I glance down at my arm where he branded me with the mark, now gone, my skin back to it’s smooth, paleness. I remember how Stephan told me that I had evil in my blood and that’s why he was able to put the mark on me. What if that was true? What if do have evil in me? What if this showed terribly when I was possessed? Even if I do manage to reset time and erase it, it can’t necessarily erase what’s inside me.
“Everything okay?” my father asks, sensing my distant thoughts.
I nod, unsure how to ask if somehow I have evil blood in me. And what if it came from him? “I’m fine… just thinking about Alex… and how he was…”
“I understand,” he says. “Losing someone can be difficult, especially if you’re not used to death.”
I want to say that I am used to death, though. Hell, I grew up thinking both of my parents were dead. But now I’ve met them both, fully alive and breathing so it’s not really relevant. And besides, during most of the time I thought they were dead, I couldn’t feel emotions so there was nothing inside me gnawing away like it is now.
“Hopefully, I won’t have to get used to it yet,” I say with a forced smile.
“Hopefully,” he agrees, coming to a stop in front of the mausoleum door. He reaches for the brass handle and the hinges creak as he opens it, as if it had been sealed shut for ages. Then he ducks his head and steps inside the dark and hesitantly I follow.
It takes my eyes a moment or two to adjust to the lack of light and my skin and lungs take even longer to get used to the damp air. “It feels like death in here,” I whisper, hugging my arms around myself.
“That it does,” my father replies, giving me no hope that this building isn’t a final resting place for the dead. He hunches over even more as he begins to descend farther into the dark. The low ceiling drips murky water on our heads and the cold tile floor is cracked and stained. The pillared walls are deteriorating, chipped and flawed, but in a hauntingly beautiful way. Decorated with red lanterns, the whole place has a soft glow which flows around the room and lights the way down a narrow tunnel.
“This way,” my father instructs with a nod of his head, reaching up to unhinge a lantern from the wall and carry it with him.
I trail after him, the air growing heavier the further we go and the floor feeling more like ice than tile. I start noticing little details the more my eyes adjust to the dark. The way vines flourish from the ceiling, the sound of a river flowing from somewhere nearby, how on each pillar there is an eye carved in the center, the pupil an S wrapped by a circle—the Foreseers’ mark. Is this a place for the Foreseers? Is it linked to the City of Crystal? That idea makes me nervous, especially if Nicholas has access to it.
“What is this place?” I trace my fingers along one of the eyes. “Does it have something to do with the Foreseers?”
My father shakes his head, the lantern swinging from his hand. “This is a place where no one wants to be.”
I’m about to ask him to explain more, but we reach the end of the tunnel where there’s a large midnight blue trunk, trimmed with gold, perched on top of a Victorian table. My father sets the lantern down beside the legs, then raises the lid of the trunk and sticks his hand inside, retrieving a crystal ball orbed with soft light.
He extends his hand out toward me, his violet eyes more dark lavender. “This is how you’re going to reset time and hopefully create a better future for the world.”
I eye the crystal ball warily. “With just a crystal ball?” I look up at him. “How?”
He takes my hand, his skin alarmingly chilled, and he carefully places the crystal ball my palm. “No, with this and your power.”
It isn’t like any of the other crystal ball I’ve seen. The outer glass is crystal clear, allowing me to see inside to the center where a star-shaped center bursts with light.
“I don’t understand….” I’m transfixed by the crystal ball, unable to take my eyes off it, as though it’s beckoning me to use it. “I thought my power was what ended the world?” I lift the crystal ball to eye-level. “This crystal has a lot of power…”
“That it does.” He shuts the lid on the trunk. “And when I say power, I’m talking about your Foreseer power, not the star’s power.” He stands silently for a moment, struggling to tell me something important. “I’ve done some things in my life that have led me to this place. Things that are unforgivable—things which you’ll understand soon. But I need you to put the future back and fix some of those mistakes.”
I wonder if the evil in my blood came from him. “Unforgivable things?”
“I can’t answer that right now,” he says. “Nor can I tell you how to use the crystal ball.”
It fills like I’ve been stuck in some sort of riddle world, where I have to figure out the answers from a bunch of stuff that doesn’t seemed to be linked to anything. “Why can’t you tell me anything?”
“Because you have to figure it out on your own.” He tries to offer me an encouraging smile. “You and I are unique cases. We can both travel into visions without the assistance of a crystal. With enough strength, you should be able to change the vision I erased and recreated.”
I’m dumbstruck, my fingers tightening around the crystal. “You changed a vision? I thought you weren’t allowed to do that?”
“You’re not.” Regret seizes his expression. “The vision I changed was so the world would end… And to this day, I regret it.”
Evil. Evil. Evil. The word echoes in my head. “You made it so the world would end? How…why would you do that?” I step back. Maybe he’s still evil and he’s getting me to do his evil work.
“Relax, Gemma. I assure you there are good reasons for why I did the things. Granted, it’s not an excuse, but at the time it seemed like it was the only option.”
I back away until my back brushes the wall. “There are no such things as good reasons for doing something evil.” I shake my head, feeling the ache of another hidden wound.
“You’ve never done anything bad that felt like it was the only option at the time?” he questions with accusation.
I open my mouth to say no, but deep down I know it’s a lie. “Yes, but…”
“No buts. This isn’t important right now.” His voice is startlingly sharp, his hands balling into fists, anger controlling him. “What’s important is that you fix it—change everything back to how it was originally supposed to be. You need to make sure the world doesn’t end up like it did in the vision you saw.”