Legacy of the Flower

“Simon, stop being so... you and open it.”

A thick parchment envelope lay untouched on the marred oak table of Longwood House, leaving a sharp impression in the dust. Across from it stood a girl who looked remarkably like Simon, though her hair was cropped close along the sides of her head. She stared at him, her hands balled into fists.

“What if I’m not ready?” he sighed, dragging a hand through the ends of his dusky chestnut curls where they brushed the pale skin above his open collar.

A poorly concealed snicker came from somewhere beside the doorway.

Simon’s expression soured. “And what if that creepy friend of yours minds her own business? Get out, Xixi.”

His voice was terse and grating, missing the melancholy softness it usually carried. A petite Asian girl with long, glossy black hair appeared from the neck up, the rest of her body swallowed by invisibility. Her dark eyes narrowed before her head vanished too, and a moment later something unseen swept out of the room, sending a stack of old school papers fluttering up the wall in her wake.

Simon cursed under his breath. “Mara... what if I don’t want to know?” His fingers hovered near the envelope. “This isn’t exactly the sort of thing I’m going to be happy about.”

Some of Mara’s irritation left her. “This is going to haunt you for a while, sure, but it’s better to rip off the bandage.”

Simon snatched up the envelope. The plum-colored wax seal resisted his fingers before breaking apart beneath them, revealing a formal birth announcement and a photograph bordered in elaborate foil scrollwork.

“His Honorable Shariq Ifrit wishes to announce the birth of his grandson...” Simon had barely begun reading when he stopped.

Mara waited, but he didn’t continue.

“What?”

He was staring at the photograph now, and whatever Simon had expected to find there, it apparently hadn’t been this. When he still didn’t answer, Mara reached across the table and took it from him.

She understood immediately.

Aurelia Ifrit now, apparently.

Those smiling hazel eyes were unmistakable, even surrounded by ornate fabrics and the fiery red hair showing at her temples. Mara had to admit she looked gorgeous. Beside her stood Ash, the once-infamous student who had practically ruled Rosewick University back when all of them had still been students there. Now they were married, living God knew where, with a baby between them.

But it was Aurelia who held Mara’s attention, because beneath all the finery and everything else that had changed since Rosewick, she looked happy.

The baby in her arms was barely a few months old, yet he seemed to be studying the photographer with unsettling intensity. Bright gray irises shone against his tiny face, giving him an awareness that seemed impossible at his age, while the reddish tint of his hair stood out against warm, tanned skin.

Mara shivered. Everyone born into a legacy knew what those eyes meant. The child carried the gift, and as heir to one of the oldest and most formidable bloodlines in existence, he’d entered the world with more power waiting for him than most people would ever come near.

And then there was Aurelia. Mara had known her as a friend before any of them understood exactly what she was. She had grown up hearing stories about Succubi, but Aurelia was the first she’d ever met, and their kind had become extraordinarily rare over the centuries. A child born to one of them and a Djinn like Ash was something else entirely. Mara wasn’t even sure there had ever been one before.

Simon, unsurprisingly, didn’t appear particularly interested in the historical significance of any of it. His attention remained fixed on Aurelia.

The twins had grown up surrounded by old magic, older grudges and relatives capable of turning almost anything into a centuries-long dispute. Mara had learned early not to waste much time regretting things she couldn’t change, while Simon had somehow emerged from the same childhood determined to do precisely the opposite.

Aurelia was gone, married and apparently very happy about it, and as far as Mara was concerned, it was long past time her brother accepted that.

“So...” She returned the photograph to the table. “Mum still hasn’t forgiven Daddy?”

Simon took a moment to follow her away from Aurelia. “What’s there to forgive? She’s done. Love can only do so much.”

He was already looking back toward the photograph when Mara caught him by the shoulder and gave him a rough shake.

“Oh, be positive, Simon. This isn’t the first time she’s been dragged into one of Daddy’s schemes. She always takes him back.”

“Yeah, well, he really stepped in it this time.” Simon gave her an incredulous look. “Pissing off a sheikh from an extremely powerful legacy has to rank among his worst offenses, Mara.”

