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A long silence Wanting to roar at Dervish, call him a liar, make him take the words back But there&039;s no reason for hi but sad honesty in his eyes
Feeling sick Instantly lad - I&039; when the demons attacked Now I discover I have a brother
"This is crazy," I ht "I don&039;t knohat to make of it I can&039;t handle it"
"Of course you can," Dervish snaps "You handled the deaths of your parents and Gret - this is sht" I shakeor what I feel "Why didn&039;t you tell Bill-E? You should have, especially after his Mum died He could have co!" Dervish barks "Not without revealing the truth and tearing his farey hair "But he tried to do it anyway He came here to claim Billy when Emily died, despite the havoc it would cause"
"Why didn&039;t he?" I ask
"Ma and Pa Spleen threatened legal action He would have fought them in court, except he knew he&039;d lose - they&039;d sie that Emily hadn&039;t told the boy who his father was, or allowed Cal access to him while she was alive He hadn&039;t a hope"
"Couldn&039;t you have cast a spell on theive Bill-E to him?"
"I&039;m not that powerful," Dervish chuckles humourlessly "I &039;persuaded&039; them to let me into Billy&039;s life when Emily died, but that was as far asDad, how ether I never suspected hi like this I don&039;t think Mum did either
"I know it&039;s a shock," Dervish says quietly, "but can I ask you to put it to one side for the ot the rest of your life to chew it over Billy doesn&039;t have the sa, shuddering breath Glance at the unconscious boy - e, his dark skin and twisted hands Recall the photos of the creatures in Dervish&039;s lycanthropy books, warped and inhuman
"OK We&039;ll discuss Dad later" I lean forward intently "Tell me about olves"
"I&039;ll keep this as short as possible," Dervish says Reaching under the table, he produces two cans of Coke froulps thirstily at his I sip mine while he speaks
"The curse is ancient We call it the Garadex curse, since the Garadexes were the first in our family to write about it If other families have it, we don&039;t know about theed, but e research their family tree ays find links to ourselves
"Scientists who&039;ve studied the lycanthropic gene say it&039;s a freak - they haven&039;t found it anywhere else in nature They don&039;t knohere it came from or why it functions the way it does"
He finishes his Coke, fishes out another, and continues "We&039;ve kept the secret to ourselves We&039;re a large family, wealthy and powerful Those of us unaffected by the disease protect the secret That&039;s why you and Billy aren&039;t under observation in some scientific institute"
"Why would I be under observation?" I enquire "I&039;ht strikes "Am I?"
Dervish doesn&039;t look at ene surfaces at random So theenerations You&039;re one of three children Gret and Billy both succumbed to the disease I wish I could say that makes you uessing
"The change strikes - if it strikes - anywhere between the age of ten and eighteen There have been a handful of cases involving younger children, but nobody past their teens has ever turned"
"That&039;s why there are sofaces in the hall of portraits!" I exclailumly "There&039;s no known cure Those who catch it are dooed animals for the rest of their days They nor - twenty years at most, if allowed to live"
"What do you ernails, a distant expression in his eyes "It&039;s a terrible curse," he says softly "To see one you love change into an animal, to chain them up and endure their pain Many choose not to put theuish A lot of parents" He stops tapping and his expression hardens "They put theulp dreadfully "They kill them?"
He nods "They&039;re beasts," he says quickly before I can express et loose, they kill There are people in the faroup called the Lambs, who handle the details if the parents can&039;t Family executioners, to be blunt"
"But you said there was a way to reverse it," I re not to dwell on all those faces frorueso to that," Dervish sighs "Though be warned - when I tell you, you roan fro
"When will he wake?" I ask, eyeing hio to "
"No," I e of the table "I want to be here for hily, then returns to his story
"Our scientists haven&039;t been able to crack the wolfen gene and find a cure But science isn&039;t the only way to fight a disease Magic works too"
Dervish reaches across the desk, roots through the books stacked to his left and finds a thick to into the eyes of the fae chunk of his life to trying to rid the fains in ht a cure in arcane volue a nor with a transformed olf He was powerless, like everybody else
"And then he met a creature asn&039;t"
Dervish&039;s face darkens Taking the book from me, he closes it, then reaches for the folder where I found the drawing of Lord Loss