Spoilers! Please note: If you haven’t read any of the other books, this contains spoilers. I suggest you start with In the Shadow of a Wish and read through those BEFORE reading this…

Mattias

One Month From Jessamine’s Disappearance

Mattias Fareview, youngest child and only son of Scarlett and Tomas Fareview, stood among the trees in the Whitling Woods wishing things could go back to the way they had been. Wishing he could return to the moment before Jessamine, his oldest sister, was taken. Before their mother had tricked them with a sleeping potion that had made it possible to take her to begin with. Back to a time when the worst thing he had to ponder was how annoying his sisters were when they bossed him around. What he wouldn’t give for that… well, perhaps not that, but to have them all together, safe and sound. Given he had the ability to manipulate time—even if it was still something he was learning how to control—it seemed a shame this wasn’t something he could do with it. Besides having been asleep when it happened, it wasn’t a possibility. He’d have to go farther back, and it wasn’t advisable, or so Ozland said.

“There are rules," the demon training Mattias and his siblings was fond of saying about using their powers, which also seemed like a strange adage from a demon. 

Reformed! Ozland would snap, flabbergasted with having to repeat that little fact.

Mattias smiled. 

He liked Ozland a lot, but all the changes over the last month since waking from the potion had been chaos unleashed, and the storm didn’t seem to have an eye. Nothing calm about it. Everything was different now. He’d left the woods with his other sisters and was living in Elcadia, the city of the gods, where they were protected. Their mother had told them her secrets and revealed they’d been born with powers, why she’d hidden the family in the woods. Tarley, his second oldest sister, was a soothsayer. His middle sister, Brinna, could traverse dreams. And Aurielle, the sister who was closest to him in age, was an oracle of some kind, though she often did things above and beyond it. All powers gifted to their mother by the wizard named Crue, the being that had taken Jessamine and seemed to disappear into thin air. They’d been all over Sevens, checked all the outlying settlements and Prince Lachlan, Tarley’s husband, had sent his guard further into Kaloma to look for them. Now, they were waiting, for certainly, their mother was sure, Crue would contact her.

The crack of the ax hitting the wood snapped Mattias from his thoughts back into the woods amongst the trees with his father. It was quiet, the whisper of snow falling through the evergreens to add to the powder layered on the ground. There was a hint of magic in the air that Mattias could taste now, a touch dry with a spark that snapped on his tongue. Standing amongst the trees and the familiarity of the mundane way they’d once lived felt… normal. Even if it wasn’t.  

“It’s coming down,” Tomas yelled out, his voice muted among the timber pressed in around them.

He watched his father step away from the tree and move into the safe zone. The tree fractured with a loud pop. Crows cawed their ire as the tree tipped, bursting into the sky from their branches as it fell through the trees around it, before hitting the forest floor with a thud.  

“It’s good,” Tomas said, nodding. “Let’s get it in.”

He and his father worked quickly, their axes ringing out in successive thunks against the felled wood as they finished out the tree, cutting it into manageable pieces. Mattias’s muscles burned with the exertion, and it felt good. His training with Ozland taxed him differently, and this work was cleansing somehow. They loaded the wood into the wagon, and led the horses back toward the cottage.

“Do you like Elcadia?” his father asked as they walked, then murmured something to Ferdie who had jerked his head up, rattling the horse’s tack.

“It isn’t home,” Mattias replied, “but it’s been interesting to meet new people.”

“You’re staying with Lucian?”

“No. His brothers. They’re teaching me stuff about manipulation.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“That’s okay.” Mattias smiled. “Most days I don’t either.”

They walked along in silence for several steps. 

“Has there been any news?”

Tomas sighed. “I expected something before now.”

“Tomas!” a cry cracked through the forest.

“Scarlett?” his father yelled, dropped Ferdie's lead, and took off with his ax in hand, disappearing through the trees and bushes. 

Mattias let go of Wilhemina’s lead and chased after his father, worried that perhaps Scarlett was in danger, that maybe Crue had finally come. When he burst from the woods out into the road that ran parallel to the cottage where they lived, his father had Scarlett crushed in his arms, the ax deposited in the snow near them. 

“I’m alright,” she promised, leaning away from Tomas, a bit of parchment scrunched in her hands. She took hold of his face and pulled him down so she could press her forehead to his. “She’s alive.” Scarlett’s voice caught.

“I thought maybe Crue had come.” Tomas said.

She leaned back once again. “This did.” She held up the vellum.

It was yellowed and there was a broken wax seal—green with flecks of gold.

“How?” Tomas asked glancing around. “Messenger?”

“A crow,” she said. “On the windowsill. It tapped against the glass, this in its beak.” 

“What does it say?” Mattias asked.

At the crack of breaking branches, all three of them whirled toward the sound. The horses, who had followed despite not being led, clopped out into the road dragging the cart behind them. Mattias went and gathered their reins. “Good girl,” he whispered, patting Wilhemina’s jaw. “Good boy,” he said, scratching Ferdie’s forehead. 

When he turned back around, his parents were studying the missive.

“Here,” his mother said. “It’s a bit of fabric from her dress.” She held up a swatch of the pale pink fabric dusted with small white flowers.

“Are you sure it’s hers?” Mattias asked. He hadn’t really paid attention to his sisters’ clothes. 

Scarlett nodded. “Yes. I remember buying this in Fulstrom. And she’d been wearing it the day–” she stopped and swallowed, guilt, Mattias was certain, leaching her skin of color.

“What else does it say?” Mattias asked, changing the subject.

“That’s she’s safe… for now,” Tomas said, reading it. “And he will want Scarlett to meet him soon. We have to wait for direction.”

“Pax,” Mattias said the god’s name aloud, knowing that was all it took to bring one of the triplets to him.

The god groaned as he materialized an arm’s length away. “Why me?” he asked, his dark auburn hair flopping over his eyes. He swung his head back and pierced Mattias with his bright blue gaze.

“Your name is easiest,” Mattias said. 

“How do you figure?”

Mattias offered the god a short smile. Over the last several weeks, Mattias had spent most of his time in the company of the triplets. Though they looked alike, they were very different. Pax was a mercurial god, his moods as vibrant and variant as the weather. Today, he was in a mood, scowling at Mattias, his blue eyes which often reflected his mood as dark as a twilight sky. 

“It’s the number of syllables,” Mattias explained. “Your name is only one. Eitan and Lior are both two syllable names. Yours is easiest.”

Pax rolled his eyes and grunted. “You’re ready to go back?”

“No. I need you to get your brothers.”

“Which?”

It was Mattias’s turn to roll his eyes. “You know. Can’t you summon them?”

Pax huffed. “Yes, but I’d like to see their faces when I do.” He grinned and disappeared into the ether once more as if he hadn’t been in the woods at all.

“What? Who?” Scarlett asked.

Mattias ignored her questions, not exactly sure how to answer them. “I’d suggest we get the cottage ready,” he said instead. “You’re about to get a host of company.”

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