Chapter 1

1

H er entire life, Delina Frisse has always felt she's missing something.

Something big.

Something defining. That once she figured it out, once she unlocked whatever it is inside, she would fundamentally change as a person. She would fundamentally know herself, and all of this hand shaking, dust covered nothing inside of her will disappear.

Sure, everyone thinks her life is pretty grand. She has a semi-cushy job messing with spreadsheets for people who can't, she lives in a condo in Prescott paid for in full because her bio-mother was some strange rich science person, and she has a doting boyfriend. Her dad lives in Sedona, just close enough that she can visit him and get home cooked food but just far enough away that it's not suffocating.

She gets to dress well, more polished than the cowboy fashion in Prescott, drives to a bigger city to get her hair done, keeps her manicures up to date and her nails sharp, and everyone thinks she is the one that has her shit together. That nobody that composed could have something missing.

She used to think it was because she never knew her bio-mother. That it was some deep psychological need for her to know the person who gave birth to her, but that just took one college psychology class to dismiss. By all accounts, her bio-mother was some odd scientist up the coast of Vancouver who didn't really want a kid, and definitely didn't want a husband. Her dad spoke of her with a detached fondness, but even he shrugged when the notification came that she had passed.

Maison, Delina's boyfriend, had just sat and listened when Delina told him of the weird feelings over her bio-mother's death, his handsome face completely unmoving, before he took her out to the brewery that night and got them both absolutely trashed.

He's good like that.

But there's still something, some nebulous something out there, that should be different. It creeps along the edges of Delina's vision when she isn't paying attention, itches at the back of her mind. Like a lost tooth or a phantom limb or another sense that she just doesn't have access to. Like sometimes, if she touched things, she could expect something else to happen.

It never does. She's completely normal, completely generic, run of the mill person. She's just another person, even with the nagging sense that she's not.

And, of course, it all gets blown to hell by something as simple as a phone call on her day off.

The day starts off normal, in her normal day-off routine in her normal, boring life. Maison wakes before she does, for the long commute to his work from home office, where he sits in a chair that's bad for his back and fiddles with photoshop for some graphic design company or another, leaving Delina alone in bed for a good hour and a half.

She stares up at the ceiling, blank and white in the late October sun of Northern Arizona, until she can work up the energy to do something about it. Work up the energy for another day where she should be completely content and completely happy.

That never comes.

With a sigh, she forces herself to get up, to get dressed in the cute matching gym clothes that should spark joy but don't and to throw her blonde hair into as fashionable of a ponytail as she could muster.

Maison stirs from his desk as she strides by the office, sticking his head out the door. His soft brown hair sticks up a bit in the back, a tell-tale sign that he didn't bother brushing it before starting in on his art, but the glance he gives her is as alert as it ever is.

"Morning, Delly-girl," he murmurs, catching her by the wrist and kissing the palm of her hand like he's some knight in a story book. "Sleep okay?"

"I guess," she says, and he gives her one of his smiles, crooked with a dimple.

He's one of those people who seem generically good looking, generically handsome, until she gets his attention focused on her. Then all ideas of anything in her mind, any unhappiness or discontent or worry, all gets blown away.

It's a smile that says she's safe. A smile that says she's the most important thing in the world. A smile that says there is nothing else that matters to him but looking at her, nothing else that matters but their small bits of connection.

She had called it charisma, when she first met him. Her friends called it a crush.

He's everything anyone would ever want in a long-term boyfriend. He's handsome, he's kind, he makes her food and makes her laugh, so the moment he had worked up the guts to ask her out she practically jumped him, and hasn't looked back.

"I might get to paint today," Maison says with an almost dreamy smile of his own, jerking his thumb back towards his computer setup. "That is, unless they decide to give me an entire second project."

He's always in a better mood when he paints. Always emerges like he's discovered a new world, discovered something groundbreaking and can't wait to share it with her. She has a hundred small paintings he's done, tucked into her wallet and used as bookmarks and everything in between. He paints on small scraps of newsprint, on the back of receipts, on whatever good paper he can collect in the world.

It's a little magical how he can conjure something out of nothing, where the most creative she gets is a particularly satisfying pivot table.

His grey eyes flicker up to hers, quickly perceptive in the way that leaves her marveling. "You okay?"

"Having one of those days," she says, and he nods, pulling her towards him until he can wrap his arms around her.

They've talked, at length, about her ‘days'. About the times she feels hollow, the time she feels something is missing.

So she leans against him, against the familiar strength in his shoulders.

"I'll be fine," she says, because he almost needs the reassurance more than she does. "Just woke up like this."

He pulls away, smoothing his hand over the back of her workout tank top, fiddling with the hem. "Anything you need, I'm right here," he vows, and he's said it a million times, but it's always a balm. "Don't beat yourself up, do something fun instead of just the norm."

