Free Hellbender (The Fangborn Series Book 3) by Dana Cameron

I tried concentrating on the stones to see if I could get them to calm down.
    They went away completely. The bracelet still retained its renewed bright luster, however. The stones of the bracelet never seemed to vanish, a result of either a broken part of Pandora’s Box or my tampered-with blood.
    Daring greatly, I tried bringing the jewelry of my body back. They reappeared.
    I disappeared them again. And settled back into the water. “Sorry, Okamura-san, Kazumi-san. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
    The contrition on my face must have shown through my relief. If the stones were back, then maybe so were my powers. And now, apparently, I had the ability to camouflage most of my armor.
    Maybe I’d run out of juice during my mishap in trying to stop time in Boston; it wouldn’t be the first time I’d overextended myself. And that’s why I hurt so much for so long. But this was exciting . . . I could regulate the glow of the bracelet enough to appear . . . Normal. Human.
    When I began to feel sleepy, I got out of the water; curling up for a nap in the spring was not an option unless I grew gills. I took my time exiting the bath, pouring cool water over me until some of my lassitude departed.
    After I dressed, I looked for Kenichiro-san. His eyes were red from sadness about the dead Cousin, but he was researching the one weapon that had not assimilated into my body and consciousness, the Anglo-Saxon decorated sword. He called me aside, with a strange look on his face.
    “Zoe-san, your father is Richard Klein?”
    I blinked. I’d only just learned his real name a short time ago, along with the fact that he hadn’t died shortly after my birth as I’d believed. “Yes . . . I think so. That’s one of the things I’ve been told.”
    “You do know . . . I’m sorry, I may have difficult news for you. He died here, several years ago.”
    I wasn’t sure what to feel. I was surprised, a little stricken, but had no reason to be. I’d never met the man, but . . . I guess I thought someday I might.
    “Please come with me,” he said. “I’ll tell you what I know.”
    Ken-san led the way to a small cemetery.
    I looked at the square grave marker, very simple, stone carved with a set of initials and two dates. By my calculations, he’d been about seventy-five when he’d met my mother and conceived me, an adult Fangborn who, to human eyes, looked only about to enter middle age. The emblem on the marker was one I’d never seen before, or rather, it had elements I’d seen before, but never in this combination. A serpent swallowing its own tail, the symbol of eternity and the world, the Ourobouros, the world serpent. Inside the circle of its coil was an oval, which in turn encapsulated a wolf’s head.
    “Your father was old fashioned, it seemed,” Ken-san said. “These days, you more often see just the snake and the wolf left. The eye, the symbol of the oracles, was more prominent once, the center of the piece. Lately, it’s been left out. He wanted all three elements combined, as it used to be.”
    I nodded. I recalled what Vee said about the lack of political power that oracles had these days. It wasn’t common for symbols to change form through the centuries, and the current mood was reflected in the current omission of the eye.
    “We didn’t know what faith he followed. Like you, he arrived suddenly, though not by teleportation. He brought the item he was entrusted with to us, and then was killed in action, helping us save a family from a fire. He perished in the burning house.” Ken-san shrugged. “It happens too often, with our kind. You meet and get to know a distant Cousin, only to have him die by your side the next day.”
    I knew all too well, I realized with a pang: I was thinking of Ash. “I’m sorry. This is fine, thank you. This is lovely.” I made a mental note to have something like that put on my mother’s headstone if I could, when I got home. If I got home.
    I don’t know why I was