“Just calm down,” Jamie repeated in a serene voice as he sat on her couch. Cadence was not sitting. She was pacing, furiously, back and forth. Luckily, she’d been able to control her anger long enough to set the urn back down without heaving it across the room. It sat on the mantel again, reminding her that her fiancé was not to be trusted.
“Why would he do that?” she asked probably for the hundredth time since Jamie had shown up, five minutes after she’d called him on the IAC shrieking about what Aaron had done, which had been about twenty minutes ago.
“For the same reason that you took Elliott out before he could empty it,” the Healer reminded her. “Cadence, he told you he would do whatever he could to prevent you from going through with this. ‘Why are you surprised?’ is probably the deeper question.”
“I thought I could trust him!” she spat, plopping down on the coffee table.
“No, you didn’t,” he replied. “If you thought you could trust him, you wouldn’t have taken the precaution you did. And Elliott would be somewhere else—somewhere that you couldn’t find him.”
She knew he was right. If she really thought she could trust Aaron, she would have left Elliott in his spot on the mantel until she was ready to leave. Yet, the thought that Aaron had maliciously removed him without her knowing made her so angry, she could hardly see straight.
“Jamie, how can I love someone so much and simultaneously spend half of my time wanting to jab his eyes out with knitting needles?”
She could tell he was stifling a laugh, likely at the imagery. “I don’t know,” he said, “but you two manage it pretty well.” Cadence had her fists clenched, her fingernails digging into her palms. “Take a breath,” he urged, reaching over and grabbing her arms. He slid his hands down to hers, forcing her to open them, and once he had her hands, he continued. “Cadence, ask yourself why, exactly, it is that you are so upset about this. After all, he did exactly what you thought he would do. Do you have any idea how remarkable it is that you were actually able to anticipate his next move and block it? I would be shocked to hear that that has ever happened before—in the last hundred and fifty years, anyway.”
He had a point, and she knew it. Things could be a lot worse. Regardless of whether Aaron had taken what he thought was Elliott with him, which she doubted, or he had simply hidden the ashes somewhere at headquarters, which was more likely, the possibility of her actually being able to find him before the blue moon, if she didn’t already have him in her own possession, would have been highly unlikely.
After a few moments of consideration, she managed, “I guess I just feel like I have to have his permission to do everything. Like, he’s still my boss, even though, technically, that’s not the case. And I needed him to approve of this.”
Jamie nodded, as if he finally fully understood what she was going through, or perhaps he had known that was the reason all along and just wanted to hear her say it. “Well, fortunately for you, you are the only one here that could get away with doing this without his permission. If it were anyone else, he could just tell them ‘no’ and that would be the end of it.”
While that may be true, she could think of plenty of people who would likely have gone ahead and done it anyway. And there were lots of people who were helping her who could potentially get themselves into trouble if they didn’t have faith in her that she could protect them. “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter now,” she admitted.
“True,” he agreed with her. Releasing her hands, he leaned back on the couch. “So what is your plan?”
Cadence pulled herself off of the uncomfortable coffee table and collapsed next to him, grabbing a pillow and hugging it against her chest. “I don’t want to tell you because I don’t want him to be able to force you into telling him where I’m at.”
One corner of his mouth pulled up into a crooked smile. “He’s not the Gestapo.”
Shrugging, Cadence said, “I know. But I’d feel better if no one knew where I am exactly.”
“Fair enough. When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow morning, I guess,” she said running a hand through her hair. “I think you were right about just getting out of here, so if he comes back early or something, I’m already on the road.”
“Are you going to tell him you’re leaving?”
“Probably not. Not until I have to,” she replied.
Jamie nodded. “Whatever happens, Cadence, it’ll be all right.”
“I know. Thanks for coming over.”
“Any time,” he smiled, patting her on the leg. “What are friends for?”
“And, hey, when I come back, I’d like to hear more about Hawaii, if you want to talk about it. I mean, not the parts you don’t want to remember, but I’d like to hear about… you know… the happy parts.”
His face lit up a bit, as if a faded memory was playing across his mind. “Sounds like a plan. Be careful out there.”
“I will,” she assured him.
“And Cadence, remember, if that portal actually opens this time, it will likely open again someday. There’s no reason to rush into anything or make any decisions you—or Elliott—are going to regret.”