She shrugged and started away before doubling back. Remaining still had never been one of Mara’s strengths. “I mean, if they really wanted to hurt him, they would’ve done more than they did.”

That was probably the wrong thing to say.

A few months earlier, rain had battered the Cheshire countryside in endless sheets, turning the windows of their family cottage black and silver beneath the storm. The squat building of stone and thatch sat stubbornly unchanged beneath it, while inside, Sydney had nearly worn holes into the old beige carpet waiting for news of the husband who had been missing for months.

“How could he do this to me?” she shrieked, her face nearly the color of a tomato as tears streamed down cheeks hollowed by months of worry. Her eyes lacked the vibrant green shared by her husband and children, but their blue had become painfully bright after hours of crying. “The more that comes to light, the more I just can’t stand it!”

Her voice bounced from the low, sagging ceiling of the cottage, a far cry from the palatial home they’d left behind in California. Sydney had come from a wealthy Malibu family and poured nearly all of that fortune into Cameron over the years, standing beside him through legal fees, failed schemes, scandals and even the occasional stint in jail.

She had defended him through all of it, and it was largely through her influence that Simon and Mara had been admitted to prestigious Rosewick University at all. Cameron’s reputation had all but poisoned the family name, leaving his children relegated to Longwood House alongside the other outcasts.

“Mummy, please be patient.” Simon smoothed a hand over her rumpled blonde hair, trying to calm her.

“They said they would be here by now.” She caught his broad, delicate hands in hers, clinging to them as another sob shook through her.

“They will. It’s not even half past. Just wait—”

The shriek of tires outside cut him off. All three of them startled as a car tore through the rain before stopping abruptly somewhere beyond the windows. Sydney flew toward the door so quickly she nearly wrenched it from its rusted hinges.

“Cameron! Cameroooon!”

Her voice disappeared into the storm as Simon and Mara hurried after her. A black limousine stretched across the drive outside the cottage, gleaming in the dark and nearly disappearing into the night except where water streamed over its tinted windows and caught the light spilling from the house.

They had barely reached their mother when the rear door opened. No one stepped out. Instead, a polished dress shoe appeared from the darkness inside and, with one efficient kick, sent Cameron tumbling into the mud at his family’s feet.

Sydney’s scream carried across the countryside as he landed hard on his side, bound from shoulders to ankles so thoroughly that he resembled some grotesque parcel delivered to the wrong address. He made no immediate attempt to rise, though considering what had been done to him, Mara wasn’t certain he could.

His usually immaculate suit hung from him in torn, filthy strips, soaked through with blood and water. Both eyes had swollen shut, distorting features she had never seen anything but irritatingly handsome. His mouth was split, bruising disappeared beneath his ruined collar, and great patches of chestnut hair were missing, leaving angry sections of scalp exposed between what remained. Dried blood had hardened through the curls and was beginning to run loose down his neck.

Mara had known enough about where he’d been to expect blood. She hadn’t expected someone to beat him nearly beyond recognition before sending him back.

To Sydney, however, the greatest outrage appeared to be what they’d done to his face. Cameron had always been almost offensively beautiful, boyish and eternally youthful, with nearly two centuries behind him and the appearance of a man barely into adulthood. Age, prison and an impressive collection of terrible decisions had done remarkably little to change that, and someone had finally managed it.

Cameron attempted to lift his head from the mud, but all he managed was a miserable groan that deteriorated into a wheeze.

“Cameron! Oh... Cameron!”

Sydney tore across the lawn, nearly toppling the stone birdbath in her rush to reach him. Behind her, the limousine door slammed and the enormous black car sped away, its taillights quickly swallowed by the storm.

“Common criminals! G-Gangsters!” she shrieked after them, shaking one fist furiously into the night before dropping beside Cameron near the road. Within seconds her clothes were soaked through, but she seemed oblivious to everything except the wreck of her husband lying in front of her.

“You’re... so... so stupid!” she managed between sobs.

