Everyone kept asking about Dallin and how he was taking all of this.Sol didn’t have an answer because he had no idea.Dallin hadn’t visited him once.Sol had expected him to be first in line the day after he arrived, but so far, there had been no sightings of him.Sol was tempted to leave his bed and go hunting for the man.He might have if Pippa hadn’t threatened to break his ankles if he as much as thought about getting up.
She wasn’t wrong.He was still tired and aching, even though he felt like he’d been sleeping for aweek.He wanted to be at his best for the upcoming battle, though.
“Well, they only mentioned Dallin twice,” Pippa said.She was sitting in what Sol already thought of as her armchair by the bed, scrolling on her phone.
“Penley asked about him five times when he was here earlier this morning,” Sol lamented.
Pippa lowered her phone.“You know what would solve the problem?”
Sol sighed.“Yes, I know that I need to talk to him.I don’t see how I can when you threatened to beat me up if I left this bed.”
“I could probably go and find him.I can drag him to you so you don’t have to move.”
“No dragging, please.I don’t want to force Dallin into anything.”Dallin had been gracious enough to give Sol time.The least Sol could do was to do the same, although he didn’t fully understand why Dallin needed that time.
“You’re going to have to talk to him eventually,” Pippa said in a gentle voice.“And I know that everything’s a mess right now, but think about it.Think abouthim.He was in love with the man you were before.Even though he knew you wouldn’t have those memories, he probably expected the two of you to be close.Maybe he’s still in love with you.Imagine how hard all of that has to be.Imagine what you’d feel if the man you loved and lost for decades didn’t recognize you.”
Sol didn’t have to imagine.He’d been thinking about it nonstop since he’d found out.“He can’t be in love with me anymore.”
“Well, he’s not in love withyou.You’re not the man you were before.But he’s still in love with Kent, and you look exactly like him.”
Because, in a way, SolwasKent.He couldn’t remember anything from his past, though.He didn’t remember Kent’s family or how he and Dallin had met.He didn’t remember how he felt about Dallin.He didn’t remember the last time he’d kissed Dallin, the last words they’d said to each other before Carlyle had cursed them, or the last time they’d made love.Sol was missing a chunk of memories, and he’d always resented that, but it had never made him as angry as he was now.
Dallin was Sol’s mage.That meant that the two of them should be close, but instead, because of Carlyle and whatever spell he’d cast on the dragons, Dallin couldn’t even be in the same room as Sol.How was it fair?How was Sol supposed to deal with it?
“I want to talk to him,” he murmured.
Pippa leaned forward to squeeze Sol’s shoulder.“Then I’ll make sure you do.He won’t know what hit him.”
Sol snickered.Dallin really wouldn’t.Pippa might have been living with the mages for a little while now, but she’d told Sol that she’d mostly stayed in her room.That was over now that Sol was there.The mages would have to deal with Pippa, and she always got what she wanted.
This situation wouldn’t be any different.
* * * *
“YOU SAID YOUR BROTHERlied to you the other day,” Dallin said, hoping to start a conversation.
He wanted to know more about Graham and the circumstances that had brought him to work for Carlyle.He didn’t think that Graham had ever wanted to hurt anyone, but he had anyway.Maybe knowing what was behind it would help his cause.Tyne would never like Graham, but he wasn’t the one making decisions.
They were a family, and they made decisions together.Tyne would have a vote, but so would everyone else, and Dallin was inclined to be on Graham’s side.He didn’t think that anything he’d find out would change his mind, but he still needed to know more.
Graham glanced out the window.It was clear he didn’t want to talk about this, and Dallin wished he could give him that.Graham had mentioned that he and Simon didn’t have any other family.Dallin could imagine this wasn’t easy for him.
“I’m not sure when all of this started,” Graham eventually said.“A while ago, we were contacted because our great-aunt died.We didn’t even know we had a great-aunt.She was our mother’s aunt, and she didn’t have any other family, so everything she owned went to us.I was still in college, and Simon said he’d take care of everything.I was relieved.It’s not like I didn’t want to help, but I didn’t have any idea who this woman was, and I didn’t want to fly to the other side of the country to poke around her stuff when I had class.”
It had been a long time since Dallin had been to any kind of class.He still studied and read a lot, but it wasn’t the same as college.He’d gone to school, though.He remembered how it was, even though it probably had been very different.
“He went back and forth for a bit,” Graham continued.“In the beginning, everything seemed normal, except that he was tired because of everything he had to do on top of his job.Things started getting weird after a while.He barely called me anymore, and when I asked him about the stuff he was selling and the house, he was vague.I didn’t think too much of it.I never thought my brother would take what was mine.I mean, our great-aunt left everything to us, but we never expected to inherit anything.It was just a nice bonus, you know?”
“How did that bonus bring you to Carlyle?”
“Eventually, Simon said he had to tell me something.”Graham grimaced.“I had no idea what to expect, but it wasn’t for him to tell me that he’d found a journal and a gemstone and that there was a mage stuck inside of it.”
“That sounds like it would’ve been a shock.”
“It was.I thought he was having a nervous breakdown or something.I had no idea what he was talking about, and I was worried.He sounded convinced of what he was saying, though, so I decided to listen to what he had to say.I didn’t want to push him away or for him to think that he couldn’t come to me when he needed me.He showed me the gemstone and the journal, and he said he wanted to free the mage.He promised he wouldn’t do it on his own, and I believed him.I also believed him when he said that it would be a good thing for us and that it was our family legacy.He said that Carlyle had been imprisoned by bad people and that he deserved to be free, and once he was, he would make us rich and powerful.None of that sounded like Simon, but I didn’t know what to do.I didn’t realize that Simon had started gathering the ingredients he’d need.”
“What did your brother mean when he said it was your family legacy?”It wasn’t the first time Graham had said that, and Dallin had been curious about how Graham and Simon had gotten their hands on the gemstone, and now, he knew.There was more to this, though.How had the gemstone ended up in their great-aunt’s home?