“Right,” she nodded. He had a point, and that was something she needed to try to focus on. Just because she had a chance to talk to Elliott didn’t mean she had to try to convince him to come through.
“Well, I’ve got important doctor stuff to do,” he said, standing. “If you’re sure you’re okay.”
“I think so,” she said, untangling her legs and rising. As Jamie walked toward the door she followed. “Thanks again.”
“You bet.” He hugged her and then left, leaving her alone with her thoughts. In times like this, there was really only one person she could count on to give sound advice. But this time, calling would require a phone.
Returning to the sofa, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed her grandmother’s number. She answered on the second ring. “Grandma?” she asked.
“Cadence?” came the familiar voice. “Hi, honey. How are you?”
“Confused,” she admitted.
Her grandma laughed softly. “That’s okay. I spend most of my day in a state of confusion anymore.”
Trying not to chuckle, Cadence said, “Grandma, I asked Aaron about the portal, and he is very much against me talking to Elliott.”
The line was quiet for a second. At last, her grandmother replied, “Well, honey, that doesn’t really surprise me.”
“Why? Because of Dracula?”
“No, because of Aaron,” she began. “I know all of that about the evil, demonic Vampires. And I think he’s probably right. But I don’t think that’s the bigger issue here, darling.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, Cadence, something you’ve probably learned about him by now is that he is very much a rule follower. He wants everything to stay the same as it has always been. He wants to do things the way he was taught. Your grandfather was a lot like that. I’m not talking about innovations, of course, but when it comes to the way that things have always been, Aaron wants them to stay the way they’ve always been. Jordan was like that. All of these changes—with the titanium and the Vampire/Vampire Hunter business your sister’s gotten herself into—it would drive your grandfather batty to see it.”
Cadence listened intently to what she was saying. “So do you think that Aaron was told no one is to use the portal, so he is just ‘following protocol’ as he would say, and he doesn’t even realize he’s being unreasonable?”
“Something like that,” Grandma Janette agreed. “I would assume, ironically, the person who told him not to use it was likely your grandfather. And now he’s using it fairly regularly,” she chuckled.
Cadence saw the irony but not the humor. “But Aaron knows that, and he still says not to use it.”
“And he will continue to say that, darling. There’s nothing you can say to change his mind.”
“Do you think he’ll forgive me if I do it anyway?”
“Oh, yes. He’ll forgive you. And if Elliott comes through, what will he do? Say he wishes you hadn’t done it?”
Cadence had been thinking about that for days. “I don’t think so.”
“Of course not. Even if he is right about these awful Vampires that can come through, he’ll see that you were right—eventually. That doesn’t mean he will admit it, but seeing it is sometimes much more important than admitting it.”
She agreed with everything her grandmother had said so far. “All right. So what do you think I should do?”
There was a pause before the answer came. “You do whatever your heart tells you to do. Nothing in this world will ever be truer than your own heart.”
Despite the cryptic response, Cadence knew now exactly what she needed to do. “Thank you, Grandma.”
“I love you, Cadence,” Grandma Janette replied. “You have made an old lady so proud. I couldn’t have chosen a better successor.”
“Thanks, Grandma,” Cadence began, and then catching exactly what she had said, she asked, “Wait—did you say you chose me, Gram?”
“Yes, darling. Many years ago. I saw what you were from the time you were just a little bundle in your daddy’s arms.”
The realization of what her grandmother was saying left Cadence breathless. “Grandma, did Aaron know that?”
“Not exactly,” she started, “I suppose he had it figured out some time ago, though. Like most things.”
“Right,” Cadence replied.
“I’ll let you go now, darling. Have a good night, dear.”
“You, too, Grandma. I love you.”
“I love you, too, Cadence. Always.”
Cadence disconnected the call, her head spinning. When had Aaron realized what her grandmother intended? Had she been engineering this all along? Had she somehow led Drew to the Eidolon Festival? What if this entire time, her grandma had been manipulating the whole situation so that Cadence would end up the Hunter Leader—and, therefore, Aaron’s wife?
It was all too much, and before she could stop herself, Cadence broke into tears. Wrapping her arms around her legs, she sat on the couch, thinking of all the people she’d lost, including her old self, and the possibility of all she could lose if she went through with her plan. Could this be enough to shake Aaron free from the fate her own grandmother had forced upon him?