"Do you need coffee?" she asks, shaking her hand loose so she can grab her purse, her original plans be damned.

Another smile, and it's almost like she doesn't need to worry about feeling unsatisfied.

It doesn't last, of course. She's not even to the coffee shop before her phone rings and ruins everything.

Delina sighs, of course, because who the heck actually makes phone calls this day and age, before letting her car answer the phone. "Hello?"

She hopes her voice is as annoyed as she feels.

There's a delay, then a click on the line, and she clutches her white leather steering wheel out of annoyance, before tapping her nails on it.

"Yes, is this Miss…" the voice on the other line trails off, as if reading from a prompter, "Delina Joyanne Frisse?"

Delina raises a blonde eyebrow out at the rock dells outside her car. Most people don't say the middle name. "Who's calling?"

"This is the Prescott post office at city square. Your PO Box is full, and we called to check since nobody has been in to clean it this year."

Delina coasts her car into the coffee shop parking lot, then brakes, unwilling to step outside of the air conditioning for this call. It's just now starting to tilt into the coolness of fall, but in the full sun it's still far past what she would consider reasonable. "You must be mistaken. I don't have a PO Box."

Nobody has a PO Box anymore.

"Your billing address is on Willow Court Way, right?" She wasn't going to confirm that, of course. "Birthday October Eighth?"

"That's…" She trails off, squinting out of the car.

"We have on our records that it was set up by a Dr. Joyanna Frisse fifteen years ago, and it is cleaned out at least once every six months," the impersonal voice rattles off. "With strict instructions to call this number if it ever gets too full."

She sits up straight at her bio-mother's name, then straighter when she does the mental math.

Delina and her father had moved into Prescott fifteen years ago, back when she was a struggling preteen and he wanted a bit smaller of a town to deal with her in.

"Well, shit," Delina says, still sitting in her car. "I guess this is for me."

Something a little bit like wonder peeks into her mind, replaced quickly by a thin sheen of anticipation.

She knows her bio-mother was strange, but creating a mystery PO Box for her daughter is some mystery movie shit.

"If you can stop by the post office this week, we can deliver the items to you."

"I don't have a key," Delina informs her, which feels like an important part of this conversation, unless the media has lied to her about how PO Boxes work. "I didn't even know about it, that's my mother." She winces at that, unintentionally blurting out personal details.

"Oh, that's no problem, miss, our instructions say your ID is sufficient."

Delina glances at her car clock. "What are your hours?"

In the end, the post office was the least of her worries.

"Oh, wow, you look just like her," the petite Post Office clerk says, the moment Delina flashes her ID. "I mean, her hair was gray and all, but…" she gestures at her face. "It's like you're a clone."

"That's not weird, not at all," Delina says, syrupy sweet, but her heart is pounding. "Did she come by often?"

"Every six months, like clockwork. Nice lady."

Her own mother, setting this up and then returning twice a year, but never bothering to stop by and introduce herself. Just mysterious behavior suited for a spy story. "Sure."

The clerk grabs an old-fashioned ring of keys, then gestures for Delina to follow her deeper into the post office, past brass and mahogany boxes. "We thought it weird when she didn't come by last summer."

"Oh, she totally died," Delina says, still syrupy sweet. "If I had known about this, I would have stopped by sooner."

The clerk eyes her. "My condolences?"

"I didn't know her," Delina continues. "So this is a bit weird, you know?"

"Guess so," the Clerk says, voice now wary. "Here."

It's a normal looking PO Box; one in a long row of other boxes, with nothing but a number to indicate any difference, and now Delina's stomach flip flops all over the place as the clerk deftly unlocks it, pulling out packet after packet of papers.

"Here, this should be it," the clerk says, and Delina's actually holding something from her bio-mother in her hands, something that's not just a check printed by a bank, before the Clerk puts another letter on top of it. "She said to have you open this one first."

It's a clean envelope, brilliantly white and expensive looking, with her name printed neatly on the front. Just her name, not her father's, not the bank's, just her.

"Okay," Delina responds, unsteady. "Anything else?"

It feels like there should be more, if this was as important for her bio-mother to set up and maintain.

"The box is pre-paid for the next ten years. Do you want to keep it open?" the Clerk asks, and Delina just shrugs, then turns on the heel of her expensive gym shoes and strides out of the post office.

The sun slaps her in the face, it always does, but she doesn't stop until she's in her car and can dump all the paperwork in the passenger's seat, her arms shaking.

One package is a neatly compact will, with more properties and bank accounts listed than she can read, her eyes blurring together. One package is a textbook—maybe—in a language she can't read, beautifully bound in embossed leather with gold lettering.

And then…the envelope with her name on it.

Instead of opening it right away, she cradles it in her hands. There's little indentations from the force of the pen, like her mother wrote with some fierceness. Like she pressed against the envelope with all of her might, so that even if the ink faded, the shape of her name would still be there.

