BOOK ONE
PROLOGUE
.
.
.
This can't be happening – and yet is a bitter reality that this is happening.
This is the end.
It's all she can do to clutch her precious burden safely to her chest as she passes through the fizzing stolen portal, sparks chasing her skin and bones with chiding reverberation. Inside her skull, her teeth rattles as brief, painful ache spears right between her eyes. Punishment from the portal makers, but punishment she gladly bears; what can the fae do to her now that the worst has come to pass? Nothing.
Save for the red-faced, squalling infant in her arms, she is alone in this word – a refugee and a fugitive all at once. Her father is dead; her sister lost beyond her reach; and her husband likely passing through the veil while she flees with their daughter.
She can still feel the burning, dark cling of acrid smoke-and-fire, blisters on her hands and feet, a distinct ugly singe to a once-lilac baby blanket. But there are no tears on her soot-stained face. She cannot afford tears – she cannot waste precious time. There is, after all, so much she has to do in the little time she has won through her husband's sacrifice.
He has died so that she can save their child – or damn their child, she fears, because what will become of this baby once she has done the unthinkable? It's such an unspeakable gamble, and she knows she will be long dead before it becomes clear if the gamble is worth it.
But she has to try.
She stumbles out of the stolen portal on a dirty, rain-soaked street. A car drives by, blasting the sort of noise that Americans proudly proclaim to be music. A cat yowls angrily down the street, followed by a crash and a female voice drunkenly screaming bitch.
Is this where I leave my baby?
It is.
Gods willing, her child will grow up with a vastly different childhood than her own. There would be no Parisian streets, or holidays over the world, visiting historical sites humans think are long-dead, or constant awareness of the duty decreed by her bloodline – but hidden in plain sight amid the chaotic pits of humanity, her child will have a different kind of safety. The safety and comfort of not being hunted.
And she is quite willing to die to make this a reality, just the same as her husband. It is very simply the only thing she can do. This is the end; her last hour, her last act, her final gambit.
She crouches down in the alleyway behind a rancid dumpster, cradling her daughter in one arm as she hastily slices open her thumb so that she can etch esoteric symbols onto the infant's brow. Preternaturally bright red blood stands out in stark relief against bronze skin, firm and sure lines dragged down a snub nose and chin that shows promise of being defiant. The bloodied tracing continues down the baby's throat and then, once she has pushed aside the soft blanket, she fists the broken piece of glass with gritted teeth, drawing more blood to pool on the baby's tiny belly.
Hesitation comes as soft as a whisper. The fact that she uses her blood is a red herring to the extremes she is willing to broach and she must push down the niggling, lifelong lessons that tell her what she's doing is wrong. It's easier than she expects. This must be the glory of motherhood – doing whatever it takes to ensure the safety of her child.
Even if whatever it takes means binding her child's magic so tightly that she might very well kill the baby in the process. And for a few long minutes after she finishes the long incantation and the baby convulses and coughs and turns blue in the face, she is dreadfully certain that she had, in fact, stolen her baby's life in the act of trying to save it.
But then the baby drags in a hiccupping breath, wailing her displeasure, and she finds herself smiling shakily. She smudges the blood-drawn sigils as she cups her baby's cheek, pressing her lips to the heated brow. "My strong girl," she murmurs, voice rough with the tears she refuses to let fall. "Nothing will ever break you."
There is one more thing she must do – and quickly – before she can allow herself to cry, to release the lung-seizing grief brewing a black hole in the depths of her being. And so she forces herself to stand, locking her knees as she uses the baby blanket to wipe the worst of the blood magic off her child's skin. Her child, who is now for all intents and purposes decidedly without magic. She might as well have cut off a limb, but she doesn't allow the guilt to linger.
A half-life is better than no life at all.
The building she comes to is tall and solitary, with a plaque reading New York Fire Department and a quietness emanating from inside that speaks do the slumbering people indoors. There is a stoop at the structure's front doors, safely away from the metal garage doors, and this is where she settles her daughter, whose flinty blue-grey eyes stare up at her accusingly.
Abandoning her child is the hardest thing she has ever had to do, but still she swallows around the lump in her throat and tucks a single scrap of paper into the baby's blanket. She might have to leave her daughter, but she would not leave her daughter without her name – or at least part of her name.
If it all goes to plan, then Estella Manon le Faye would never know her true name or any of the power she has been burdened to possess. She can only hope. As her husband so eloquently likes – liked - to say, "Fuck prophecies".
Quite right.
She lingers a moment longer, burning this last image into her retinas so that she might carry it with her for as long as she lives, however long that will be. "Au revoir, my darling wished-upon star. Je t'aime."
The baby begins to cry – as if knowing the finality of those words - and with her heart breaking, she turns away to fade into the drizzling night.
.
.
.
They catch up to her eventually, just as she knew they would, and she can only grin victoriously through her final labored breaths because her last hour, her last act, her last gambit worked.
Her child is safe.
It's worth the price of her own life.
.
.
.
But prophecies are not so easy to out maneuver. Sooner or later, they are fulfilled – one way or another.
.
.
.
A/N: Come one, come all, and welcome to the redux of SUPERNORMAL! I hope you enjoy this more refined tale of tales!
The goal in this final draft is to iron out some kinks; there will be some rearranging and some new content and all characters are going to have original names. This story can also be accessed on Facebook in The Coterie group, along with polls while I pick your brains because I am a needy woman and an anxious writer who very sadly depends on feedback. Also, I write better and faster with some pressure? Go figure.
Alright. Here we go...
As always, be brutally honest. I can take it.
~Rae