My mother stopped and looked at us. Adam’s hands had not moved from my waist, and by the way, his heart was pounding. This was the most exciting story he had ever heard.
“So, does this mean that I will stop aging too?” I asked, noticing my throat was dry.
“At some point, you will. I haven’t aged in the last eighteen years. Then again, I spent most of my existence on a cloud outside the Pearly Gates.” She laughed at this.
“So, when I’m eighty, she’s going to look twenty?” Adam piped up.
I looked over my shoulder at him and saw that his eyes were wide.
“Most likely. That is if she survives that long.”
“What do you mean, if I survive that long?” I exclaimed.
“With everything that is about to happen, we just don’t know the outcome. People are going to die, Dawn!” My mother’s tone was stern, her voice hitting a high peak by the end of her sentence.
“That doesn’t mean that I will,” I said sulkily, feeling the prickle in my fingertips.
If I burst into flames right now would I hurt Adam?
“No, it doesn’t mean that you will,” she conceded. “But have you put any thought into this, Dawn? Have you thought about what’s going to happen when this war is waged? We started this to save Wesley and only Wesley. It has become so much more than just that. There should never have been a reason to call all the Wardens together, and definitely no need to create an army of our own.” She was shaking. I had never seen her so crazed.
“I know how it started, Mom. I know this is all because of Wesley. I didn’t know what Miranda was, or about her mother when all this started. I didn’t even know what I was. I have come to terms with the fact that I have mixed blood. Now all this other shit is happening. The Prophet is here, and Helen and I have to raise Krista from the dead. Adam knows everything. But how am I supposed to raise someone from the dead?” I felt the tears burning my eyes and my skin getting hotter.
“I know this is a lot of responsibility, Dawn! I have seen centuries of wars waged, and good people die.” Tears were rolling down my mother’s cheeks now.
Adam’s heart was racing behind me, and his grip on my waist had become more insistent.
“Then we need to secure some key targets without starting a war,” Adam said quietly, almost too quietly, but we both heard him.
“What do you mean?” my mother asked.
“You need all four Wardens, as you call them,” he explained. “Instead of waging war, why not employ some secret ops tactics. Take out Miranda and save Wesley. You might need him, anyway, if his gifts are what you say they are. From there flush out her mother. You take out the queen, and the monarchy falls.”
“He has a valid point, Mom,” I said. ‘Perhaps we can avoid all-out war.”
Adam leaned over my shoulder. “Shawn could gather as many Carriers as he can muster and train them, show them how to survive. If he has lived five hundred years, then he’ll know how to survive. Mrs. Weathers, can you let any of the purebloods know what’s going on?”
I didn’t know if Adam had really thought about this or it was formulating a plan as he went along. The question was though, would such a plan work?
“How do we get ahold of Shawn?” I asked.
“Leave that to me,” my mother said softly. “You remember when Nick said it takes someone with a tremendous amount of power to summon a Demon?”
I nodded.
“Well, I’m going to do to him what Mr. No Name did to you.” She stood up and left the room.
“Do you think it will work?” I asked Adam as I pushed myself off the bed.
“I don’t know. I was just trying to come up with something that didn’t involve a conversation about people dying. It’s worth a shot, I reckon.”
He followed me from my mother’s room and back into the living room, where Helen and Nick sat silent.
“We heard yelling, and your mom just ran out the door. Everything okay?” Nick asked.
“I have a brother,” I announced loudly. It felt weird to say it, but it was true.
“You mean Shawn?” Nick asked, seemingly unperturbed by the news.
“Did you know?” I asked, flabbergasted.
Adam had his hands on my shoulders and was rubbing furiously.
“No, I just heard his name come up a few times,” Nick said as a smile spread across his lips.
“Ass.” I laughed as Adam dropped his hands and walked to the couch, shaking his head.
“Alright, so, I thought we need to get everything out in the open here,” said Helen. “So far the last week has been pretty much one thing after another. We can’t go anywhere, so we might as well get the whole story from you, Dawn. From start to finish. Leave nothing out.”
“I think we should wait for Mom,” I replied, looking at her. The pang of misgiving was no longer there now that I knew she in no way threatened me.
“Yeah, we can do that, but afterward the floor is yours,” she answered, glancing at Nick.
“Do I need to be here for this?” asked Adam. “I mean, I don’t know if I want to go through all that again…”
“I think you have a lot of insight, being an outside party,” Helen countered. “Not to mention knowing what a mortal sees could be key to a lot of questions.”
Adam didn’t seem to like that answer and started to fidget.
We sat in silence after that, Adam with his hand in mine, tracing the outline of my finger creases. Helen and Nick sat side by side, having a thumb
