Slayer (Slayer #1)

When all else ends, when hope perishes alongside wonder, her darkness shall rise and all shall be devoured.

Wonder is already dead. Buffy broke it. There’s no time stamp on the prophecy, but the Seed of Wonder being broken means there’s a ticking clock for the ending. For when Artemis is going to mend the world.

And I’m going to break it.

27

“PROPHECIES ARE HARD TO INTERPRET.” Leo makes me jump for the second time.

I gather the notes and slam them into a notebook. “It—it’s not what it looks like,” I stammer.

“Prophecies never are.”

“No, I mean—I don’t know what I mean. Gods, I don’t know anything right now.” I scoot so I’m sitting against the wall. Leo surprises me by doing the same, sitting right next to me. He’s taller than me. Enough so that I could lean my head on his shoulder and it’d be the perfect fit.

“Let me help?”

I pick at Artemis’s threadbare quilt. It takes on a different meaning, as does her half of the closet. Does she even like the color black? I never asked. I assumed she was happy with her life because it seemed so impressive. And because she never said otherwise. I was quick to speak up about what bugged me or what I felt I was missing. But how often did I ask Artemis what she wanted from her life?

I am a terrible sister.

I know how awful it was to be left behind. But it must have been excruciating for her to watch me disappear in the smoke. She should never have felt guilty over something she couldn’t control. She should never have considered it her burden to help me, to be the best, to do everything right. To atone for being the one who was chosen.

I clear my throat. Leo’s patiently waiting for me to talk to him. And I need someone to talk to. “So, you know I have my father’s Watcher diary. And he mentioned a prophecy. Then I realized I had translated this one. And . . . it seems like it’s about us. ‘When hope perishes alongside wonder’—that’s probably the Seed of Wonder. It’s dead. Which means we’re on that timeline.”

Leo takes the prophecy translation, rereading. “Your mom isn’t the only child of a Slayer. It’s unusual, sure, because—” He cuts himself off. The reason hangs in the air between us. Because they don’t live that long. He pushes forward, ignoring the unsaid. “Other Slayers have had children. Even around the same age as your mom. There’s Robin Wood. His mother’s Watcher was Crowley.”

“I don’t remember any Crowleys.”

“My mom said he was nice.”

So much past tense with Watchers. Someday soon everything having to do with the Watchers will be past tense. “But did this Robin have twins with a Watcher?”

“Not yet.” Leo tries to sound hopeful, then shrugs. “Okay, and not likely to happen given our dramatic reduction in ranks. Still. This probably has nothing to do with you.”

“My parents obviously thought it did.”

Leo’s voice is as dark as the night pressing eagerly outside my window. “Our parents always think they know more about us than we do. They make decisions for us before we even realize we’re being controlled.”

“But look at everything bad that’s been happening. We’ve lived here for two years in perfect secrecy. No one found us. No violence. No attacks. Then we figure out I’m a Slayer and boom—Demons! Death! Destruction!”

“You could just as easily say all this happened because my mom and I came back.”

I roll my eyes. “Sure. Except the first hellhound attack was before you got here.”

He pauses, his lips tight. Then he moves on. “But the hellhound attack didn’t come after you realized you were a Slayer. You realized you were a Slayer because the hellhound came. And you can’t discount Honora. She’s not connected to your mother, and she’s involved in at least part of this. There could be totally different things going on. It doesn’t all have to be connected.”

I bonk my head back against the wall. “That doesn’t make me feel better! It just means we’d have even more mysteries to solve. Gods, I thought my life was complicated when all I worried about was getting supplies for my medical center and trying to convince the Council we could focus less on combat training and more on mediation.”

“Your life was complicated then too. This wasn’t an easy way to grow up. So many secrets. Both those we keep as Watchers and those being Watchers forces us to keep.”

I can’t believe my mom thought she could send me to boarding school. All those normal teens, with no idea what the world is really like. Leo understands my life in a way none of them ever could. And he’s right about how we grew up. I wasn’t wrong when I was thirteen. He really did see me. He still does.

I want to take his hand, but nerves hold me back. “This could be why my mother is so opposed to me being a Slayer, though. She knows the prophecy. And she’s worried that, now that I’m a Slayer, it’s one step closer to coming true.”

Leo shifts so he’s looking right at me. His eyes are so dark they’re almost black. I can tell he hasn’t been sleeping well, but exhaustion accentuates his cheekbones, and the dark stubble at his jawline is oddly vulnerable.

“Athena,” he says, “I know darkness. I know the hunger that drives chaos. And you have none of that in you. Slayer or not, you are and have always been good.” He pauses, searching my face, and for one brief aching moment I think he’s going to kiss me.