He gave me a devious smile, waggling his eyebrows. “How do you think?”

I pick up a pillow off my bed and throw it at him, even though I wouldn’t really mind if he had looked. I trust him enough.

He catches the pillow effortlessly. “I’m joking. We just checked the obvious places—the arms, the ankles, your shoulders. If we wouldn’t have been able to find it, we would have waited for you to wake up and let you check the rest of your body.”

I touch the mark on my shoulder. “God, I can’t believe I’m a Keeper… I didn’t even think it could happen to me.”

“You didn’t think those awesome fighting moves came from nowhere, did you?” Laylen says, cocking an eyebrow at me.

“So, you knew what was going on back at the castle?”

“I assumed as much.”

“You seem in a good mood,” I say, picking up a CD from the desk and absentmindedly turning it around in my hand, something Sophia forgot to pack up.

He shrugs. “It’s weird, but as soon as you got your mark, your blood stopped being like a drug to me.”

“So you don’t crave blood anymore?” I wonder. “All because I got the mark.”

“Well I still crave blood,” he says, standing up. “And yours still smells extra mouthwatering, but it’s not as mind consuming as it was.”

“Is it normal for you not to crave a Keepers blood as much?”

He nods. “Yeah, it’s one of their many defense mechanisms.”

I set the CD case down. “So you’re happy I’m one then?”

His happiness diminishes. “I never said that.” He scratches the back of his neck. “Honestly, I was kind of hoping it’d skip over you. But not because I don’t like you now… I just really liked you before and sometimes getting the mark changes people.”

“I still feel like the same person,” I tell him. “Just stronger.”

He smiles again, nudging my foot with his. “I’m sure you’ll stay the clumsy, emotional, caring Gemma I first met.”

“I hope so.” And I really do, but I can’t help but think of Stephan and wonder what he was like before he got his Keeper mark. Perhaps he was once good, too. “So what’s been going on for the last few days while I was out?” I ask, changing the subject.

“Not much.” He tucks his hands into the pockets of his jeans as he sits down on the edge of my bed. “In fact, it’s been pretty quiet.”

“What about my mom?” I ask, taking a seat beside him. “How’s she doing?”

He hesitates, plucking a loose string on one of the throw pillows. “Everyone thought it would be best, including her, if we locked her up until we can figure out what to do with her. We don’t want her sneaking off and doing something like what she just did.”

“It wasn’t her fault. It’s the mark’s fault. She can’t help what she does. Trust me, I know what it feels like.” I touch the spot on my arm where the mark once was. “Even though I erased the vision, I can still feel what I felt like while I was possessed.”

Laylen sets the pillow aside. “I know it’s not her fault, but we have to be careful. And Aislin’s trying to figure out a spell to remove the mark,” he says. “She’s been searching the internet like crazy for the last few days, but no luck yet. The problem is we don’t know who to trust to go to for information. She can’t just go walking into a witch store and ask how to remove the Mark of Malefiscus. Aislin also went pretty spell crazy; she put like a ton of spells all over the house, trying to keep us protected from unannounced visitors. And thankfully there are no signs that Marco and Sophia have been here in a while. The mail and newspapers are piling up. Aislin tried to do a Tracker Spell and either they have a protection charm on them or… or they’ve died because they’re not showing up anywhere.”

“Died?” I’m not sure how I feel about that.

He sighs and comes over to me. “Are you going to be okay?”

I shrug. “I’m not sure, I think so, but…” The prickle is erratic on the back of my neck, but I don’t know what it’s telling me. To be sad? If it’s that, it’s not working because I just feel numb. All those years of living with them, but practically invisible. The emotional bond never formed and now I can barely remember them at all.

“What’s wrong?” He puts a finger under my chin and angles my head up so I’m looking at him.

“It’s just that it’s so weird to be in here again,” I say, glancing around the bare room. “Nothing about this room feels like me, yet it’s the room I grew up in.”

He takes in the bareness of my room. “Maybe that’s because this room isn’t you. I mean, all those years you spent living here you weren’t really you.” He gives me a hug and then we leave the room and go downstairs. On our way down, he tells me how Aleesa is recovering and that Alex and Aislin seem to be reacting to her okay.

“What about marks?” I ask. “Does she have any on her?”

“You mean, the Mark of Malefiscus?” he checks.

I nod. “Stephan said he’d been putting it on everyone who didn’t have pure blood.” I bite my lip, hating myself for wondering if Aislin, Alex, and even Laylen have one.

“Aislin came up with a spell for that too.” He takes my hand in his. “Come on and I’ll have her show you.”

In the living room, Aislin is sitting cross-legged on the floor squinting at a computer screen that’s on the coffee table in front of her. Alex is on the sofa, watching TV with his feet kicked up and a glass in his hand that’s filled with a golden liquid, probably tequila or something similar. It’s weird to see because… well, because everything appears so ordinary and it feels so unnatural.

But then I notice Aislin is searching the web for mark removal spells, and Alex is also sharpening a sword and everything feels right in the world again.

“Oh, thank God,” Aislin says, relaxing when she sees me. “I thought you weren’t going to wake up.”

“You guys always think that,” I say, letting go of Laylen’s hand when I notice her gaze drifting to it. “Yet I always do.” There’s a lightness in my tone, one I’ve never heard before.

Aislin clicks the computer mouse. “You seem in a good mood.” There’s speculation in her voice as if she’s wondering what Laylen and I were up to before we came down here.

“It’s because of the lingering adrenaline from the rush.” Alex eyes leisurely travel up my legs, across my midsection and chest, and ultimately land on my eyes.