“Syd...” Cameron whispered, laboriously rolling onto his back. “I’m home.”

Sydney covered her face and rocked on her knees, crying hard enough that Mara almost felt sorry for her. The feeling lasted until their mother abruptly uncovered herself, reached down with one slender arm and struck Cameron directly in the stomach.

He folded as far as the ropes allowed with a cry that sounded almost inhuman.

“Ouch! Jesus, Syd...” he coughed.

Sydney stared down at him. She had spent months terrified that Cameron might never come home, and now that he had been deposited alive at her feet, apparently she was free to remember exactly how furious she was with him.

“I’m done, Cam.”

She rose to her feet, leaving him curled in the mud beneath her. For years Cameron had charmed his way back into her good graces with an endless supply of apologies and excuses. He had betrayed her, lied to her and manipulated two young people into paying the price for choices made long before either of them was born. Whatever explanation he had prepared this time, Sydney apparently had no interest in hearing it.

“S-Syd... come back...” His voice collapsed into a painful cough as she started toward the house without looking behind her.

Simon and Mara parted instinctively to let her through. Neither tried to stop her. Their mother had threatened to leave Cameron before, usually loudly enough that half the family heard about it, but something in the way she passed them made this feel different.

“Do something about your father,” Sydney whispered, disappearing inside.

Mara turned to Simon. He was staring past the fence at Cameron, still bound in the mud where his captors had left him. After a moment, whatever he thought of his father’s latest disaster appeared to lose out to practical necessity. He raised one hand toward the road and began to move his fingers.

The gesture was delicate, almost absentminded, his fingertips sweeping and curling as though manipulating invisible threads. Green light gathered between them in narrow tendrils that quickly lengthened, weaving through one another until vaguely human forms emerged from the glow.

Simon hardly seemed aware of what he was doing as the spirits took shape. They were tall and faceless, their bodies translucent and shimmering, with no features beyond the suggestion of heads and limbs. They glided across the soaked lawn without disturbing the mud beneath them, rain passing straight through their bodies and scattering the green light before it gathered itself again.

Mara had always thought Simon’s gift was wasted on him. Of the twins, he was the only one who had inherited their bloodline’s power, and he treated it like a disease. He claimed he didn’t like what it whispered to him, what it wanted from him, or the things it suggested he could make it do. Mara had never understood that reluctance. Their father had spent his life coveting that kind of power, while she would have given almost anything to possess it herself.

Simon summoned only enough now to save himself the trouble of carrying Cameron inside. The green figures gathered around their father and lifted him from the roadside with eerie precision, arranging themselves beneath his bound body like a living stretcher. He floated across the lawn between them, limp and dripping rainwater, while Simon stepped aside to let them pass.

“Put him on the sofa,” he murmured. “Then return.”

They carried Cameron into the cottage and gently lowered him onto the sofa before dissolving one by one, translucent bodies unraveling into green threads that returned to Simon. He dismissed the last of them immediately, visibly more uncomfortable with what he’d summoned than with the sight of their father beaten nearly senseless in the road.

At the time, Mara had dismissed it as Simon being Simon. Months later, standing once again in the dingy Longwood wing with Aurelia’s birth announcement lying between them, she found herself thinking about it differently.

Aurelia was a Succubus, and Mara knew enough about her kind to understand what they could do with someone else’s power. Ash had lost his gift to her and, judging by the photograph on the table, seemed to have survived the experience perfectly well. Her brother, meanwhile, had spent his entire life wishing his own would leave him alone.

The theory was ridiculous, but for one glorious moment, it made perfect sense. Maybe Simon hadn’t spent all this time pining after Aurelia because he was hopelessly in love with her. Maybe he’d known exactly what she was capable of and wanted the same thing Ash had received.

Mara let the possibility linger before common sense caught up with her. As far as she knew, Simon had wanted Aurelia, Aurelia hadn’t wanted him, and her brother had responded by making himself miserable over it ever since. Inventing some elaborate secret motive behind the whole thing was probably a sign that she’d spent too much time drinking the night before.

She was still hungover. That was almost certainly it.