His face darkens. “With Clive and Remi?”
“Yes.”
“Cut myself off again? Risk shifting?” There’s no anger in his tone, only defeat. The pain in my heart from tonight’s events intensifies. Ash will be on his own again—for us.
I shuffle across the floor to rest my head against his legs and he takes my hand.
“Do we tell Amelia?” I ask.
“I’m unsure. Before we make any decisions about anything, I need to speak with Theodora,” he repeats.
“And then meet tomorrow, after you’ve spoken to Theodora?” I ask.
Tobias taps his lips. “No. I have somewhere I need to be tomorrow.”
“Again?” protests Andrei. “Secret Confederacy meetings?”
Tobias's eyes flash in anger. “No. Don't question me.”
“Tobias,” I say, incredulous. “Can’t whatever you need to do wait until we’ve taken steps to protect ourselves? We’re in more danger than ever and you're walking away!”
This time when his eyes meet mine, he doesn't look away.
I wouldn't go if I didn’t need to. Trust me.
“I’ve no choice,” he says aloud. “I have to go, but I promise I’ll return by tomorrow evening.”
I’m too exhausted to protest; the prospect of a walk back to Walcott feels like a trek across the moors. Nobody else argues either, but we share disbelief that Tobias would walk away the day after we discovered something enormous.
Whatever reason he’s leaving for had better be a bloody good one.
Chapter Sixty
TOBIAS
I stand with my hands buried deep in my jacket pockets and steel myself. With everything happening, the last thing I want to do this morning is visit a terraced house in a village almost two hours away from the academy.
I didn't lie to the others. I’ve no choice.
Even if I don't want to know the truth, Maeve deserves to. I calmed her when she freaked out about the letter and promised I’d dig deep for answers. The problem is, the answers I found raised more questions, and I’m left with one person who knows the truth.
Is she still here? Marie wrote her address on the letter to Maeve, but I’ve heard she’s hard to track down because she flits from place to place.
I met her once and witnessed how she’s unstable and not connected to the world. Will she remember me at all?
This could be a huge waste of time.
A bronze bell hangs above the black front door with a long chain hanging down. Curtains are drawn across the tall window to the left, and herbs or weeds grow inside brown ceramic pots close to my feet.
As I lift my hand to ring the bell, the door opens.
Marie regards me without surprise but says nothing. She’s tiny, dressed in skinny jeans and a sleeveless blue top revealing tattooed arms. The only resemblance to Maeve is her white blonde hair, but Marie’s isn’t natural.
“Can I speak to you?” I ask as I fight against reading her mind. Marie would sense the intrusion, and I can’t piss her off before I’ve had a chance to ask my questions.
Still, Marie doesn't speak. She has forgotten me.
“Sorry, I didn't introduce myself. I’m— “
“Tobias Whitlock. Yes. I’ve seen you.” She wrinkles her nose. “In my head, or have we met?”
“Once.”
Cars pass along the road behind me and I’m half-inclined to use mental magic to get myself through her door.
“Is this about Maeve?” she asks.
“Yes. Maeve asked me to look into something for her, and you might be able to help.”
“Oh?” She opens the door wider. “You should come inside, then.”
I follow her along a carpeted hallway into a lounge room crammed with chairs and shelves. Every inch is covered with books or knick-knacks; even the armchair she offers me contains too many cushions. I place one on the floor to allow me enough space to sit.
Witches’ homes always have a peculiar smell, the way Sofia’s classroom and Walcott do—pungent combinations of oils and herbs.
“What would you like help with?” Marie sits in the chair beside the empty fireplace and curls her legs under herself.
I bite down hard on my lip as I summon the words. “Is Maeve a Winterfall?”
No reaction.
“A Winterfall witch.”
Confusion flickers across her face as she stares at me, then her mouth parts. “It is you. You're him.”
“If you know my name, you know who I am,” I say, attempting not to sound rude.
“My memories mix with the future,” she says. “I never know for sure who people are. But I do know the Winterfalls are dead. Are you him? Did you kill them?”
My name was suppressed—how else could the authorities let me walk the world without witches killing me—but some know who I am.
“I did see you,” she says. “You were younger, and your hair was longer. Forgive me for not remembering, but the vision was almost twenty years ago.”
“I was a small child twenty years ago.”
“And I am a future-sighted witch,” she says. “I saw far into the future, to the older Tobias Whitlock.”
I swallow. “You haven’t answered my question.”
Marie rubs her lips. “Do you think Maeve is a Winterfall?”
“I don't know how she could be, because they’re all— “
“Dead, Tobias?”
My chest tightens. “Yes. Maeve couldn’t be a pure witch or her birth would be recorded, but is her father a Winterfall?”
“Do you mean was her father? The Winterfalls are dead.”
I squirm at her repeatedly reminding me about the past and shoot back, “Is Maeve your daughter, Marie?”
For a second, she looks at me as if I’ve asked her to dance naked around the room, and then she bursts into laughter. “Goodness, no. I don't have any children.”
“Then Maeve’s parents are her real ones?”
“And who decides what a real parent is?” She smiles.
“Fine. Are they her biological parents?” I watch her face for clues, because there’s no possibility that I could find anything in her muddled mind.
“Why are you asking me these questions? If this is what Maeve wants to know, where is she?”
“At the academy.”
“Does she know you’re here?”
“No, but I promised her answers,” I say firmly and sit forward. “I have to say, Marie, you’re not as I expected.”
“Oh?” She props her hand beneath her chin, elbow on the chair arm, and studies me.
“I heard that you’re unhinged from reality. You seemed odd last time I met you.”
“I have lucid times, but I’ve spent too much of my life living inside my visions and trying to help save lives. That takes a toll.”
“And now?”
She brushes at her jeans. “Now I know this is the present, but I’ve visions of you in the future and in the past.”
I rub my forehead in exasperation at her cryptic manner. “Who is Maeve?”
“Who are you?”