“Out of here!” she exploded, waving madly at the air surrounding her. “Out of this lame-ass, out-of-date world that no longer contains the love of my life and my two children who aren’t evil.”
A trickle of blood formed in the corner of her eye, but she wiped it away before snarling at him and focusing on her rage again so she wouldn’t get too compassionately sentimental. “Now stop asking questions before I stab you again, and I won’t let Quilla resuscitate you this time.”
Lips parting, Indigo spun toward me. “You’re going back to Earth,” he realized. “So that must mean you know how to complete the ritual and trade places with someone there, so you can stay permanently.” His mouth formed a shocked O before he frowned in thought. “Wait. You had to have always known what it takes to stay there if three of the traveling party that went with you in three-ten are still there. But why would two of you come back?”
Eyes darting back and forth, he considered that conundrum for a second before he suddenly snapped his fingers. “Because you needed something physical to complete the replacement process, something you obviously didn’t have enough of the first time through.” He looked up at me. “And that thing’s in Tyler. Isn’t it?”
Melaina stepped cautiously closer to him, eyeing him suspiciously the entire way, before she spun abruptly and slapped me hard across the face.
“Hey!” Indigo shot forward, inserting his body between us with his back to me so he could face off with Melaina and push her a step back with his bound hands. “What the hell? You don’t touch her like that.”
“What the fuck did you tell him?” she roared at me over his shoulder, trying to bully her way past him so she could reach me again.
“I didn’t tell him anything!” I cried, backing away because she got a little too close to my face when she swiped out past his arm with her fingernails extended. “Psycho woman.”
“Then how did he know all that?” Fuming, she breathed hard and snarled at me with a murderous glare.
“I was trying to tell you,” I clipped back, beyond tired of her snap judgment and instant accusation that I’d been the one to mess up. “It’s all in his book.”
“His book?” She wrinkled her nose as if the word was foreign to her.
“Yes,” Indigo answered for me. “I wrote all about what I know and how I learned about it in my journal. Now stop accusing Quilla of betrayal.”
Stepping away from Melaina, because she no longer seemed homicidal, he bent down and plucked his journal from the ground. After tugging his necklace pendant from the hidden knot/lock and putting it back around his neck, he frowned and blew dirt and rocks from the pages before trying to iron them back to rights with his hand as best he could with them bound together.
“Dammit. This page is wrinkled now. And—” He choked on his own horror. “This one is torn. Son of a bitch! My baby’s been frayed.”
I turned from him, letting him mourn the one-inch tear on a single page in his book, and I narrowed my eyes at Melaina. “His great-grandmother was an earthling, which led to his fascination with Earth and tracking down everything to do with it. He figured out quite a bit about what it takes to get there from his research, but he doesn’t know exactly what we need, nor did he realize only Graykeys and their mates can go travel through the portal. He calls the earthlings who come here, trading places with us Replacements.”
“Replacements?” Sniffing, Melaina rolled her eyes. “What a stupid term to use.”
Indigo wasn’t paying any attention to her, though. He was too busy thinking again, because he suddenly said, “I’m still confused about how only Graykeys can travel to the other dimension. There was an elderly nanny in Donnelly who went to Earth for a few moon cycles. I’m sure of it.”
“Then she was a Graykey,” Melaina said simply, shrugging him off.
He frowned. “But she…” His eyes widened. Reopening the book he was still holding, he ran his fingers over the page until he stopped. “There,” he murmured. “Janicka of House Godone and claimed mate of Percy of House Graykey. Born in two-fifty-two, she’d be seventy-six now, which would match Nanny Wynter’s approximate age.”
“What in the world are you babbling on about?” Melaina wondered irritably.
But I remembered reading what he’d written about Janicka Godone. “She’s the one who somehow managed to break her bond with her Graykey mate,” I said. “She ran off and was never heard from again.”
Indigo nodded, glancing my way. “Right after her mother-in-law died in two-seventy-eight when she stole two of Janicka and Percy’s infant children and made them disappear. I thought she’d just gone to Earth to be with the kids, because that had to have been where they disappeared to, right? But what if she didn’t have whatever it is you need to stay, so she had to remain in the Outer Realms? It would make sense for her to change her identity and go to Donnelly to become a nanny. Shit.” He shook his head. “No wonder why she always avoided me whenever I tried to interview her about her trip. I was a High Cliff knight. If her true identity was ever discovered, of course, she’d think I’d turn her in to King Ignatius to be tortured and questioned about the whereabouts of all the other remaining Graykeys.”
“So, you’re saying you know where the mate of Percy Graykey is? Right now?” Melaina asked with interest.
He widened his eyes, then he straightened. “No,” he said, the lie pathetically obvious.
“I mean her no harm, silly boy,” Melaina waved a distracted hand. “Just intrigued by her. Janicka was before my time, you see, but I heard the stories. Percy considered it a great conquest when he caught her and claimed her as his. She was a pure mage with multiple gifts. She could produce force fields around entire villages and read a person’s character, as well as bits of their future by simply touching them. Plus, I guess she also figured out how to break the bond to her fucking Graykey mate. The lucky bitch.”
When Indigo simply stared at her, she cleared her throat and lifted her chin. “As you can tell, I’m a fan of her work. I was not able to break the bond with my mate. Once Quilla and I returned from Earth the first time, I was compelled against my will back to my husband’s side. Things had calmed down after the reaping by then, thank God, but I had to disguise her as one of my maids until Qualmer—who shares my gift with disguises—ran across her and was able to look past the glamour to see her true image. And the idiot tried to diddle her, of all things, so I was forced to send her off to boarding school in—”
“He did what?” Indigo roared, looking ready to commit murder with his bare hands.
But Melaina waved his fury aside. “Yes, yes. He’s as wicked as his father, I know. But luckily, I was able to go off on my own when my husband, Pallo, was blessedly executed near the beginning of the Great Lowden War. By the way, thank your countrymen for me someday, will you, sweets? Life’s been infinitely better since they executed him. I found my way back to Quilla, and together, we’ve been searching for a pair of amulets ever since.”
“Amulets?” Indigo repeated, immediately latching on to the word.