Living with Maison for the last five years made it unavoidable to not notice the paper, so she runs her fingers over it. It's high quality, the sort of paper that would give Maison a fit that it was used for something so mundane as an envelope.

Careful to not rip it, she slides her nail under the wax seal, popping it open and setting it aside. Maison'll be able to paint over it, make some sort of art with it. It's an old habit at this point, to collect fine bits of paper so he can use them.

Inside is a key, simple and normal with a red ribbon tied on it, and a single, folded up piece of paper, of much lesser quality. Printer paper, if she had to guess, the flimsy sort, and the words on it are scribbled with much less care, the blue ink skipping over the lines.

She can't make herself read it, not immediately.

She tucks the key into her purse, a bit unnerved.

At the top, there's a messy sort of symbol, scrawled in cheap blue pen, like someone tried to write all the letters of one word on top of each other, and she peers at it, bringing the paper up to her face, but nothing makes sense.

"Weird," she mumbles, before she brushes her thumb over the symbol, as if that could get her to understand it.

With a snap, a static shock arcs from the paper and into her thumb, sending pins and needles through her hand, and she jerks back, the letter falling harmlessly onto her lap.

And before her very eyes, the scribbled-on symbol fades, until all that is left is the indentations from the pen.

"What the fuck?" Delina says aloud, staring down at the paper, shaking out her hand before examining her thumb. It's fine, her hand is fine, her manicure still untouched, but her thumb feels like it's been coated with a thick dust.

Careful, she sets the letter down in the passenger seat and starts the car. She's gonna need coffee for this.

After getting her espresso milkshake and Maison's overly fancy caramel monstrosity of a coffee, she idles her car back in the parking lot, staring at the letter, still half unfolded in the seat next to her.

It's tilted enough towards her that she can read the first line.

Dearest Delina, my daughter,

"Okay," Delina says, nervy, then picks it back up. No static shock, nothing. Just a normal piece of paper, she's just going a bit nuts from the anticipation.

I'm so sorry I never got to meet you. If this letter is in your possession, then I am either dead or in prison, and if they put me into a prison, I doubt I'm getting out.

Delina takes the moment to glance out at the white sands and stone beyond the coffee shop parking lot.

Her mother's dead, she knows her mother is dead, but even reading those words feels odd.

Sorry about the rune at the top, it's all I could manage without setting off alarms. I'd unlock everything inside of you, but they'd catch on. If you touch anything magical with the hand that touched the rune, you'll be able to tell.

You don't know about the world, about the actual world, so I'll rip off the band aid fast. Magic is real and there's magic in you. The world is far more vast than you think it is, and there are ghosts and demons and monsters around every corner.

Delina rests the letter on her lap and takes a huge drink from the espresso milkshake.

Not only is her mother dead, but she's also insane.

When I was pregnant with you, I was starting on experiments, and a ruling counsel — the College — deemed it immoral for me to be around you, and locked away your magic. Everything about your life is a lie, and you have been watched and controlled for your entire life.

So her mother is really insane. A nice fancy insane nut job. Delina breathes out hard through her nose.

You can't trust anyone. Your father knows, he's complicit in keeping you locked away. Your boyfriend, Maison, isn't real. He's a spy from the College, vastly powerful, and has been in charge of keeping you in control for at least five years. Don't trust him, he's not who you think he is.

She takes another long sip from the espresso milkshake, disappointment flooding through her. Her own mother knew her boyfriend's name, but didn't know her, and was apparently convinced of a grand conspiracy.

They track your cell phone, they track your car, they track your email. Go to Northern Washington, near the Ferry service, there's a cabin that will help unlock your full potential. Leave your phone behind, buy a plane ticket with cash, there's some in the textbook. The address to the cabin is in the will, page 24, line 9.

Delina leans over to flip through the will, and sure enough there's a property listed.

I love you, and you will one day be magnificent.

Joyanna Jhyoti Frisse

And that's it. Just some insane ramblings from someone she never met. Claiming magic was real, that there were ghosts and shit.

After a beat, Delina tosses the letter aside, then picks up the textbook again, this time leafing through the pages.

Symbols, like the one that zapped her thumb, adorn every page, but she doesn't touch them, instead turning them.

At the start of the second chapter, a crisp hundred-dollar bill.

"Okay, Mom, that's nice," Delina says, then continues flipping.

Third chapter, another. Fourth, another.

There are twenty-eight chapters in the book, and all of the bills are perfectly clean and unused and, because Delina's the person to check for these things, all unmarked and non-sequential.

When they had first found out about her mother's death, Delina had gotten a nice sum of money deposited into her bank account, but this seems somehow even weirder.

Her mother was insane, dead, and left her a key and a bunch of cash in a book. Just what every little girl dreams of.