The Path of Darkness

Maeve · Chapter 1 of 6 · 9-minute read

The air still reeks of wolf.

A faint breeze threads through the wisteria canopy above my tiny courtyard. Shadows above me dance in the candlelight, twisting into shifting specters that move across the bistro table and brush the rim of my forgotten teacup. I’ve been out here too long, hoping against hope that this will be the night Spencer returns. But it’s almost dawn.

The scent of wolf fades, replaced by salt and jasmine. Something pricks at my senses. I force myself to sit straighter as I scan the courtyard’s borders where the iron gate looms.

A shadow stirs near the gate. Instinct tells me someone—or something—is watching. But instinct has betrayed me before. I trusted it last night, before Veronica disappeared, and it led me astray.

Just last month, Spencer met up with his best friend, Terre Vanderholt, in a market in Perugia—in 2005. Even now, I marvel at how they can treat jumping through time like hopping on a local bus. They spotted one of the priesthood’s recruiters in the marketplace. She was looking for something—or someone. We’ve been careful, but it’s only a matter of time before they catch our trail.

Veronica’s fine now, tucked into her big-girl bed inside. I’m within earshot if she calls out from a nightmare. More than once tonight, I caught myself creeping to her room to check, just to see her tiny body curled against the patchwork quilt. My little Peanut has already picked up the language here in twenty-first-century Lisbon. Portuguese spills from her lips as effortlessly as giggles.

Well, of course, she has! She can remember the entire future, so she’s had years to learn Portuguese, while I’m the talentless one.

Last night, I’d walked miles looking for her, screaming her name until my throat was raw. I found her at dawn, barefoot and unbothered, with her tiny hand resting on the thick, furred neck of a massive, ash-gray wolf. Its eyes reflected something old. Not just intelligence, but something otherworldly. It watched me approach, evaluating me—not as a mother reclaiming her child, but as something. . . lesser.

“He’s one of mine,” Veronica said proudly. Her voice lilted with innocence, yet somehow it held authority older than her three years. “He comes when I call.”

The wolf disappeared into the shadows before I could speak. Its image, ingrained in my memory, still tightens my breath whenever I think of it. I’m not even positive it’s real.

Spencer always says the wolves will protect us. So far, Veronica commands them without fear, as though they really do belong to her. Maybe they do. A thousand years ago, she was Jaryx, the Wolf Queen of the Daeganean Priesthood. She may be my adopted daughter, but she has a very old soul. She reincarnated without losing her memories right away and recalls the entire lifetime ahead of her, including her destiny. It just took a little while to wake it up, and that’s when we were forced into hiding to protect the gifts our God gave her a millennium ago.

But me? I was born with nothing a mere twenty years ago. No prophecy. No future written in the stars. No gift of knowing. Just the unbearable weight of keeping her safe as her grandmother, our Ranking High Priestess, had charged me to do so that Siobhan could take her mother’s place as the leader of the Priesthood of Daegan without distraction. If Veronica’s destiny had kicked in at birth instead of on her third birthday, Lady Moira might never have tasked me to babysit Siobhan and Spencer’s offspring for eighteen years.

I don’t mean to complain about having my dreams of becoming an astrologer or librarian—or both—stolen from me to care for someone else’s child. The joke’s on Lady Moira and her High Council. I ended up being the lucky one: I get to raise Veronica as my own.

As long as Spencer and I can keep her hidden, Lady Moira’s goons can’t find her. I’ve seen what they do to those who defy the High Council: the quiet disappearances, the whispers of retribution cloaked as divine will.

“Siobhan’s mistake is your burden to carry,” Lady Moira had said when she placed the newborn in my arms. Her tone had resounded with finality more than affection.

The breeze carries more than salt and jasmine now. A thread of something sour. Metallic. It halts me mid-thought. I lean forward, clutching the edge of my seat.

Something unseen—faint and electric, like a distant crackle of magic—stirs at the periphery of the courtyard.

I stand, heart pounding, just as Spencer steps from the shadows like he belongs to them. Battered leather satchel slung over one shoulder, his long blond hair half-loosened from his hair sticks, he pushes through the gate. He pauses to rebuild his topknot and gives me a quick once-over.

“Maeve.” His voice is soft, familiar, and steady, grounding me in a way I both need and resent. I love my name on his lips. It’s my favorite word.

Spencer says I’m the only woman he’s ever loved. He doesn’t count Siobhan that one time in high school, even if Veronica was the consequence. One day, he often tells me, we’ll be more than whatever it is we are now, but for now, I’m happy with crumbs of the banquet he tells me is to come. He’s giving me time, he says, to catch up with his affections for me. How can he not know that I fell for him years ago, long before Siobhan rolled her eyes at my crush on him.

“You’re back.” The words tremble in my throat. “I’ve missed you,” I add quickly.

He smiles, setting the satchel carefully on the table next to my tea-cup. Its worn leather surface vibrates with energy of what’s inside.

“I found it,” he says. His hand rests on the satchel like it might escape. “The Bellatrix Grimoire. For her.”

I glance toward the house where Veronica sleeps, safe for now—but only for now.

Spencer seems way too energetic to have portaled into Lisbon as he often does to visit. “Did you have to. . .travel for it?”

