“Uh…” I hadn’t really expected the third degree.
“Hold out your hand,” she commanded, fury simmering in her voice.
“What, why?”
“I will test your blood.” She gestured to my hand.
“I’m sorry, what?”
She gritted her teeth. “Silas and his family all died. You are either a charlatan trying to make use of your looks and hair to worm your way into some sort of scam, or you are telling the truth, and the fates have been very cruel to me indeed. Either way, I will test your blood for the truth.”
These people were nutcases. “Sorry, I think I’ve made a mistake,” I said, and turned to leave.
“Please.”
The tone of her voice stopped me in my tracks—no longer imperious but pleading. I looked over my shoulder. Her jaw was set hard, as if she were on the verge of tears. “I need to know. Please. A drop of blood for the truth.”
Apparently, she needed answers just as much as I did. But a blood test? What the hell kind of world had I gotten myself into?
I sighed and stuck out my hand. When in Oz...
She grasped it and swiftly pricked my palm with a pin she’d drawn from somewhere. I tried to pull away, but she held my hand in a vice grip. “Who was your father?”
“Silas LaSalle,” I hissed.
Another strange, overwhelming sensation surged around me, like a violent storm in the still summer air. A current of electricity rippled through my hand. Then the tiny bead of blood in my palm burst into blue flame, and just as quickly turned into a trail of smoke.
I jumped back. “Holy crap!”
Laurel LaSalle met my accusatory gaze with wide eyes. “You’re telling the truth.”
Before I could react, my aunt threw her arms around me and started weeping into my hair. “Oh, my fates, my fates.”
She nearly crushed the breath out of me. I’d never had anyone hug me like that.
I stood there, absolutely petrified, until crazy Aunt Laurel finally disentangled herself. She wiped her eyes and hollered at the top of her lungs, “Casey!”
The man—my cousin—poked his head out. “What now?”
Aunt Laurel wrung her hands. “Meet your cousin. Silas’s girl.”
His eye went wide. “Ho-ly shit. Seriously? We thought you were dead.”
I arched my eyebrows. “Uh, no. I’m here.”
Before I could protest, Laurel grabbed me by the hand and pulled me into the house. “Come, come, come.”
Within seconds, she’d shoved me down on a big, red, overstuffed couch with carved wooden ornamentation. The room was large, with dark wooden floors and molding and lots of big oil paintings hanging on the walls. Laurel sat down beside me, and Casey leaned in the doorway. “I can’t believe you found your way to us, thank fates,” she said. “You must have a million questions.”
I did. Too many to sort out, but I knew I needed to get the elephant out of the room first. “My parents kept you a secret from me. Why? Why didn’t you come for me when they died? You said you knew about it.”
She nodded eagerly. “We thought that you’d died in the accident along with your parents. It was hard to resist looking you up, but they said in the event of an emergency, you’d be taken care of. I should have done some digging, even though I wasn’t supposed to…”
“Why?” That was the biggest question of it all.
She hesitated for a second. “Your folks wanted to give you a normal life away from Magic Side. Our family is entangled in many things, and when you were born, we didn’t think you would be safe here. Or happy. We didn’t want to jeopardize the world they’d built for you by making contact after their death. But none of that matters now because the die is cast. You’re back with us.”
I had an uncanny knack for sniffing out the truth, and this was it—but not all of it. I crossed my arms. “What else aren’t you telling me.”