Page 48 of Anomalies

“You didn’t know?” Kimber says with a quirked brow. “Pax is Ceres’s only child. Her husband died in the attack.”

“Gods, they’re just…”

“Nothing alike?” Kimber lifts her head from the book, and I shake my head.

Ceres is…a tightly wound woman. She reminds me a bit of Catherine—face pinched, and nose turned up at all hours of the day. Pax, on the other hand, is…fun. A child at heart. Like Jude.

If I’ve been counting the days right, he only has a week and a half left before he leaves for Orison, and Ivy will be on the campus next door. They’ll be living their dreams, knowing I’m out seeking answers and trying to figure out where I come from and where I belong.

That’s what I told them in that letter—that I’d found a dream to chase.

I let the thought of them recede like a lapping tide while Kimber flips through the other disciple-born powerlines until she comes to the last family: Van Reenan.

“The Van Reenan powerline is the closest link to Vita herself,” Kimber explains, turning the first page. “No one knows why the Matron of Man favored Etis Van Reenan, but she bestowed upon her enough power to earn her the highest ranking of the Sol. Every Dame we’ve ever had has been a descendant of that bloodline. Until Delia.”

I set my teacup down on the matching floral saucer. “Delia’s not a Van Reenan?” I ask, and Kimber shakes her head, silently flipping to the last page of the book.

At the top are two names: Arthur and Sable Van Reenan, both with death dates underneath them. The two of them had one child, and she’s the last name on the page.

“Esme Van Reenan,” Kimber reads off the daughter’s name. “Heir of Sable Van Reenan—the former High Priestess of the Sol.” She turns the book so I can see it better, then says plainly, “She’s the traitor.”

I trace the ink with careful fingers. Esme’s birth date is forty years ago, and her death date is…the same as her mother’s. Twenty-two years ago. There’s something so lonely and haunted about Esme being the last on the page– the last in that bloodline.

“What did she do?” I ask.

Kimber takes a deep breath. “She opened the gates and let the Rogues in on the night of the attack…then she killed her mother.”

My teacup all but clatters onto the porcelain saucer. “Sable? The former Dame?”

The Diviner nods. “There was a lot of chaos that night, but those near the palace when Rogues stormed in watched it happen. Sable Van Reenan was pushed out of the highest tower in the palace, and Esme stood where she had fallen from.”

“And she opened the gates?”

Kimber nods solemnly. “She let them in. Then Rogues hung the bodies of our nobility from those gates, so that when people poured from the palace to flee, they saw what was intended to be the end of our most powerful bloodlines. All of them hung there. All except those that made it here: The Dame, the Captain, and their covens—none of which are Van Reenans. Aside from Etis, wherever she may be, Sable and Esme were the last Van Reenans left. Sable’s body hung from the gates…but Esme’s didn’t.”

I read her name again, and the two dates below it. She’d only been nineteen years old when the attack happened. Nineteen years old and…a murderer…a traitor. “Why would she do something like that?”

Kimber closes the book. “People think she was promised a seat next to the Rogue King’s throne. Others say she wanted to take the continent for herself. She was a Van Reenan after all—she would have had more than enough power too.”

I lean back, taking it all in, glancing again at the death date under her name. “But if that was the last time anyone saw her, how do you know she’s dead?”

“I suppose we don’t know for sure,” Kimber shrugs, eyes trailing to the quill that writes at a maddening pace, “but either way, she’s dead to us.” Pain flickers in her eyes. Esme’s the reason for that grief—that hurt. Everything with Iris and the Vaughns…the missions Callan takes to find their people…the dark sky over the City of Light…

All of it is because of her. The traitor.

“I’m so sorry.” It’s all I can think of saying. I know my apology won’t make it go away, and I know it probably won’t help, but it’s a true tragedy what happened to these people, and for that, I am sorry. It’s a loss that even I feel, and I wasn’t even alive when it happened.

Kimber manages a smile, her gaze snagging on the quill that still works tirelessly to record the events of that night as they’ve been painfully remembered. “I hate that we even have to record something so awful.” She crosses her jean-clad leg over the other, the frilly green sleeves of her blouse rippling as she moves.

“Kimber, I need to ask you something, but you have to promise you won’t get mad⁠—"

“You want to know how to use the Eldral,” she says plainly, sipping her tea as if she didn’t just take a note out of Selene’s book and read my godsdamn mind.

“How long did you know I was going to ask you that?”

“The whole time,” she admits.

Figures.