“What did the Shapeshifter mean about my parents?” he asked unexpectedly. “Why did they say that my parents were on Katherine’s side?”
Isadora fidgeted, a vein ticking in her temple. My stomach tightened. I felt her dread for what she was about to say. “There’s something I didn’t tell you, Jake.” She hesitated. “I know who your parents were. With abilities like ours, the lineage is fairly limited.”
Jacob’s jaw dropped so fast. “You hid that from me?” I felt the stab of betrayal as if it were my own. Emotions like that, so raw and visceral, were hard to block out.
“I didn’t want to tell you about them, in case you were captured. I feared they would try to use it to persuade you into joining them. I suppose I hoped that, if you ever discovered the truth, you might think they were lying, and you wouldn’t listen to them,” she explained. “Family is a potent thing. Sometimes, you’ll do anything and believe anything to feel close to them, even though they’re long gone. And on the wrong side of Chaos.”
I had a feeling she was talking to me, too. After all, I would’ve gone to the ends of the earth to find out more about my parents, even if she hadn’t come along to fill in some of the gaps. Turning to Jacob, I could already feel a flurry of inner turmoil gathering.
He frowned. “Shouldn’t you have left that up to me?”
“I couldn’t, Jacob.”
“Who are they?”
“Elan and Zara Sowanoke,” Isadora replied after a stilted pause.
“And they worked for Katherine Shipton? The Katherine Shipton? The one who sent those twins to try and kill the Smiths?”
Isadora nodded. “Unfortunately, yes. They worked for Katherine at the height of her power,” she said. I could tell she was tiptoeing around the subject. “In fact, Katherine was the one who encouraged them to be a couple. Elan was a Portal Opener and Zara was a Sensate. She probably figured that the two of them would create a powerful child.”
Of course she did. That sounds about immoral enough for her.
“Great, so you’re telling me I’m only alive because of that evil bitch?” Jacob muttered.
“No, I’m saying that something good came out of her wickedness.”
He shook his head. “How can you say that?”
“Because it’s true,” she shot back. “You have to understand that Katherine was, and is, a ridiculously charming woman. She can influence minds without a person even realizing it. Honestly, she’s a master of brainwashing. She puts Charles Manson to shame.”
“Charles who?”
“Never mind… What I’m saying is, she targeted your parents and she made them feel like part of something important,” Isadora explained. “That’s how she gets people to do what she wants. If they disobey, or they refuse to budge, she finds a way to bend them to her will. She’s spent years researching the most forbidden spells in the world. With them, she uses whatever dark and terrible means she can, until people break and give her what she wants.”
The more I heard about Katherine’s past exploits, the more I loathed her. There didn’t seem to be any line she wouldn’t cross. It terrified me, too. What lengths would she go to this time, to succeed in her future plans of total evil?
Jacob dropped his gaze. “Did she brainwash my mom and dad?”
“I think it’s highly likely. They had something she wanted.”
“But you can’t say for certain?”
Isadora touched Jacob’s shoulder. “No, Jacob, I can’t.”
“What happened to them? Are they still working for her?” I heard the underlying question in his words: Why did they leave me?
“Katherine wanted your father to open a portal to the realm where the Children of Chaos exist in their raw forms,” she said. “He opened the portal, as instructed, and she sent him to see what’s out there. He never came back. Before and after your father went missing, your mother was responsible for mapping out the locations of rogue magicals so Katherine could monitor them and collect them as she saw fit. However, something about your father’s disappearance snapped your mom out of her trance—not by much, but just enough.”
Poor bastard. I wonder what happened to him. It was hard not to think about. He must have gone somewhere and gotten himself trapped. Either that, or something hadn’t allowed him to return. I wasn’t sure which was creepier. My thoughts lingered on Jacob’s mom, too. Just like with my dad, Katherine’s actions had awakened a primal desire to protect at all costs.
Jacob looked up. “What do you mean?”
“You had recently been born, and I guess it awakened a protective streak in your mother,” she replied. “As Katherine became more crazed, her thirst for power got out of hand, and your mother got scared that something terrible might happen to you. She was so worried about your safety that she snuck away in the dead of night and gave you up for adoption. After that, she ran away from Katherine and the cult. I guess she hoped she could come back for you once everything blew over and the Mage Councils banded together to get rid of Katherine.”
