Chapter 4
Talking Victor out of going to the ritual wouldn’t be easy, but it had to be done. Dante watched as his father walked toward him. Before the move things were so simple. One decision, the belief he needed to learn from someone else, and life became more difficult.
“Father.”
“Dante.” Neither said anything more for a few seconds, Victor staring into the distance. “I know we aren’t going to see this the same way.”
“Thaddeus is dangerous.”
“How?”
“If we go to the ritual we’re all going to die.”
Or worse, but that was harder to talk about.
“You say this, but you have no evidence.”
“I need it? Father, I wouldn’t be having this conversation with you if I didn’t believe it was a necessity.”
“Thaddeus is close minded. I don’t imagine for a moment he’s a murderer.”
“He’ll do anything in order to get what he wants.”
Bringing up the dreams was an impossibility. Putting that into words… Dante had tried before, but the moment he even thought them he knew if he said them it would only make that fate more likely. Keeping it to himself gave him a chance, however small, to keep it from happening.
“What does he want?”
“Immortality, like so many others. With that he’ll be able to gain power.”
Victor studied Dante. “You don’t even know him.”
“This isn’t the first time, Father. Ever since I came into my power I’ve been able to see people as they are. You have to trust me.”
“Turning down an invitation from a Lockwood would make it impossible to stay here.”
“Good, because I don’t want to stay. I didn’t want to move here in the first place, but you thought it would be better for me, and wouldn’t listen when I said you were wrong. I’d rather go home.”
“You’re too old for this.”
Dante shook his head. “Too old to have opinions? Father, please listen to me. If not for me then for Matthew and Alexander.”
“Look, if you’re that against it you don’t need to come. Stay here. Avoid the Lockwoods for the rest of your life.”
Was not going worse? Dante would save himself, but if he wasn’t there he stood no chance of protecting the people he loved. He closed his eyes. Everyone dead, and it wasn’t just his family. Some of the Lockwoods were good people, so different to Thaddeus and Emory.
“Does it not bother you to think you might be walking into a trap?”
Victor stared into the distance once more. “It does, but I can’t walk away from this. Not if this is to be our home, and, whatever you may want, I don’t have any plans to leave.”
“What would change your mind?”
“Nothing. Matthew and Alexander are happier here. They need teachers the same way you do.”
“The Lockwoods aren’t the right people to ask to teach anyone magic.”
“How about Issac Tyrell?”
A man who Dante knew only by name, with a dark family. He was meant to be different.
“Until I meet him I can’t tell you. The first time I saw Thaddeus he was wrapped in darkness.”
Magic only Dante was able to see. Victor had different strengths, and once was willing to hear out his eldest son. So much had changed.
“Darkness being the reason he wants to kill us?”
“Darkness being the reason he no longer sees why it’s wrong to kill. I said before he’ll do anything to get what he wants. Killing is nothing if it means he fulfils the dream he’s had since he was a teenager.”
“One look told you all that?”
“You know it can, Father.”
“None of the books say anything about this.”
“The books? You’ve been reading?”
“I needed to, in order to understand my sons better. Only in some ways I think it’s just made it harder.”
“Well, it will. Don’t assume you’re able to learn everything from books. I learnt very little.”
“Explain to me how it works.”
Would it change anything? Once, maybe, but Victor was no longer the same man.
“Magic is different for everyone, Father. Neither Matthew or Alexander are able to feel magic the way I can. They don’t know what’s within someone’s heart.”
“What does that even mean, Dante? Within someone’s heart?”
Dante closed his eyes, the words out of reach. He’d never been good with them. “When I look at you I see the beginnings of change. Once you were bright, shining with the good choices you made. Now I see darkness.”
“What is it you’re accusing me of?”
“Nothing – I think it’s this place. Being here… it’s affecting all of us.”
Victor laughed. “You think I’m becoming someone else.”
There was no think. It was obvious. “Although I wish I could say otherwise I think you are, in some ways.”
“I can’t believe you’d actually say that to me.”
“Once you’d have wanted me to be honest with you, Father.”
“Honesty is one thing. This is another entirely. Are you trying to get sent away?”
“Would you?”
Silence followed the question. “Your mother would never forgive me.”
Elizabeth protected Dante, the way she did all her sons. Maybe she was the one he’d gained his power from. Victor couldn’t see, but she still could, the darkness not yet changing her.
“Father…”
“I think it would be best for us to leave things as they are, Dante.”
Dante watched Victor walk away, the anger making his body tense, and it probably was for the best. They wouldn’t get anywhere. He was too closed off to see what was happening. No one could convince him he was making mistakes when it came to the Lockwoods. They’d go to the ritual.
Home was nothing more than a dream. They’d walk into that dark house, and it would change their lives once more, Victor drawn by it in a way it wasn’t possible to stop. The only decision still to make was whether he’d be there – stopping it was only possible from within.
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