“What?” I shot forward. “Why would she tell them that? She took my place as the prophecy so they wouldn’t put it on me. Why would she purposely draw attention to me like that?”
“It wasn’t to draw attention to you. It was to draw attention to herself. Your mother was a narcissist, willing to do anything for attention.” Stace dropped her gaze back down. “Even have a daughter and claim she’s the prophecy as a way to get back into our world.”
I pressed a shaky palm over my mouth before letting it fall away. What did you say to something like that? I just found out my mom had me as a way to get attention, a ploy to allow her back into a world that didn’t want her. A sudden coldness expanded from my midsection. I swallowed over and over to keep the emotions tightening my throat from breaking free.
“The Council tested you and proved you had powers. But you weren’t ready for the academy, so they released your mother from the elemutus to care for you, certain she’d changed. Not all of us agreed with their decision, including Mindy Wilkerson, who signed on as your watcher. She didn’t trust your mother and thought it might be a trick. So, year after year, she watched over you and reported back to the Council on your progress as a budding elemental.”
She furrowed her brow and pursed her lips, slowly shaking her head. “Only, you didn’t bud. You seemed to regress to the point your powers no longer manifested. Every once in a while, you’d show signs of an element heeding your call, but not often enough to warrant extracting you and bringing you to Clearwater. Until right before your sixteenth birthday. That’s when everything changed. Your watcher came to the Council and said she believed you really were the prophecy and should be extracted to be trained to fulfill your destiny.”
Betrayal hit me so hard, it bruised my soul and broke every ounce of trust I’d ever had in the woman I’d considered a surrogate mom after mine had disappeared. The shock knocked me out of my speechless state. It took me several tries to get the words dislodged from behind the lump in my throat. “Ms. Wilkerson believed I was destined to be the prophecy?”
“She did. When the Council came to extract you, your mom begged them not to take you, to take her instead, insisting you weren’t ready. I believe she volunteered to take your place as the prophecy, not to protect you, but because this was her plan all along. She used you to not only return to this world, but to return a hero, the center of attention.”
That much I’d put together on my own. I crossed my arms over my chest and turned to look the opposite direction from the woman dropping so many bombs on me, it felt like I should dive for cover. Stace’s betrayal hit me hardest of all. She’d known about this, carried these secrets all this time instead of telling me the truth. “How could you keep this from me?”
“I never found the right time to tell you.”
Slowly, I turned my head until I nailed her with a heated glare that burned me from the inside out. “And you thought now was the right time to drop all this on me? I’m trying to build an army to go up against the Council, and you tell me this to…what? To shake my confidence?”
“On the contrary. I’m telling you this to prove to you that despite what your mother did to keep you from your true destiny, you still found a way. You, Katy Reed, are the true prophecy.” She reached for my hand and then pulled back, hesitant.
I grasped it, drawing her wide gaze. I wanted to be mad at her—in fact, I was furious with her—but I also knew now was not the time to hold a grudge. I’d unpack everything she told me later. Right now, I needed her by my side more than I needed to stay angry.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before now,” she finally admitted and hung her head.
I squeezed her hand before releasing it. “You can make it up to me when this is all over. For now, how about we concentrate on the present.” I tried the coffee again. Ouch. Dammit. Still too hot.
Stace ran her hand over the coffee. The steam followed her command and lifted from the cup. She picked up her mug and brought it to her lips, eyeing me over the brim.
Well, duh. Why didn’t I think to use my powers to cool the liquid? It would have saved me the brutal wait time and burning pain. I followed suit and took another sip, sighing with contentment as the gloriousness traveled down my throat.
“When Cressida came to the coven that night,” Stace went on, “I believed most everything she said, but there is one point she made that I don’t agree with. Well, the interpretation of her message, anyway.”
“That is?”
“You are not the one standing in the way, as in singular. You are the one leading those of us willing to stand in the way of the Council destroying this world. You, and now the quad squad bound to you, will lead us to victory.”
“Thanks.” No pressure.
“If we’re going to make it happen, you’ll need this.”
I whipped around. Bryan stood at the entrance to the treehouse, a set of colored pencils in one hand, a sketch pad in the other. Relief washed over me. “You came back.”
“Of course I came back.” He pushed off the doorframe and stepped into the room. “I said I needed to think, not run away. Did you know Tabitha in the next treehouse over is an artist? She was out drawing in the field, so I told her about the plan, and she offered up her supplies for the cause.”
“Thank you!” I accepted the magnificent sketch pad and brushed