But she never did. I’m so sorry, Jacob. I knew what that felt like. He’d probably waited and hoped his real parents would one day return and save him from the uncertainty of the foster system, the same way I’d done.
He shook his head. “How can you possibly know all of this?”
“Because I was the one who rescued her… at least for a while,” she said. I gaped at her in disbelief. All the skeletons were coming out of the closet. “You see, it’s a little-known-fact that Portal Makers can sense the portals other Portal Makers have created. They have a funny bonfire scent, and they leave a silvery trail in the air. Once you can spot them, you can travel through them. Elan left her with a very rare object called an Ephemera—a one-shot gemstone filled with the specific ability of a magical. As far as I know, only a few exist, though they destruct after use. It can only be used by the person it’s gifted to, and your mom used it to escape. I’ll show you how to follow these trails one day, though you can only focus on the trail once your skills have advanced.”
“You rescued her?”
Isadora nodded. “I traveled through her portal and found her hiding out in a shack in the Mojave Desert. We moved around as often as we could. I harbored her in every safe house that I knew about, but… I couldn’t protect her, in the end.”
A still silence settled across the Jeep. Wade remained quiet, taking everything in. Meanwhile, I wanted to ask the question on everyone’s lips, but it wasn’t my place. That had to come from Jacob, if he wanted to know. I could understand his reluctance—coming from the kind of past that we’d come from, sometimes it was harder to learn the truth. All our lives, we put these people on a pedestal. It took one truth to knock it all down. Already, I could see he was struggling with what he’d learned.
“What… what happened?” Jacob murmured.
“Katherine’s agents found Zara while I was away,” she replied. “They tried to get her to go back to Katherine. She wouldn’t go with them, and she fought back tooth and nail. The facts aren’t entirely clear, even now, but an explosion destroyed the safe house. Your mother was inside when it happened. It killed her and Katherine’s agents.” She took a shaky breath, and I could almost see the memories glistening in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Jacob. But please know that she loved you. She put you up for adoption in order to save your life.”
Jacob cleared his throat. “So, Katherine is looking for a replacement? She wants a Sensate and a Portal Maker, and I fit the bill. Two for the price of one, huh? She knows I’m their son, right? That’s why she set this whole thing up, as a way to reach me?”
“I believe so.”
He sighed wearily. “I don’t get it. Why would they have worked for a nutjob like Katherine, knowing what she was? I know you say she might have brainwashed them, but what made them join in the first place?”
“Even good people can fall for cults, Jacob. Lonely people, who don’t feel like they belong anywhere—they can find comfort in such groups, because it doesn’t feel like a cult when you’re in the middle of it. They can make a person feel found again.” Isadora smiled. “Your mother had a hard childhood, and even harder teenage years. She told me a few stories, now and then, but I could never get everything out of her. In a way, I didn’t have to. Just hearing her speak… you could tell she’d been badly wounded.”
My heart broke for Zara Sowanoke, and for the boy she’d had to leave behind. If she’d put herself through all of that, then one thing was clear: she’d loved Jacob more than anything. She’d wanted to keep him safe. It just hadn’t worked out the way she might have hoped.
For a long time, nobody said anything. The rain pattered on the windows, reminding me of uncomfortable RV trips with old foster families. Tears brimmed in Jacob’s eyes. I watched him fight against them, a muscle twitching in his jaw. I thought about reaching over and touching his arm, to let him know it was okay to cry. Instead, I sat back and let him deal with it however he wanted. That was the only way he’d get through this and process the tarnished memory of parents he’d never met.
“I think I’d like to stay and train with you for another month, Isadora,” he said. “I keep thinking about how I messed up back there, and what might’ve happened if I hadn’t been able to get my stuff together. Without my portal ability, I’m pretty defenseless against anything that Katherine might throw at me. Yeah, I have some Air elemental powers, but they’re weak as hell. If I’m going to escape sticky situations like that one at the hideaway, I need to know more. Otherwise, I’m a liability and I may as well have none of this power.”
“I think that’s very wise,” Isadora replied.
“And after the month is up?” I asked.