29. Cress
Geo and I took the luxury of a slow wakeup with Wren’s phone between us, watching highly satisfying videos of molding kinetic sand and hydraulic presses at work. Then the device buzzed continuously and threatened to jump out of my hand. It was Ben texting in bursts from someone else’s phone.
Geo groaned in denial, and I made a sound of agreement. The outside world was about to steal us both away; I knew it.
I pieced Ben’s message together and read it in a frenetic pace in my head from how short the individual texts were. “Hey, babe, where are you? Have you seen Geo or Phaeron? You have to come to the hospital! My brother’s awake! He’s doing good, and I want to introduce you guys. Sorry, did I wake you? I’ve been waiting all day for you to steal a car and come back! You’re okay, right?”
Someone had to teach this man to text all his thoughts in one message.
Wait, Lucas was awake? I gasped and reread that particular message. “We have to go!” I exclaimed.
“What? What’s wrong?” Geo asked, sitting up at full alert.
I grinned and showed him the message. “We have to say hello to Ben’s brother.”
His silvery eyes widened. “That is quite remarkable,” he murmured.
I stood to get dressed, reaching out for Braza in my head while I tugged on my clothes and attempted to text Ben back all at the same time. “Good morning, brightest of souls.”
“Guess what,” we said at nearly the same time.
She already knew my news, that some miracle had occurred to wake Lucas from his coma. There was a playful jolt to her energy today, as if she knew exactly how it happened and was looking forward to me figuring it out.
“I’ve spent the greater part of the early morning with my father,” she said.
I didn’t miss the change in title. My jaw dropped, then a delighted smile formed on my lips. “You two made up.”
“We did. I’ll let him know where you are Geo are going. But for now, we’re catching up.”
I knew all he had to do was set his pride aside and apologize. She’d wanted to repair their familial relationship so badly.
“I’m happy for you,” I said while humming an upbeat tune out the door and to the elevator. Geo was just a step behind me, resting an arm around me while we waited.
“Thank you. By the way, did you feel the anomaly last night?”
“The what now?” I asked.
“Myuna’s power surged for a short time last night. Perhaps if we were merged, you would’ve noticed it.”She sounded troubled. “I’m hoping you can speak with the seers to see if they know what she did.”
“Of course.” I had a question for Hana, which meant I’d probably be pestering her with several of them to get a halfway decent understanding of her answer. Though I hadn’t forgotten the very literal hint she’d given me about Phaeron’s “slumber,” which I’d completely overthought.
Without the convenience of shadow travel, Geo had to take his gargoyle form to fly us to the hospital. There were no signs of unnaturals on the streets, nor any white-eyed birds staring from signposts and rooftops. I rubbed my arms, more unnerved by the lack of Myuna’s monsters with the knowledge that she’d done something big last night.
We could’ve had a leisurely late winter stroll free of threats and kept Geo out of his stone form. He shed it upon landing and took a moment to breathe and pinch the bridge of his nose. Once he’d recovered, he jerked his chin in hello to the bored-looking defenders on duty around the hospital’s perimeter on our way inside. Several hellos were called back to him.
I hesitated between seeking out Hana or Ben first. The decision was made for me, though, as the dark-haired woman was sitting primly on a couch in the foyer, her signature secretive smile in place when we made eye contact.
“You have questions,” she said.
“I do.” I turned to Geo, brow raised curiously.
“Tell me if you figure out anything concrete,” he rumbled. I wasn’t too surprised, since he cared more about actions than possibilities. He took Wren’s phone to return to her, and I slid onto the couch next to Hana.
She gestured for me to speak and stacked her hands patiently. Though she’d mastered the mysterious air of an augur, I wasn’t sure if she knew the faces of the demons I wrestled with: the first time I’d come face-to-face with death. Her daughter Lanie’s unseeing eyes, sprawled in a pool of her own blood. And in the aftermath, Hana had gazed into the future for me…
“You told me once.” I took a ragged breath, feeling myself get choked up. “You told me that I’d avenge Lanie.”
“And so you have,” she said. The knowing look hadn’t left her face yet.
“But I didn’t kill the Hungering Darkness. That was Phaeron,” I said in a small voice.
“Ah. Didn’t I tell you that I saw you vanquish a creature, standing over it with three men who adore you? That did happen.” Her aura lit with gray, centered around her head. “I see it, even, but the monster you four watched die was the vampire, not the Hungering Darkness. Fairly accurate as far as a gaze into the gray is concerned.”
I felt the chill of goosebumps. What she’d told me and what happened still didn’t quite match up. How often had her augury been a shade off from reality?
“I see,” I said neutrally.
She turned her dark eyes my way. They reflected with gray magic deep in her pupils. “In this, you have fully avenged my daughter. The blood baron’s legacy is dust, and the unnatural remnant who attacked her is no more. I see now that you are on the verge of discovering your potential.”
I set my spine under that prophetic gaze, wondering what exactly she was seeing when she inspected me. “What should I do?” I breathed.
