. “If he gets it, it will not simply make him powerful. It will make him something this world does not have a name for yet.”
“You need to understand what you are protecting. It is not just your children. It is not just your pack.”
Aria’s voice was barely steady. “Then what is it.”
Morgana closed her eyes for a moment.
When she opened them again, something inside them had settled.
“Everything,” she said.
The lamp flickered again.
This time it did not come back.
The room fell into thin grey light bleeding through the curtains.
Morgana’s grip on Aria’s hand loosened.
Not all at once.
Slowly.
The way things ended when they had been held together by will for longer than they should have been.
“Elder Morgana.”
Aria leaned forward. “Stay with me. You haven’t told me enough. You haven’t told me what I need to know.”
The old woman’s eyes were still open.
Still on her face.
“You already know more than you think you do,” she whispered. “You have always known. You simply have not been still enough to hear it.”
Her eyes closed.
Aria sat in the dim room with Morgana’s hand in both of hers and did not move for a long time.
Behind her, the door opened softly.
Maya stepped in.
She said nothing. She crossed the room and placed her hand on Aria’s shoulder.
And stood there.
Aria closed her eyes.
And finally broke.