Chapter 226

Agnes

I stood under the shower, letting the cold water cascade over my skin. My body had long since returned to normal temperature—below it at this point, honestly—but I’d stayed in the pool until my fingers pruned up and added a cold shower to my routine just to be safe.

Just as I was turning off the water, the bathroom door clicked open, and I looked over to see Elijah stepping inside.

“You okay in there?” he asked.

“Better now,” I replied as I swung open the glass door, shivering. “Toss me a towel?”

Elijah grabbed a fluffy white towel from the rack and opened it for me, holding it up. I stepped out of the shower, dripping wet, and moved toward him. He wrapped the towel around me and gently began to rub me with it, drying the dampness from my skin.

“I’m sorry I had to leave dinner like that,” I said, biting my lip. “It came out of nowhere. One second I was fine, and the next…”

“Don’t apologize,” Elijah cut me off. “You did exactly the right thing. Better to excuse yourself than set the dining room on fire.”

I couldn’t help but wince at the memory of our bedroom going up in flames, even if he was just teasing. “True. But I hate that I left Thea like that. She must have been confused.”

“I told her you weren’t feeling well from the trip. She was more concerned about getting a second helping of spaghetti than anything else,” Elijah assured me with a small smile.

I nodded, relieved, and moved past him into the bedroom. My skin was still damp as I rummaged through the closet. Elijah had stocked it with comfortable sweatpants and t-shirts, and I grabbed a set and began to dress.

Elijah sat on the edge of the bed, watching me as I pulled on the soft sweatpants and tugged the t-shirt over my head. There was something in his expression that caught my attention, and I hesitated.

“What is it?” I asked. “You’ve got that look.”

“What look?”

“The one that says you know something I don’t.”

Elijah’s mouth quirked up in a half-smile. “James thinks he’s found the artifact. Or the rough location of it, anyway.”

My hands froze in the middle of combing through my wet hair. “You’re serious?”

He nodded, and my heart skipped a beat.

“Where is it?” I demanded, crossing the room to sit beside him on the bed.

“Ironically enough, the last known location is in Richard’s territory. In the woods.”

I blinked, recalling Elise’s words all too suddenly for my comfort. The trees remember… You have the gift. My throat bobbed. “So… Are we going back?”

“Yes,” Elijah said with a nod, and for some reason I felt almost relieved that he was suggesting we go ourselves rather than sending James or a team to search for it. “According to James, it was last seen in those woods about a hundred and seventy years ago.”

“That’s a long time,” I murmured. “There’s no guarantee it’s still there.”

“No, but it’s the best lead we have,” Elijah pointed out. “And it lines up with what Olivia told me.”

I bit my lower lip, dragging it through my teeth as I thought. Finding this artifact could be the key to unmarking Olivia. My wolf hadn’t fully emerged yet, but if Elijah could still mark me… Hell, maybe my wolf would emerge once our mate was no longer marked to another.

Either way, this was the first step in finally being able to control these damn abilities.

But there was something else that was drawing me back there. Something that had nothing to do with the stone.

“You know, I was planning to send Richard some of the survival bags I made for the Isabella Foundation,” I mused. “Since we’re going back anyway, I’d like to bring them in person, maybe check in on Elise too. She seemed so… lost.”

Elijah leveled me with a stern gaze. “Do you really want to check on Elise, or are you just curious about what she said last time?”

I pressed my lips together and remained silent, not that it mattered. We both knew the answer to that question, even if I didn’t want to admit it.

He sighed. “Agnes, she’s a sick woman…”

“Sick women still know things,” I insisted. “I want to know what happened to her out there. Even if only to help someone else who might get lost. It could be helpful to the foundation, too.”

If Elijah had an issue with that, then he didn’t say it out loud. He hesitated for a moment before speaking again. “Lena asked me some strange questions tonight, by the way. She wanted to know if Thea had any ‘special abilities’ or if your wolf had exhibited anything unusual before it went away.”

My stomach dropped. “What did you tell her?”

“Nothing specific,” Elijah said. “But it felt… pointed. Like she might suspect something.”

“Why would she suspect anything? She hasn’t seen me use my abilities…” I stopped, remembering the strange look Lena had given me right before my hands started heating up at dinner. She wasn’t stupid. She had to have noticed something.

“You haven’t told her anything, right?” Elijah asked carefully.

I shook my head firmly. “No. Only Gertrude and Evelyn, that one time during our girls’ night.”

Elijah frowned. “And you’re sure no one overheard you?”

I chewed on my lip again. “I’m certain we were alone. The staff had all gone to bed by then. It was late, past midnight.” I tried to recall that night, wondering if there had been any sign of eavesdropping that I might have missed.

But no—we’d been in the parlor, doors closed, music playing softly in the background. No one else had been around. “Why? Do you think Lena knows something?”

“I’m not sure,” Elijah said, standing. “But let’s try to keep conversations about it confined to this room from now on.”

…

The following day, Elijah had to leave early for meetings. I’d taken the day off work to catch up on things at home and spend some time with Thea. Around noon, after getting her settled in her room with some toys and snacks, I made my way to my office down the hall to sketch out some design ideas I’d had last night.

I was in the middle of one particularly challenging sketch when I felt a presence. Looking up, I saw Lena walking past the doorway with a basket of laundry in her arms. Our eyes met, and in that instant…

It happened again.

It was like a spark igniting inside my chest, a surge of heat that shot down my arms and pooled in my palms. The same sensation I’d felt at dinner last night, only stronger this time. My hands began to tingle, then burn.

I looked down in horror to see wisps of smoke curling up from where my fingers were touching my sketchbook. The paper was beginning to singe, tiny holes appearing where my fingertips touched.

Shit.

I had to get to the basement before this got worse. Before Lena saw.

I leapt to my feet, abandoning the sketchbook, and barreled toward the doorway. The only issue was that Lena was still standing there.

In my haste, I knocked into her, my shoulder colliding with hers as I rushed past. Her laundry basket clattered to the ground, and she slammed against the wall.

I didn’t stop to apologize, though—I couldn’t stop. My hands were fully glowing now, the smoke thickening, and I could feel the familiar build-up of pressure that always preceded actual flames.

I sprinted down the hall, nearly falling down the stairs in my rush to reach the basement. Behind me, I could hear Lena calling my name, but her voice faded as I punched the code into the keypad and burst into the panic room.

There was no time to stand there and strip off my clothes. So I ran to the edge of the pool and jumped.

My fully-clothed body hit the water with a loud splash just as the first tendril of fire began to shoot from my palm.