“The hour of our final confrontation with Myuna grows near. She has chosen a new champion and embedded a seed of entropy in their soul. In this, she has learned from us and plans a strategy to raise a larger force than ours. We must broadcast our evacuation plans before it’s too late for the majority of Cerris City’s survivors,” she intoned.
I held my breath, committing every word of her prophecy to memory.
“Pool your resources, and you will find the key to our victory.” She nodded slowly, and between one blink and the next, the gray magic left her. Her shoulders slumped, and she muffled a yawn. “And speak to Phaeron. We can spare you both for a day while the rest of us prepare.”
“Fuckin’ hell. That was a damn good prophecy.” We both jumped when the gravelly voice spoke up behind us. Auric et Vess had appeared out of nowhere silently, just as Phaeron usually did. Maybe it was a dimensional thing.
Hana recovered first. “How long were you listening?” she asked.
“I heard the whole thing from the other side. The Void frothed up nicely for you. It speaks to you, hmm?” He was inspecting her closely.
“Augurs see the future,” she corrected.
“Fascinating,” he remarked. “Where I live, there are no human augurs. Only my kind.” He tapped the angular cheekbone below his sightless eye meaningfully.
“Perhaps the madness would be less if you saw, rather than heard, its wisdom,” she said.
“If only the whispering stopped that easily.” He flashed a multi-fanged smile before his one good eye trained on me. “Hey. Resources are usually pooled in a circle, if you catch my meaning.”
I felt my lips press together. If anything, it felt like he’d just said something random to confuse me.
“Eh. The Sudair will know, if you don’t figure it out.” He made a dismissive gesture.
“Well, thank you both for your wisdom,” I said, standing. I tucked away the tidbit that Hana had looked into the Void to see the future. I could wonder about the implications later.
Hana waved farewell while Auric said a gruff “Bye, kid” before turning his attention back to her. I went to Lucas’s room first, but it was empty, the sheets on the bed in an untidy pile to the side. While I stood in the threshold, I caught a hint of Ben’s laugh and followed it to a waiting room jam-packed with people.
My coven and friends were mixed with a group of healthy survivors. At the center of it all was Wren, phone in hand, interviewing a teenage girl.
Ben stood toward the edges of the gathering and waved me over with an eager smile. He had a hand resting on the handle of a wheelchair, where his brother sat, head lolled back. I was caught for a moment by Ben’s big, carefree smile. It was rare to see him without that signature smirk, but he was obviously carrying on over some story for Lucas’s benefit.
Geo was nearby, keeping careful watch as always. He flashed me a quick wink, and I brushed my fingertips up his arm on my way by him. The contact had him shivering with awareness.
“Cress!” Ben’s teeth were practically sparkling. “Come meet my bro, Lucas.”
“Hello, Lucas.” I held my hand out for a shake, and he gripped my fingers loosely. His smile was slow and shy, and he looked me over with unusually pale eyes. We’d met before, though I doubted he remembered it, as he’d been deep within the possession of the Hungering Darkness.
The real Lucas peered up at me with slow blinks, as if he were still waking up. He was nothing like the young man I’d briefly met; his weakened body was swimming in his hospital gown, and he looked like he’d been dipped in bleach from his ghostly skin tone and how platinum his overlong hair had become.
A little line of concentration marked his forehead. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He spoke slowly, almost stiffly. I wondered if it was difficult to talk after a monster had been speaking through him for months. “Ben has nothing but praise for his anam cara.”
I felt a blush touch my cheeks. “We definitely complete each other,” I said, sharing a quick look full of intention with Ben before returning my attention to him. “How are you doing?”
“Better…I think,” he said, speaking in short bursts. “It’s frustrating. I’m not a blood witch anymore. There’s no easy recovery ahead.”
“Not a blood witch anymore?” I echoed in surprise.
“Yeah, blood runes don’t work on him anymore,” Ben confirmed. The shadow of troubled thoughts passed over his face. “Big P might be able to take a look at him and tell us what happened to his affinity, but earlier, he restored Lucas’s soul and dipped. No one’s seen him since.”
He told me about the scrap of soul Phaeron had been holding after killing the Hungering Darkness. How Phaeron had pressed it to Lucas’s chest and woken him when modern medicine hadn’t done a thing.
“Oh, shit,” I muttered. “Ben, he’d just killed what was left of his own brother. No wonder he disappeared.”
He scratched the back of his head, lips quirked. “I know. The man needs a hug and a medal. Can you make him reappear so we can give him both?” he asked.
I touched the mark of protection on my wrist, drawing breath to say Phaeron’s name when I noticed motion on Lucas’s hospital gown. “Isn’t that your shoulder mouse?” I asked. The cute little albino mouse was climbing up to perch on Lucas’s shoulder instead.
“My brother’s familiar, it turns out,” he chuckled.
“Wow, that’s—” I jumped at the sudden pressure of hands on my waist.
Phaeron’s fingers seemed to form first, but it was unmistakably his presence behind me and his breath in my hair. “You called?” he asked. I felt a rush of warmth between my thighs from his smooth voice suddenly washing over my ear.
