A Grave Tree Read Free Page A

reason to distrust.
    “The others are moving in on Jake again,” Ian said. “We’re going to have to get him to safety.”
    Abbey jolted in her chair. Jake. She’d been so obsessed with her missing parents and her own virtual incarceration that she almost forgot about her note to herself about saving Jake.
    It was already March 7. Two days before she had to save Jake… again, somehow, according to the note. What did Ian mean? Was someone—Selena, Nate, or Damian, Abbey assumed—trying to kill Jake, or just use him again like they had before?
    Sylvain sighed and bent his head, his long silver locks falling over his eyes. “I’ll go get Jake tomorrow and bring him here. His parents trust me. I’ll have one of my employees at Salvador Systems make up a baseball camp and a scholarship story to make them happy.”
    Ian nodded, and Abbey tried to control the quiet lurch in her gut—or was it her heart?—at the prospect of Jake coming to join them. She extinguished it quickly; she was going to marry Sam, apparently, and have his baby.
    Change the future, but don’t change too much , her future self had told her. Her future self likely loved Sam and wanted to keep her baby, and if Abbey changed something—by dating Jake, say—would that baby cease to exist? Was that akin to killing a baby? The potential butterfly effect of time travel sometimes seemed more like an elephant effect; the massive beast careened haphazardly through her life on giant feet, making her question every decision.
    She tried to organize and control her spiraling thoughts. She idolized Sam. She had idolized him forever, since meeting him at science camp. Surely she would be very happy married to him. But he was ten years older than she was, and somehow, right now, her current feelings for Jake seemed more real than her past and expected future feelings for Sam.
    Sometimes knowing the future kind of sucked. How on earth was she going to save Jake? Again?
    “I’ve had no luck looking for Francis or any of the other missing ancients,” Ian said.
    Abbey turned her attention back to Ian sharply. Was he talking about Mrs. Forrester, who was named Francis, or one of the two Franks, who were also named Francis? Ian had mentioned that the ancients had disappeared a few weeks ago. At the time, she hadn’t thought much of it—after all, they were adults, and witches. Surely they could look after themselves. Maybe they had wanted to disappear.
    Sylvain gave Ian a careful look. “I think,” he said, “if you’ve finished eating, it would be best to continue this discussion in private.”
    Ian shifted his gaze to Abbey, Caleb, and Mark. Digby had emerged from Ian’s pocket and was perched on his shoulder, happily consuming a piece of filo, his whiskers twitching. Farley had taken up a post beneath Ian’s chair, his wide pink tongue hanging out of his mouth and his eyes fixed on Digby.
    “They’re going to need to know,” Ian said. “The Council, what’s left of it, is meeting later this week. They’ll be discussing Selena’s plan to find a way to the parallel universe. I think they plan to support her. You need to be at the meeting, and so should they.”
    “We don’t need to remind those clowns that these children exist,” Sylvain replied.
    Digby scampered down Ian’s shoulder and onto the table, where he delicately retrieved a larger piece of pastry from Ian’s plate. Sylvain flinched but didn’t say anything. A strand of drool emerged from Farley’s mouth.
    “I somehow doubt they would forget,” Ian said. “They’re assets, and they’d be a heck of a lot safer prepared. What if something happens to you?”
    “It’s not up for discussion,” Sylvain said.
    “Marian isn’t always right.” A darkness crept over Ian’s face, replacing his normally insouciant expression, and Abbey wondered again if he could be trusted—and who he had been pointing the gun at that night in Abbott’s Apothecary. Her mother and Ian had obviously