Chapter 13
I was surprised at the Ace's answer but I knew I really shouldn't have been. He was my brother after all but he shouldn't be using Nil for his own gains. He's hurt too many people as it is with his selfish desires. Then again, according to my own memories so have I. Nil stood up looking down at the book and smiled ruefully at us.
"I'm going to read this a couple of times to see if I can find anything on my dad," he tapped the book lightly thinking of something else altogether. Walking towards the door, he opened the book and stopped. Frowning, he turned back to me.
"I'm going to need French lessons," he told us and held out the book in his hands to me. Confused, I took it from him and read the first few lines. It was in French which was weird for my brother to do. He never particularly liked them and neither had I. Flirty was one thing but some of them took it a little too far. Castor looked over my shoulder at it and sighed.
"He's showing you one of mine. The current queen at the time was from Paris and she always wanted to read what I was doing so I had to put it in story form so she couldn't read it. I couldn't give away my mission," He pointed out and Nil sighed.
"This is going to take a few months," he muttered but I reached out and grabbed his hand. Before he could say anything, I linked our minds and filled his neurons with the language as easily as if he had taken those few months to learn it. Why waste time? He wanted to find his father and I wanted to know what my brother was up to.
"Ouch," the Ace of Spades shook his head slowly trying to get the new knowledge to settle. Learning new things within the space of a few moments had constantly been a painful thing to do but the amount of pain depended on the person and the strength of the link of the two linking together. Nil, luckily, was the Ace and since we were close to begin with, we didn't have much of an issue.
"You might want to take a couple of aspirins before you begin," I offered and he simply nodded. His obedience reminded me of my teaching days and I felt the sudden hunger to just sit in a classroom again. Shaking the feeling off, I watched him leave and I turned to the Ace sitting next to me.
"You knew all along that you couldn't poison me," I stated watching his face. He shrugged and nodded.
"Of course, but I had to keep my distance in case you didn't remember this time. I've been with you for the past three thousand years but usually you never even showed signs of knowing who I really was and who my creator was. So I made sure I was able to find you at any point in time," he replied calmly.
"Elizabeth," I murmured and he grimaced.
"It was the only way I could have someone who would know who you were on sight. I honestly had no idea he would become so obsessed with her. He fancied himself in love but it was just my wishes imprinted on his brain. I didn't realize that it would lead to Shelia falling in love with him. That was completely unexpected," he scowled. Shocked at his admission, I looked down at my hands.
"So you effectively destroyed part of my current life and managed to break my heart all in one go," I stared at him waiting for him to answer. When he did, it was a soft apology.
"Would you like me to leave?" he stared quietly at me anticipating an affirmative reaction. Instead, I shook my head.
"No the first thing we need to do is find my brother. Shelia will only be where he is," I denied him his thoughts as I stood to start the search.
"We could probably get Kyle to talk to the spirits if we needed to and everyone could probably use their powers to find them," he offered and I stopped. It clicked. Staring at him with the sudden epiphany, I started to smile and before I knew it I was laughing so hard my stomach seemed to implode.