He laughs at my awkwardness. I don’t know how else to ask if he used his Daeganean hair sticks to create a wormhole to bounce around in time and snatch some precious artifact for some super-secret occult library. Time travel is still very new to me. If I use my own life force to power a portal created from my necklace of Daeganean pearls, then the fatigue knocks me off my feet for dangerously long. Both the hair sticks and the pearls are sacred weapons, and both come at a price with each use.

“No, Maeve. No time travel was necessary for this mission. The only travel I did was by rail. Last stop, Cardiff.”

“What’s in it?” I ask, my voice still unsteady. I point to the satchel.

“In the grimoire?”

“Yes.”

“Knowledge!” he answers simply, like it’s both a gift and a curse.

The word pierces me. I’ve spent years longing for that—not the kind of knowledge you write in textbooks, but something deeper. If I had the knowing, I could keep her safe. If I remembered the future, I wouldn’t wake gasping from dreams of dark water and nearby howls.

But foresight—the burden and the blessing—belongs to others. Veronica, with her memories of two lifetimes. Spencer, with his memories of our future together. Even the wolves, with their primal instincts. I alone walk in darkness.

“Maeve.” His voice draws me back. “Please. Not this again. I can tell by your frown. You made a choice. Let it go. It’s done.”

“No.” My hands clench into fists. “It’s not.”

Still not settled from the past day’s fears, I tell him about Veronica’s little adventure. To his credit, he doesn’t laugh at her latest antics.

He watches me, understanding in the two creases between his eyebrows, but he says nothing. He’s heard this before—felt it in the way I grip his hand, in the way I linger at the courtyard’s edge, always watching the horizon like I’m waiting for something to shatter.

“Spencer, I need to see. I need to know.”

He grimaces. “You know that’s not possible.”

Back in high school, we were all told stories of those who dared to seek our Sleeping God’s favor outside of the rules we were to follow. Stories of ruined minds. Lives consumed by knowledge too vast and terrible to bear.

“Possible? Or probable?” My voice shakes. “I can’t keep walking blind. I can’t keep guessing—hoping—praying she’ll be safe.”

He circles the table slowly, stopping just close enough that I can feel his warmth. “Stop being so melo—” He clears his throat. “Stop worrying, Maeve. Veronica will be fine.” Spencer says it with the maddening certainty of someone who knows. “You act like I’ve never protected her before.”

“And you act like your knowing is enough. It’s not, Spencer—not for me. I can’t just sit and trust that the future will sort itself out.”

“Listen, if it makes you feel better, I have no future memories of her coming to harm as a child. Not since we got you away from Moira. You don’t need the gift of knowing as long as I’m around. You’re asking for something our God doesn’t give lightly. It was offered at your initiation, but you rejected it. It’s only offered once.”

“So I made a mistake, okay? I let you-know-who talk me out of it. Spencer, I’m only asking for what others already have.” My throat hurts from holding back tears. “You. Veronica. Even the wolves. You all see what’s coming, what could happen. I’m the only one stumbling around in the dark. How am I supposed to protect my little girl when I can’t prepare for whatever bad might happen?”

I know what he’s going to say. He’s going to tell me that I’m just like all the other mothers out there who can’t see the future and can only fear it and pray for the best. But all those other mothers out there never turned their back on arming themselves with knowing what the future holds so they can prevent the bad stuff.

He sighs. “It doesn’t work the way you think. The gift of knowing doesn’t keep bad things from happening. It’s awful sometimes knowing what’s coming and not being able to do anything about it.”

“Okay, fine, but maybe I’m the one who keeps her safe because of what I know.”

“Or what you don’t know.”

The silence between us stretches like a tether about to snap. The candles flicker, but I hold his gaze like the most formidable warrior I can imagine.

“There’s possibly one way,” he says finally, voice gruff and weary. “But I don’t like it. You won’t like it either.”

Hope seeps through me. “Tell me.”

“Maeve, I’m not even sure it’s possible. To my knowledge, it’s never been done successfully. And yes, I’ve investigated it a dozen times in a dozen libraries since you first asked.”

“You did? Tell me. I want to know everything!”

He exhales slowly and stares at some star I can’t see in the coming daylight. “You could petition our God. But you know what that entails. He sleeps for a reason. You could awaken the apocalypse early. We could be trapped here.”

“Awaken Lord Daegan?”

Spencer nods. “You know as well as I do that the gift of knowing comes with a price, and so many die from knowing too much that few initiates dare to accept the gift when it’s offered.”

I don’t care. I see a path now—a terrible, uncertain path. But I’d rather risk my sanity to save my little girl than let something avoidable happen to her.

What if her wolf companions hurt her?

What if she wanders off from home again, and I can’t find her? Or the High Council snatches her?

What if I can’t be everywhere at once and protect her from every danger that might rear its head?

I don’t have the knowing Spencer does. I don’t have the faith to believe everything will always be “just fine.” I need the gift of knowing if I’m going to keep her safe from the priesthood and a million other threats, even skinned knees and paper cuts. I’m her mother, and I need to do everything in my power to keep her safe. Even if I go mad. It’s a chance I have to take.

I can’t be everywhere at once, but maybe I can prepare for what’s to come.

Chapter 2: The Price of Knowing →

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