Vespertine

It had been exactly five days since the reversal began, and when Quinn Vespertine awoke, the same thought that had greeted her for the past five days ran through her head.

Salvatore is alive.

She sat up slowly, taking in her surroundings once again. Her room in the abandoned gym building that now served as the V’s base. It still didn’t seem quite real, that she was back with them.

Salvatore is alive.

She checked the time; it was just before 8:00. Probably Caiden wasn’t awake yet, but Arette usually was. She swung her legs off the bed, making her way to the rack of drawers that held her clothes. She picked out a long-sleeve tee and a pair of jeans and put them on, grabbing her toothbrush and towel and headed towards the bathroom. She’d brush her teeth and then go wake Caiden up, so that the three of them could get breakfast together. It was what she’d done for the past five days, anyways.

Salvatore is alive.

When she got back to her room, however, she found her brother sitting on her bed.

“I thought you might want to talk today,” he said, hesitantly, the same way he had for the past five days.

Quinn ignored him and placed her toothbrush back on top of the drawers and stooped to look in her mirror, and began braiding her hair. Her silence was an answer in and of itself.

“Quinn,” Salvatore said, exasperatedly. “Come on. You can’t be mad at me forever.”

“You faked your death,” she replied evenly. “I most definitely can.”

“You have to understand why I did it,” Salvatore pleaded. “Please, Quinn. You won’t even let me explain!”

“What is there to explain?” She asked, in an icy tone, before tying off her hair and heading to her door. Then she frowned when it wouldn’t open.

Salvatore crossed his arms. “Too bad. It’s not opening until you let me.”

Confusion flitted across her face, and then it cleared as she scowled. “Riana!”

“Sorry,” Riana called from the other side of the door. “Not today. Talk to him, Quinn.”

“No,” Quinn responded defiantly. “I don’t care how long you lock me in here. I’m not talking to him.”

“Why not?” Salvatore asked desperately. “Why can’t you just listen? Then you’d understand that I—“

“Why?” Quinn exploded furiously. If the reversal hadn’t been taking place, she probably would have destroyed every piece of furniture in the room. “I’ll tell you why, Salvatore—because you lied to me! Because you pretended to fucking die! And why? How? You know why I don’t want to talk? Because I don’t want to know!”

She was trembling with anger. “I don’t want to know,” she repeated, “because it seems impossible to me, but it isn’t. Because you’re a sorcerer, right? Because you’ve been lying about that, too. I saw your dead fucking body, Salvatore. How did you do that? No, don’t answer that, because I don’t want to know, because if you can lie about this, then god knows what else—“

“Everything,” Salvatore said, cutting her off.

Her eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”

“Everything, Quinn. That’s what else I could’ve lied about.”

She snarled at him. “Yeah, that’s really helping your fucking case.”

He took a deep breath. “I’m not telling you just so that you’ll forgive me.”

“I won’t.”

“I’m telling you because you deserve to know the truth, Quinn,” he said softly. “Even if it makes you hate me forever.”

“You mean more than I already do?”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Yes I do.”

“No, you don’t.” He winced. “But after I tell you everything, you just might.”

“If that’s the case, why are you trying so hard to tell me?”

“Because,” he said, “like I said, you deserve that.”

She considered this. “Fine,” she snapped. “Talk if you have to. But don’t expect me to thank you for it.”

“Fair enough.”

He paused, thinking about how he wanted to word it, though in truth he had replayed this conversation a million times in his head. None of the scenarios ended happily. “Remember the day Mom and Dad died?”

“Oh, yes,” she replied mockingly, “how could I forget? Are they alive, too?”

“Quinn.”

“No, really. At this point, I don’t know.”

“They’re not. That’s not my point. My point is that the day before they died, Astor paid them a visit. Do you know what he said to them?”

“No,” Quinn said, crossing her arms as well. “But I’ll bet you’re gonna tell me!”

Salvatore ignored the sarcasm staining her words. “He offered for them to join him in his little world domination quest. He wanted Dad to be his powerhouse. And when they refused, he killed them.”

This seemed to somber Quinn just a bit, but she still snapped at him. “Well, good thing you shot him, then. Even though we all thought you were dead.”