God, he’s so intense that I want to lean down, run my hands through his messy hair while I feel the softness of his lips against mine. I’m not sure how long we stare at each other like that, but eventually Laylen clears his throat, something I’m realizing he has to do a lot when Alex and I are near each other.

“What’s our next move?” Laylen sits down and I follow, tucking my legs under my ass. Alex remains staring at me with way too much heat in his eyes. If he keeps it up, I’m going to drop dead right here on the sofa in front of everyone.

“Has anyone talked to my mother yet?” I ask. “Or is it pointless because of the mark?”

“After we made the same Blood Promise with her as we did with Nicholas, then we got some information out of her.” Alex lifts his hand, showing me a healing cut on his palm.

“What did she tell you?” I ask. “Did she say how she ended up at the Keeper’s Castle?”

Alex grows grave. “He called her,” he says tightly. “As in he summoned her there by the mark. Apparently, Stephan can summon people with the Mark of Malefiscus.”

I can’t help but think of the mark again, hidden on her flesh out of sight. “How do we know he’s not going to summon her right now?”

“We don’t,” Alex says straightforwardly, putting the sword he was sharpening down on the coffee table. “But we’ve got her locked up and we took away her Key of Malefiscus so that might help.”

My mouth curves downward into a frown. “Great. He has his own key now.”

“He’s had one all along apparently,” Alex explains bitterly. “I guess as he marked each one of the Keepers with the Mark of Malefiscus, he also gave them a key, so when he touches his mark, they can take the key, trace a door wherever they are and it takes them straight to the castle.”

“So Nicholas had one of these too, I’m guessing. And Marco and Sophia?” I say in astonishment.

“Nicholas didn’t have one, I don’t think,” Alex says. “Jocelyn said that Stephan gave them only to the Keepers he marked.”

“Do any of you have one?” I don’t want to say it but I need to know.

“Oh yeah,” Laylen says, shifting his legs out in front of them to stretch. “Aislin, show Gemma the spell you came up with to know when people nearby have the mark.”

Aislin’s eyes light up as she pops her knuckles. “All right, Gemma, here goes nothing.”

***

About a half of an hour later, I’m convinced none of them have marks. Aislin does a spell that shows my mother’s mark and lights it up, then does it on the rest of them including Aleesa, and it shows all three of them are mark free. She also does it on me, so they’ll know that I’m free of evil at the moment. Then I go upstairs to talk with my mom in private because it seems like we have a lot to talk about.

Sophia’s room is the same, white linens, walls, and curtains. Everything is clean and tidy, the bed made, clothes tucked away.

My mom looks miserable lying on the floor, bound to the wall by chains fastened to her wrists. Her head is resting on a pillow, her brown hair a halo around her head, and her eyes are shut as if she’s sleeping.

I close the door behind me and her eyes open as she sits up. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up,” I say, lingering near the doorway. Finally I dare to sit in front of her, leaving just enough room so that she can’t reach me with the chains, just in case. “I don’t know what to say,” I tell her honestly, fidgeting with the leather band on my wrist.

“I’m sorry, Gemma,” she says, although there’s emptiness in her eyes, reminding me that deep down this isn’t my mother.

“It’s okay. I get that you couldn’t say anything about the mark.” I pause. “But there’s one thing I don’t understand…. How is it that you’re marked and yet you could tell us all those things that day—about the ending of the world? And Stephen’s plan?”

“There are always loopholes, Gemma.”

“You keep saying that, but it doesn’t make sense to me yet.”

“I know. Some things are hard to understand and even harder to explain.” She scoots back and rests her head against the wall. “Sometimes my mind gets cloudy as if it doesn’t belong to me, and I say words that aren’t my own but it’s not cloudy right now, because of the Blood Promise. But that won’t last forever... I won’t last forever.”

Panic claws up my throat. “You’re not leaving me again, are you?”

She doesn’t answer right away. “Remember how you told me that you saw the vision of Stephan forcing me into the lake? Well, you don’t understand the vision completely. There were things that happened that confused you. Stephan didn’t force me into the lake, like he—you—thought,” she says quietly, almost remorseful. “I went in there on my own… I chose to go to The Underworld on my own.”

I pull my legs up and rest my chin on my knee. “No you didn’t… I saw him force you to go in there.”

She crawls toward me, reaching for my hand, dragging the chains across the floor with her. “No, you didn’t. That’s what it may have looked like, but that’s not what happened,” she says, frowning when I slide back out of her reach. “I’ve always had this gift... kind of like super willpower, and for the longest time, even after Stephan marked me, it stayed with me—made me strong against his attempted tries at making me evil.”

“When did he mark you? Didn’t you fight back?”

“That’s hard to do when there are Death Walkers. He created his army of death and picked us off one by one. Some didn’t make it out alive like Laylen’s parents.”

“I—I—But he told me his parents died in a car accident right after you were sent to The Underworld?”

“No, they died putting up a fight when Stephan ambushed them.”

A massive lump lodges in my throat. “Does Laylen know this?”

She shakes her head, kneeling in front of me. “There is a lot of memory tampering that’s gone on throughout the years, including with Laylen.”

I remember Laylen mentioning memory loss once, when he was turned into a vampire. “But then why did you choose to go to The Underworld?” I ask, fearing her answer. “Why would you ever want to go to a place like that? So full of death and torture?”

“Because I could feel Stephan gaining control over me,” she whispers, her eyes wide as she gazes off. “I was the hardest to gain control over. Even after he marked me, he still couldn’t get me to do the things he wanted, especially when it came to you. But he kept working and breaking me down and finally I felt my willpower diminishing. I knew it wouldn’t be long before I wouldn’t have power over my actions and I just couldn’t do it—I couldn’t stand around and watch them detach your soul and ruin your life.”