Page 145 of Shattered Jewel
I furrow my brow. “Why would they do that?”
“Guilt, maybe. Or they saw the madness in Nightshade’s plan and wanted to protect the child. Either way, it worked. Evangeline disappeared from history. The family changed their name, moved around. They protected her, knowingly or not.”
“So how did my father figure it out?”
“That’s where it gets fascinating,” Clover continues. “He cross-referenced this information with old Court documents he’d ‘acquired’ through less-than-legal means. He discovered that Evangeline’s protector was none other than Hope Blackwood, Jackson Nightshade’s wife.”
My breath catches. “Nightshade’s own wife betrayed him?”
Clover nods. “Hope orchestrated Evangeline’s sale to a trusted friend in France, then systematically destroyed all records of the transaction. She even planted false leads to throw off anyone who might come looking.”
“But why would my father risk everything to uncover this?”
“Because of you, Elara,” Clover says softly. “When he found out the Anderton line was in his own blood, the blood of his wife and children, He wanted to protect you by understanding the full scope of your heritage and the danger it posed.”
“Oh, Dad.” I close my eyes, tears breaking through. “And now?”
Clover gently closes the book, lays my hand over it, then squeezes mine with her own. At the same time, she lowers and picks something off the floor.
A glittery, blood-red ruby.
She lays the Heart on the book and beside our joined hands.
“Now, you have the power to reshape the Court’s future. Your father’s work, Maverick’s death, Hope’s sacrifice—it all led to this moment. The question is, what will you do with it?”
I gaze at the terrible jewel.
The gem’s rough, uncut surface forms an irregular, heart-like shape, its edges jagged and uneven. Deep crimson dominates, but streaks of darker red run through it like veins. Where the two halves were rejoined, a thin line is visible, like a freshly healed wound.
I can’t bring myself to touch it.
As I turn my head away from it, light catches on countless tiny imperfections, each one a little, firefly witness to the blood spilled in its name.
Fear and disgust clenches around my neck like a noose. I have the desperate need to hurl it across the room, to smash it until nothing remains but dust. Yet I can’t let it go, can’t stop staring at the legacy of pain and greed I’ve literally held in my hands.
Clover watches the horror play across my face.
“I ... I don’t know what to do with it,” I stammer, looking up at Clover with a wretched gaze.
“There’s no right answer,” she says kindly. “But I suggest you consider what your father and brother would have wanted. They protected this heritage for you.”
“And Sarah?” I ask, my voice barely above whisper.
“Sarah wanted her Heart to be used for good. I can promise you that.” Clover breathes out slowly, her stare unwavering on mine. “She wanted it to protect her family. And from what I’ve come to understand of you, Elara Wraithwood ... you are the embodiment of that wish.”
“I want it locked away,” I declare, my voice choked with emotion. “Forever.”
Maverick found Sarah’s vault and kept a piece of the ruby there, hidden deep within Titan Falls University’s catacombs, where the Heart was safely locked away for centuries. No one should wield such obsessive power.
“Back to the buried vault it came from,” I add.
Clover raises one nearly perfect eyebrow at me but doesn’t object. She studies me for a moment before nodding once, as if affirming a question within herself. “I might know of a better place to hide it.”
I incline my head quizzically, which she responds to with an enigmatic smile.
“Sarah’s daughter. I found her,” Clover says. “And I know where her body rests.”
My chin dips. My eyes widen. “That’s a very important piece of information you left out of your thesis paper.”