“He killed them like they were nothing, Quinn. He has—had—so many resources, so many plans and people working for him. Our parents ran to keep us safe, to lead him away, but before they did, they told me everything he had told them.”

“Yes, and they left me with information about how the microwave worked. Clearly we’re equals.”

He tilted his head sadly. “They wanted to keep you safe, Quinn. That’s why they didn’t tell you. It was dangerous to know, and they were afraid Astor was going to go after you next. You were the powerhouse, after all, what he needed.”

“They also forgot to mention the little fact that I’m not mortal.”

“Quinn—“ he began, but she cut him off.

“Really, Salvatore? It’s one thing not to tell me about Astor. It is a completely different thing to lie about what I am!” She snapped. “But, you know, they died for real, so I can’t be mad at them right now. You, however—“

“I know. But I’m not finished yet. After they died, Quinn, they left me with the task of stopping him. It took me months to make the plan, and I would only have one shot at stopping him. When is a man most vulnerable?”

She scowled, but answered nonetheless. “When he thinks he’s won.”

“Exactly. I had to make him believe that he had won.”

“Then, bam, you show up and kill him? That’s great for a movie, Sal, but I fail to see how it’s practical in real life.”

“Because he would have tried to kill me,” Sal replied simply. “Because I’m useless to him. I’m not a powerhouse, and it’s more possible that they would have told me, rather than you, because I was older. You were still just a kid. You still are.”

Her scowl deepened. “Are you fucking with me right now?”

“That’s not what I meant. Jesus.” Salvatore closed his eyes. “My point was, my plan revolved around some basic assumptions. Firstly, that Astor wouldn’t give up, no matter what, and that he needed a powerhouse now that Dad was gone. Which meant that he would go after you.”

“And how, exactly, did he know that I was a powerhouse? You know, especially since I didn’t even know?”

“Girls typically inherit from the father’s side.”

“And you?”

He smiled wearily. “Mom’s.”

“So if you’re not a powerhouse, what are you?”

Salvatore considered this question very carefully, and then decided not to answer it at that moment.

“He would go after you, and he wouldn’t stop until he had you. I had to make sure you were safe—that was my priority. Secondly, he’d attempt to kill me. So it was better if I made him believe I was already dead. And third of all, he had a healer that could heal any injury without repercussion. He needed you alive, and so he needed Caiden to bond with you. I trusted him to take care of that part, though…” He hesitated. “I helped, a bit. To make sure. But anyways, I had to make sure my plan correlated with his. That it would help you end up in the right place at the right time, to make him think he had won. Then yes, bam, I would kill him.”

“Salvatore,” she interrupted. Her voice was dangerously patient. “You didn’t answer my question. What is your power?”

He swallowed, and rubbed his jaw with a hand. He didn’t answer.

“And why in the hell didn’t you just tell me about this plan? Why make up such an elaborate lie? Rope Arette into this, too? Lie to her, too? Answer me!” She demanded, slamming a fist against the drawer at his silence.

“Quinn,” he said, slowly. “I’m like Mom. I…we…we’re memory-changers.”

It had suddenly gotten very quiet in the small room.

He could almost hear Quinn thinking about it, turning it over in her head, tasting all the horrible, bitter implications of what he had said.

Dully, she said, “You can change memories.”

It was not a question, but Salvatore answered anyways. “Yes.”

“For how long?”

“Only 24 hours into the past. Any more than that, I’m incapable of altering. But…”

“But?”

“Well, Mom could only do one person at a time. I…I can do multiple. Probably because Dad was so powerful, maybe some of it transferred over to me.”

Quinn didn’t speak for a moment. “So that’s how you faked your death. You changed the memories of everyone in that room. You made me think I saw you die.”

He nodded. “And then all I had to do was fake my wound and lay on the floor. There are ways to appear dead, temporarily. And afterwards, when Scarlett betrayed you, I knocked her out and made Caiden think that he did it, so that he would heal you.”

“Did you know?”

“Know…about Scarlett?”

“Yes.”

Salvatore hesitated again, and then gave a brief nod.

“I figured that her arrival was too perfectly timed to be genuine. Another piece of Astor’s puzzle.”

Quinn’s breathing seemed to have gotten shallower. “Is that…is that how…how you kept me from finding out? All these years? About my powers?”