“You know, on second thought, wearing a bell won’t save our girl from getting jump scared by you, Big P,” Ben said casually. “Where’d you go?”
“Here and there,” Phaeron answered, and the girl Wren interviewed suddenly pointed at him.
“It was him! He found me last night!”
The dimensional’s presence behind me vanished the moment Wren started to turn her phone toward us. I waved awkwardly, as did Ben, and a moment later, Lucas too. Geo gazed stoically at the lens.
“Anyway,” Wren said, rolling her eyes before focusing the camera on the girl again.
“Do you see her expression? In the dictionary under ‘crestfallen,’” Ben quipped in a whisper. He started to wheel Lucas’s chair toward the hallway, and Geo followed.
The moment we turned a corner, Phaeron reformed a pace behind us. “She was about to say where I’d saved her from. I’ve got to keep some secrets.”
Ben raised a hand, wiggling his fingers. “Air of mystique.”
I snuck a glance over my shoulder. Yeah, he hadn’t slept again. But he’d washed the white residue off his skin and had found a black sweater and dark wash jeans that he looked comfortable in. He was relaxed, laugh lines creasing the skin around his yellow eyes. “Something of the sort,” he agreed.
Once the five of us were in Lucas’s room and the door was closed behind us, Ben turned the wheelchair toward Phaeron. “I was hoping you could take a look at his soul. Blood runes aren’t working to help him heal.”
“One should not expect another to walk through hell unscathed, Little B,” Phaeron answered but crouched down to be on eye level with Lucas. The young man seemed to be mustering himself to speak while Phaeron tilted his head, inspecting his soul closely.
Ben edged closer to me and took my hand when I reached for him. Our anam cara marks brushed, setting of a spark of awareness, and I squeezed his palm. I missed him. Now that I’d had a night with Geo, I craved two more, and they had Ben and Phaeron written on them. My body hummed for more of Ben now that he’d shed the manacles of guilt over his brother’s condition.
“Did you know there’s a white streak in your…darkness?” Lucas’s weak voice drew my attention back to him. He gestured vaguely in a circle.
Phaeron’s pupils narrowed to slits. “You can see my soul,” he remarked.
A white streak? How alarming. He met my gaze over Lucas’s shoulder, eyes shining with pain for an unguarded moment before he schooled his expression. “Endaeron repaired the damage he caused me with the last bit of himself. I assure you, I am whole,” he said.
Wow. When Braza reassured me that Phaeron was safe, she hadn’t mentioned this. I couldn’t imagine how difficult it was for him.
Phaeron crooked his finger at me, gesturing for me to squat next to him. “What do you see of her soul?”
Lucas blinked, his gaze going unfocused, before he flinched away from me. “Like…looking into the sun,” he mumbled.
Phaeron smiled wide enough to show the edge of his fangs. “Perhaps we shouldn’t blind the boy.”
I took the hint and returned to Ben’s side, leaning against him companionably.
“Well, I admit that this is unique. No human has seen my soul with their own magic,” the dimensional continued. “While your soul, Lucas, is still taking a new shape after what you’ve experienced. It’s said that extreme trauma can cause changes to affinity. What I see is that you’ve been altered by a minion of Myuna without becoming corrupted. Time will tell if you’ll be able to find a way to draw on soul energy, as I suspect that is your new affinity.”
Lucas breathed raggedly, looking moments from a panic attack. “I don’t want to eat souls,” he said between gulps of air.
Phaeron laid his hand over Lucas’s, pitching his voice to soothe. “No one’s eating souls here. Perhaps you will find a ghost willing to share if you help them move on to the afterlife, or no consistent source shows up. Witches channel magic through common origins that can be found most anywhere. You’ve simply been altered to draw upon a much more uncommon supply of magic.”
“Well, fuck,” Ben muttered.
“And when you’re feeling stronger, I will teach you what I know of souls. I already have a few ideas of what you might be able to do. You’re not alone, okay?” Phaeron continued, patting his hand when he earned a slow nod.
“You’re in good hands,” Geo said. I smiled to myself at the unexpected praise from him.
Lucas needed rest for the moment, so I flagged down a nurse while my men helped him back into bed. Mom answered the call button and drew me into a brief hug. “Thank God you’re still all right. Did you know your demo—” She caught herself and cleared her throat. “Dimensional boyfriend is the reason Lucas woke up?”
“Pretty amazing, right?” All I could do was beam. Even with Lucas having an uncertain future with his magic, that was worlds better than being in a vegetative state. Phaeron had done this without any expectations of praise, which meant I needed to be the one to sing it for him.
He glanced over his shoulder like he sensed us talking about him. “One good turn deserves another.” He crossed the room in a few strides and reached out to take my hands in his. “Now if you all will excuse me, there’s something I need to show Cress.”
I met his slitted gaze. “You don’t mind if I steal you away, do you?” he purred more quietly. I had a feeling…well, a hope, that I knew why he wanted a moment alone and agreed wholeheartedly.