Forever in the Past and Forever in the Future

Chapter 69

There's a glint in Leticia's eye as she watches the words absorb into my soul, "Feels good, doesn't it?"

I put my fork down and clear my throat, trying to play it cool, "It kinda does, yeah."

"That's because there's power in those words.They are yours, Kas.You own them," she puts her chin in her hands and watches me more closely.

"What do you mean, I own them? A person can't own words, Leticia," I try to rationalize with her, but it seems fruitless.

"It's your faction, Kas.Mavri Magea is Greek for Dark Magic.Nowadays, I think our sisters call us ‘The Dark’.Rude isn’t it? We didn’t pick the name.Mother gave it to us.We are the youngest of the Manae.And you are the youngest of all of us.Mother saved the best for last, I guess.Can you believe she had to ask permission to change the calendar just for you?" she chuckles as she shakes her head at a memory.

I push the vegetables around on my plate, "So we have dark magic to counteract how ‘light’ our other forty sisters are?"

Leticia tilts her head side to side, "Sort of.We keep balance so our sisters don’t get any smart ideas and try to overtake the Olympians.And we can’t help that it’s dark magic.It’s just who we are."

Leticia looks a little annoyed as she explains, clearly unhappy with ‘ The Dark’ moniker.

"when you say dark magic, you’re talking about what Amari calls ‘ mysticism'?" I ask, making sure I understand.

Leticia rolls her eyes again, "Yeah.I suppose it is."

"So, in the past couple of weeks, I've started to understand my abilities better.Are yours the same as mine?"

"I wish, but no.иσνєℓєвσσк.¢σмEach of the Mavri Magea has a specialty.Mine is traditional magic, but since I don’t have a coven, I kinda work on the fringe by myself.The rest of our faction can harness their energy to do things like create heat or freeze time.Desiree even has the power of persuasion,"

She leans forward and raises her eyebrows, looking impressed.I return the look, even though I have no idea who Desiree is.

The longer I speak with Leticia, the more I feel like she is on the verge of some sort of maniacal episode, but if I could give her guidance, I could rein her in.

"Out of the ten of us, you have a smorgasbord of everything the rest of the Mavri Magea has, plus the ability to have visions.Shit, what I wouldn't give to be able to look into the future," she muses, looking off into the distance.

"Leticia, I assure you, it isn't as great as it seems," I shake my head, thinking of all the terrible things I've seen.

"Whatever, it still seems pretty cool.PLUS all the abilities Katherine, Amari, Contessa, and Persephone have, you lucky bitch," she takes another bite of her food before she points her fork at me with a sly smirk on her face.

"Yeah, Amari mentioned something about that, but it didn't make sense at the time.You're filling in a lot of blanks for me.I appreciate it more than you'll ever know."

she chews

me.I know she has no reason to lie to me and what she is saying aligns with

much information out

first I’m hearing about all of it,"I apologize, "Thank you for

decide it’s time to wake up," Leticia says with an

puts her hand on

can’t help myself.I close my eyes and feel a memory come

out of the eighteen hundreds.I look to

rats scurrying around us

of stale urine

bright violet, giving us just enough light to see what we're doing.I press a rolled piece of leather against

is an ancient

the only one I can

took centuries of setbacks to obtain it, but I know

of power has tipped too far.It’s up to us to fix it, but my lifetime has almost run its course.They'll be

she nods with tears in her large violet eyes,

cheek, then push her away, urging her to hurry and not

the alley, I bump into a large man so

are

hand reaches down to help me stand.I look up

look

gasp as I open my eyes, pulling my

the instructions...it was all

saying I thought was only between Bronx and I.I don’t even know what

you had a vision.What was it?" she puts her

giving you a-a silver knife," I stammer, thinking about the

another sip of her wine, "That was an exciting

do with the knife? I mean, what exactly did I ask you to do besides fix the

me to focus on clearing out the Guardians. I don’t know how that balances

you killed Cordell

to get cash, so I could finally follow him.Oh, and I was able to get Dante Ferox pretty easily once

killed two of the Guardians so far?" I