Anya Bast - Witch Heart

"How about you?" he asked as they polished off the remains. "You have any friends on Eudae?"

She thought for a moment. "Their culture isn't like here. It's not so informal or friendly. There were some that I spent time with, weaving magick or performing certain tasks, but you don't joke around there. You don't order pizza and sit around talking until early in the morning."

"You were really lonely, weren't you?"

She nibbled a crust a bit, then threw it onto the box. "Yes. I didn't realize it then because living there was all I knew. Now I understand how lonely I was."

Adam took a chance and brought up the subject that had been on his mind from the beginning. "Jack McAllister, he's a fire witch back at the Coven, says he knew you when you were little."

She stiffened. "What?"

"His father, William Crane, was the head of the Duskoff. Crane was the mastermind behind opening the doorway and casting the demon circle that pulled Erasmus Boyle through all those years ago. Jack was just a kid back then, but his shit of a father demanded he be present for all gatherings of the Duskoff. Jack says he remembers a little girl named Claire running around his father's mansion during those meetings. You must have been about six, he told me — curly dark hair and blue eyes."

The blood drained from Claire's face. "This man is William Crane's son?"

"Yes. Estranged son, anyway. The day they cast the circle that brought Erasmus Boyle through from Eudae was the last day Jack called William Crane his father. Crane adopted a little boy later on, a fire witch named Stefan. But biologically, yes, Crane was Jack's father."

"Was? Crane is dead?"

Adam nodded. "Mira, Jack's girlfriend, got to know her air magick really well one day and pushed him through a forty-story window. Why all the interest in William Crane?"

Claire had regained the color in her face thanks to the conversation and the pizza, but now it was gone again. "My mother used to talk a lot about him. She was a member of the Duskoff and was personal friends with William Crane. My mother was a warlock."

"I figured as much."

"We spent a lot of time at William Crane's mansion. I remember a little of the house, but I was very young. Mostly I remember the gardens. Sweet-smelling flowers everywhere, tall trees, green grass. My strongest memories of Earth are from right before we walked through the doorway, so that garden has always shaped my vision of this world." She paused, shaking her head. "I do have vague memories of a little boy with large eyes. That's probably Jack." She shook her head, remembering. "He never smiled."

"He says you did. He says you ran around the house, charming everyone, smiling all the time, and getting into everything." He drew a breath, plunged ahead. "You don't smile all the time anymore, though. Is that because your mom took you away the day they cast that demon circle?"

Her jaw locked and she glanced down at the demolished pizza. "Yes. After the circle was cast and the daaeman had come through, my mother summoned me from where I played in the garden. While the warlocks dealt with the enraged Atrika, she took advantage of their distraction and walked us through the doorway. That's how we got to Eudae."

"Jesus, Claire. That's practically suicide. Why did she do it?" Rage made fire spark in his palms. He closed his hands to hide it from her. How could a mother pick up her young daughter and just walk straight into hell?

Claire looked down at the blanket and picked at a stray thread. "My mother was impetuous, sometimes more like a child than an adult. I suspect mental illness, but I was so young when she died. I'm just not sure. She told me she'd fought with Crane earlier in the day about how to handle the daaeman they would bring through. My mother had—" She swallowed hard. "She had—"

"Hey, look, Claire. It's okay if you don't want to tell me all this."

She shook her head and raised her gaze to meet his. "Just know two things before I say this. Know that I loved my mother more than anyone in either of these worlds. Also know that I am nothing, I mean, nothing, like her."

Adam nodded. "Okay." He knew that already.

She lowered her head again. "She had aspirations of allying with the Atrika and bringing them back here. She wanted to take over with their help." Claire looked up him, her pretty eyes wide and shining with tears and shame. "Adam, my mother wanted chaos and bloodshed so she could have power and prestige."

Adam didn't even blink. "Claire, your mother was Duskoff. She was a warlock. It's what they all want. That's why they break the rede."

She went back to studying the crust-strewn pizza box. "Anyway, she'd fought with Crane. He'd disagreed with her about how best to employ the daaeman they'd pulled through. My mother was angry, so she walked into the portal, thinking she'd find the Atrika on the other side and do it her way."

Adam couldn't reply.

He got up, paced across the room and back before he could speak. "So she just gathered her six-year-old daughter from the garden where she'd been playing and walked through an alien doorway not knowing what would happen on the other side?"

Anger simmered under the surface of his skin. A thousand licks of flame. Protectiveness of Claire, even twenty-five years after the fact, swelled.

While he'd been having the training wheels taken off his bike and having birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese, Claire's mother had been busy taking her away from everyone and everything that was familiar to her. Not to mention knowingly putting her daughter into harm's way — directly into the arms of demons.

Claire raised her head, protective anger to match his crossing over her pretty features. She opened her mouth to retort and he held up a hand. "Okay, I'm sorry. I know. You loved your mother."

"I did."

Of course she had. Her mother had been the only human being— aeamon —in Claire's entire existence.

He pushed a hand through his hair and desperately fought to get a handle on his emotions. Adam had no idea why Claire made him lose his grasp on them so often. "What happened once you got over? Did she ever find the Atrika?"

"No, thank the Houses. Rue found us first. He was set on killing us because he understood that my mother had come to try and make an alliance with the Atrika. Instead, because we were females, he took pity on us."

"But he never sent you back."

She shook her head. "No. He didn't trust my mother not to make trouble with the warlocks. I thought he might send me back after my mother died, but I'd become too valuable to him by then."

"Gods, Claire."

She shrugged. "You asked."

"Do you know who your father is? Do you have any family at all that you know of here?"

She went very still. "I have long suspected my father to be William Crane."

Again, Adam was speechless.

"I don't know for certain. My mother died when I was eight. It was sudden. An illness took her in the space of a week. I suspect Crane because of how often she talked of him." She licked her lips and her voice grew quieter. "And the way she talked about him."

"If that was true, Jack would be your half brother." Maybe there was some kind of DNA test they could do when all this was over… if all this ever was over.

She looked up at him. "Yes, wouldn't that be crazy?"

Adam was sure Jack would think so.

Claire curled her shaking hands under herself on the bed. She'd never talked about any of this to anyone before. She'd certainly never spoken aloud her suspicion that William Crane was her father. There was something about Adam that made her open up, something about him that made her trust him.