Salvatore bit his lip. “Mostly, it was Mom. But after she died…yes. When you were younger, when you threw tantrums, sometimes things would explode. And Mom would make you forget that it happened, so that you’d believe you were mortal. She didn’t want you to have to bear the burden of living between two worlds, Quinn. Our parents always meant to bring you into the V’s, and thought that maybe being a sorcerer would cause your views to be confused. They meant to tell you once you were older, and could control your powers.”

She did not speak for a long moment. And then she said, “How much of my life is a lie?”

Salvatore turned away, and didn’t reply.

This was wrong. This was so, so wrong. Quinn looked at her brother, and suddenly he was a stranger, and so was she. A stranger to herself. Who am I? Who was I? Who would I have become? She wanted to shout at him. She wanted to yell and demand an answer, but she realized that she didn’t want that at all. She didn’t want to know.

So she did the only thing she could think of, and she laughed. “Oh, Salvatore,” she said. “What a load of bullshit.”

His brow furrowed. “What? No, Quinn, I’m telling the truth—“

“Not that,” she said, walking slowly towards him. Every step felt unsteady, as if she might collapse if she put weight on her foot. She forced herself to keep walking. “I’m talking about your reasons. Mom’s reasons. All of this shit about keeping me safe. Your stupid little plan to take down Astor, to lie to everybody, to keep me safe. You know what I think, Salvatore?” His full name rolled off her tongue acidly.

She was right in front of him, now. Even if he had wanted to, Salvatore had no space to stand anymore. She leaned down until they were eye-to-eye.

“I think you’re a goddamn coward. I think the real reason you didn’t just tell me about Astor is because you were afraid. There was some little part of you that was putting this conversation off, right? Hell, some big part. I’ll bet that a part of you hoped that maybe your roundabout, bullshit plan wouldn’t work, and then Astor would take over and kill us all and you’d never have to tell me how much you fucking lied.”

He said nothing, though his jaw tightened.

“And maybe, you thought, after all this, Quinn will be so happy that I’m alive that she’ll forgive me for all of this shit!” She punctuated her statement with a sweep of her arm, and then she straightened up and took a step back, allowing Salvatore to stand if he wanted to.

“Quinn,” he said, in a voice so full of love that Quinn wanted to punch him in the face, because he had no right, no right, “I’m sorry. I really, really am. But I’m only human. My parents died that day, too. And ever since then I’ve done the best I can. I regret a lot of things. But I don’t regret trying to keep you safe.”

“Sal, don’t.” She was trembling dangerously now, and she felt her throat closing up. She willed herself not to cry. “How can you say everything you’ve done was for the best? Pretending to die? Do you know how much that hurt? Do you know how—“ her voice broke a little, “—alone I was? All by myself. Is that the best you could do for me?”

Salvatore shook his head. “Quinn, please. Just trust that—“

She laughed again. It was a bitter sound that seemed to echo off the small walls of her room, and it hit Salvatore like a punch to the gut.

“Trust? Salvatore, I love you. And I’m incredibly glad you’re not dead.” She turned away from him, and her tone had a hard edge to it. Like stone. Like something that could kill him for real. “But I sure as hell will never trust you again.”

And, because she knew she had hurt him all she could, and because she knew that he knew exactly why, she walked to the door and opened it. Riana was gone, and Quinn walked out steadily. She didn’t slam it, which almost made it worse.

He watched her go, every apology dying before reaching his lips, and for the first time in two years, Salvatore felt like crying.

Caiden wanted badly to ask Quinn questions about her brother, and about the V’s, and about everything else, but he sensed that now was not the time. He watched her munch angrily on her ice cream, which was a marvel to him. He hadn’t known it was possible to munch on ice cream, much less angrily, until just now.

Instead, he said, “Riana seems nice.”

“Yeah, she is,” Quinn answered, “except for the fact that she knew my brother was alive, and that we were sorcerers, and pretended like she didn’t, and got the V’s to ditch me so I’d get caught, so you could break me out.”

Definitely not the time.

Then she looked at him and said, “I hear Scarlett’s getting reduced time for helping us at the end.”

Now it was his turn to be angry. “She didn’t exactly help us.”

She shrugged. “No, she didn’t. But at least she didn’t kill us.”

That did nothing to improve Caiden’s mood. “I feel like that’s basic human decency.”

