Last Rites (Darkling Mage 6)

Asher completed his cycle, and when he turned to us again, his eyes were burning with pale green fire. He held out his hand. I gave him the amulet.

The chains draped over his fingers, and in the brief contact I felt that Asher’s skin was cold, like someone coming in out of chilly weather, or like a corpse. He closed his hand around the amulet as the garnet began to glow its ominous crimson.

Asher shut his eyes, and I could swear the room around us went darker. He held his fist to his lips, muttering softly into it, but when he spoke, I heard other voices. So many of them helping with his spell, completing whatever magic it was that he was working.

Then all at once, the voices stopped. The room went brighter.

“It’s done,” Asher said, returning the amulet. By the lines under his eyes he almost looked older, wearier. I gripped his hand.

“Thank you,” I said. “Whatever it was you did. Thank you.” I looked down in my hands. The gem was dull again. “So. Um. What now?”

“Put it on,” Asher said.

So I did, the star-metal of the amulet cool against my skin, tingling as it made contact, as if recognizing its creator. I looked around us, seeing nothing, feeling nothing new – until I felt soft, cold fingers looping through mine.

There she was, where she wasn’t before. A pale imitation of how she looked in life, her skin glowing with a bluish-white pallor, her hair drifting in wind that none of us could feel. She wore one of her sun dresses, its flowers and lightness such contrast to the dark of her hair, dark as mine. My heart thumped against the inside of my chest, hurting now more than ever, my throat choked with tears.

“Diana?” my father breathed. “Is it really you?”

“Norman,” the apparition said in my mother’s voice, reaching eager fingers for his hands. She smiled at him, and for the first time in so many years, I heard my father weep, and blubber.

“Mom?”

Diana Graves turned to me, her eyes as blue as a summer sky, as blue as mine.

“Dust,” she said, her voice heaving with longing and relief. “It’s so good to see you again.”

Chapter 24

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Dad said, his voice trembling.

Asher had fetched him a glass of water, half of which he’d already gulped. I was chugging down the other half, still staring at the illusion of my dead mother, sitting with us on the sofa.

Mom shrugged. “Well, here I am. And here you are.” Her eyes caught the garnet on my neck, and her mouth made a little twist. “And there’s that tiny little thing that killed me.”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “There’s a lot to catch up on, to say the least.”

She gasped softly, her hand fluttering to her chest, and she turned to Asher. “You. I forgot to thank you for what you did. I can’t believe I get to speak to them again.”

Asher smiled broadly, as if he wasn’t talking to a memory, a mere recording of who my mother was in life. “It’s really not a problem, ma’am. I’m glad to help.”

“There really is so much to catch up on,” Mom said. “Starting with this.” She waved her hand around the room, at us. “What’s going on? Is everybody a wizard in the future?”

Dad laughed. “Not exactly. But it turns out Dust here has some – well, let’s just say he’s got some uncommon talents.”

“My baby, a wizard.” Mom chuckled, her voice going up an octave. “What the hell am I even saying? This hardly makes sense.”

“It really doesn’t,” I assured her. “But all you need to know is that I can do some really weird stuff. Cool stuff.” I sat up straight, my shoulders broadening. “Also, I’ve got a job now. Been at it for a while, thanks very much. Asher over there, he’s my coworker, but also, like, my roommate.”

Diana looked between the three of us, smiling. “I’m glad that you’ve done so much with yourself, Dust. And to think, we had no idea what you were even going to end up doing. You were so good at so many things, you know? Moving from one hobby to another.” She laughed again. “Leaving everything in the dust. You know that’s why your father and I use that nickname, right?”

“I’m well aware, Mom,” I grumbled.

“I thought he was going to become a mechanic,” Dad offered.

I chuckled. “Right.”

“Or an artist,” Mom said. “Or a journalist. Or a soccer player. Honestly, Dust, we had no idea.”