“Not when you’re a two-faced Hellhound,” Quinn observed, and Caiden was forced to concur, at least marginally.

Quinn stood up, dusting off her jeans from the curb they were sitting on. She dumped the end bit of her cone before Caiden could protest and take it from her.

“I think,” she said, carefully, “I’m going to visit her.”

Caiden was visibly appalled. “In prison?”

“Yes,” she replied. “They allow visitors, don’t they?”

“They do, but why?”

She looked at him. “You’re telling me you don’t want answers?”

He scowled. “Not from her.”

Quinn gave him a silent nod of understanding. It had taken her days to allow Salvatore to explain, after all. And she and Caiden were in quite similar situations, what with a lying sibling and what not, though Scarlett was not Caiden’s real sister, and though Salvatore had never attempted to physically hurt Quinn. But all things considered, she completely understood his feelings.

“You don’t have to come. Actually, it’s probably better if I go alone.”

“I agree,” Caiden said. “At least cover my taxi fare back to the base.”

She smiled at that. “It’s a ten-minute walk, dipshit. Don’t get spoiled.”

He sighed as she climbed onto her black motorbike, which they had ridden here. A lot had happened in the past few days, the least of which included clearing their own names after the authorities had arrested Astor’s accomplices and charged them, and Astor himself, with a bunch of things, though it didn’t really matter much to Astor, seeing as he was dead. They had also gotten their belongings back, including Quinn’s bike, and returned the breastplate to the Lafissas with profound apologies and explanations as to why they needed it to prevent Astor from taking over. The Lafissas had accepted the explanation and dropped charges against them. They kept the shield, though. It sat in the basement of the gym.

Quinn rode through the city until she reached the maximum-security prison on the outskirts of town. Maximum-security didn’t exactly mean much in Aski, seeing as the most dangerous criminals the city ever saw were muggers and robbers, but it was the only place they could put Scarlett and the others without having to transport them further and risk escape.

She entered the building after parking her bike and signed in at the reception.

“Scarlett Rowan,” she requested, through the visitor’s window. The woman behind the desk accepted her request, and a moment later, a buzzing noise accompanied the opening of a door. She was escorted past the door to an empty commons area, and then to the booth where Scarlett sat.

She looked unsurprised to see Quinn, but not angry. Quinn sat down in front of her, observing her through the glass window. She had never seen Scarlett without makeup, she realized. It irked her slightly to realize that Scarlett was still beautiful. In that moment, her hair slightly wavy and hung loose around her shoulders, her expression neutral and hard to read, she looked a lot like Marissa.

Quinn almost snorted at the thought. She always looked a lot like Marissa, because she was. But the more sentimental part of her brain knew what she meant.

She picked up the phone, and Scarlett did the same.

“Hello.”

“Quinn,” Scarlett greeted. She didn’t sound bitter, to Quinn’s relief. “Didn’t think you’d visit.”

“I’m here.”

There was silence for a moment, and Quinn had a million questions she wanted to ask—why did you help Astor? What did he do for you? What exactly was your undercover assignment? Was any of it real? Were you ever my friend? What made you remember? And what made you decide not to help Astor in the end?—but all she could say was, “My brother is a liar, too.”

“Like me,” Scarlett agreed quietly. “I suppose there’s no point in apologizing for what I did.”

“Not really. You did stab me in the stomach.”

She smiled wryly. “I wasn’t going to kill you. I just needed to incapacitate you.”

“Yeah, but I had just watched my brother die. Pretty dick move, if you ask me.”

“Yes,” she said. “Pretty dick move.”

“Though my brother wasn’t really dead.”

“I know,” Scarlett said. Then she added, “Riana came by to see me. She told me. And then she cussed me out for a bit.”

Quinn felt her own lips lifting into a smile. “Sounds like Riana.”

“Why are you here, Quinn?”

There was nothing she could say but the truth. “Because I needed somebody to talk to. Somebody who understands the other side.”

“The liar’s side.”

“Yes.”

Scarlett considered this. “I don’t have as much insight into his thoughts as you might hope, Quinn. But I’ll say this: I believe that Salvatore loves you deeply and that everything he might have lied about or did, he did out of love. And that you should forgive him.”

This was unsatisfying to Quinn. “Since when did you become a peace hippie?”

Scarlett laughed. “I would never. But you asked for my side of it, and that was my answer.”

This time, her question was more muted, and serious. “Are you saying that then, because you hope I’ll forgive you, too?”

Scarlett’s smile turned sad, and a bit wistful. “I know that isn’t a likely possibility. Maybe, Quinn. But mostly, I’m telling you this because I truly believe it. Salvatore might’ve done bad things, but it doesn’t make him a bad person.”

Quinn looked at her pretty green eyes, eyes that had once conjured butterflies in her stomach. Now, she didn’t feel butterflies, but neither did she feel the contempt that had simmered after her betrayal.

“Thanks,” she finally said, and hung up the phone.

Scarlett gave her one last smile as she was led away, and then Quinn exited the building and got back on her bike, and realized that it was sunny, and pleasant, though it was November already. And it hit her: she was free of the hell that had been the past two months. The running, the hiding, the mourning, the paranoia—it was all gone. Over. Yes, they still had their original problem, but nonetheless she felt lighter, the way one appreciates a clear nose after suffering through a stuffy one, even though it’s technically in the same state as it was before.

So she rode as fast as she dared, letting the breeze toss her hair, and she parked outside the base, and she walked in with a spring in her step. She spotted Salvatore gazing pensively at the punching bag in the middle of the actual gym, and she leaned against the doorframe, rapping it gently with her knuckles.

He turned, and she could see his expression now. He looked, for lack of a better word, wounded. Quinn suddenly felt a bit guilty about her earlier outburst. Maybe it had been harsh.

“Quinn,” he said carefully, as if her name could cause her to explode if handled carelessly. Which probably was not far from the truth.

She crossed her arms. “I don’t want you to think I’m not still mad. Because I am. And I will be for a very long time. But…a very long time isn’t the same thing as forever.”

Without further ceremony, she turned and headed towards her room, and behind her, the smallest of relieved smiles graced Salvatore’s face.

Quinn ran into Riana on the way, who was carrying a rather large cake. “Quinn!” She greeted her cheerfully. And even though Quinn wanted to snap at her for lying by omission, she found that she couldn’t quite conjure the energy to be angry.

“Riana,” she said. She raised her eyebrows at the cake.

“For the party,” Riana explained. “I figured we should celebrate the fact that you guys saved the world, right?” Her gaze flickered to a spot behind Quinn, and Quinn turned to see both Arette and Caiden, looking amused.

Caiden flicked a paper streamer at her. “It starts after dinner,” he said, grinning.

Arette followed up with a spray of confetti. “Or now,” she suggested, a wicked gleam in her eye. “After all, we do have water balloons.”

Quinn’s eyes widened as both Caiden and Arette removed their other hand from behind their backs, and launched water-filled projectiles at her. She shrieked and laughed and shook her fist in mock anger as Caiden and Arette ran away gleefully.

She gave chase, leaving Riana to laugh with her monstrous cake, and followed them into another gym space, this one set up with tables of food and balloons and streamers everywhere.

She dove for one of the various bins filled with water balloons, ducking as Caiden launched another at her. Quinn twisted, pelting balloons towards Caiden and Arette.

Caiden dodged, but Arette wasn’t quite so lucky, and let out a noise of indignation as she was soaked. Shaking her head, she reached for another when Caiden hit her from behind.

She pointed at him, shocked. “Traitor! We’re on the same team!”

“No such thing,” Caiden replied easily. “Every man for himself!”

“Damn right,” Quinn agreed, and assaulted him with multiple balloons. Caiden didn’t attempt to dodge this time, and instead aimed another at her, pitching it just as hers splattered against his body.

Quinn laughed, and then cried out as the other V’s entered the room and joined the battle eagerly, and the whole room became one homogenous feeling of home, home, home.

Then, in the corner of her eye, she saw a balloon hit Caiden in the chest. Caiden began to laugh, when suddenly the laugh seemed to fall right off his face, and his eyes became unfocused.

He collapsed suddenly, and Quinn found herself running through possible explanations, telling herself that he was faking it to be funny, only it didn’t look fake at all, and he was convulsing now, and slowly people around him were coming to a standstill, staring at him.

Quinn heard herself, from somewhere far away.

“Caiden!”