Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The earlier intruder had returned.
Lia froze. Instant regret lurched in her empty stomach for forcing Kayce to leave his sword.
Perhaps it was a good thing they’d been so consumed by the impossible that breakfast had not even been a thought.
But then Kayce was moving, stepping between her and whoever was behind her.
She spun around, gripping Kayce’s arm to move beside him even as he tried to block her from view.
Her papa’s bingo league partner Leo faced them. His gaze settled on Kayce. Tilting his head, he gave the young prince a once-over.
“You aren’t supposed to be here,” Leo intoned softly before shifting his dark eyes back to Lia. “What are you doing?”
“And who might you be, to so boldly inquire?” Kayce demanded, his hands deceptively lax at his sides. “Considering you’ve come back to the scene of the crime.”
Lia crossed her arms. “He’s Papa’s friend. Supposedly.”
Her mind was a jumbled mess. Leo was relaxed. Concerned, but not like he’d been the one to destroy the study. More puzzle pieces added to the growing pile, yet no signs of answers. Leo didn’t look surprised at the secret room, the maps it held, the implications of it all.
Only displeased at their presence.
Lia shook her head. “Considering it’s my papa’s house, I think you should explain first.”
“Your grandfather and I had an ongoing agreement. Should anything happen to either of us, that is.” He gave them a wry smile that deepened the wrinkles in his dark brown skin, lifting a house key hooked to a ring with several others.
Leo rubbed the back of his head, covered in closely-cropped gray hair.
“When you get to my age, one starts counting the years and making preparations.”
“Preparations?” Lia inquired. Seeing the look on the old man’s face, realization hit, and she flushed.
Leo chuckled at her embarrassment. “I got an alarm on my phone that someone was here. Considering your mother is at work and you are supposed to be at school, I came to make sure all was well.” Amusement faded from his face as he looked back at the study. “Clearly, it isn’t.”
Understatement of the century.
“Who would do this?” Lia pressed. Beside her, Kayce had relaxed slightly, as if he also realized that Leo likely wasn’t a threat.
Leo shook his head. “Someone for the authorities to deal with. Considering your discovery, I’d imagine you have more pressing questions.”
Only one thing would prompt more urgency than her papa’s house getting broken into.
And she didn’t trust the authorities much if her papa’s accident was more than it appeared.
Even she’d noticed the lack of skid marks.
Still, she’d only just met Leo, and there was clearly more to the bingo league than social calls.
“What is all this?” Lia gestured to the room, a drawing flapping in her grip.
Leo gave her a knowing look. “Cordelia told you, didn’t she?”
“Mom said nothing. I found a page of Papa’s.
He wrote about stories being real. Being allowed—well, unleashed—on Earth.
” Maybe if she didn’t look too closely at Kayce, Leo wouldn’t notice a story brought to life.
Not that his notably not average clothes didn’t give it away. But she could hope, right?
Disappointment flickered over Leo’s face. “He found a way to tell you on his own.”
“You do know about this,” Lia confirmed, picking at the edge of her fingernail. She really needed to break the habit. Needing something else to do with her hands, she gripped the map of Norenth with both of them.
“As you no doubt already deduced, your grandfather and I—our ‘league’, so to speak—do more than play bingo and write together.”
“I still don’t know what bingo is,” Kayce muttered, crossing his arms.
“That’s not exactly important right now,” Lia hissed.
“Seems to be. Is it a guild he joined where dueling is involved?”
“Can you please—”
“Listen?” Leo interrupted. “There doesn’t seem to be a lot of that going on, I fear.” He strolled toward the corkboard. Studying the scribbled notes and string attached to various pins, Leo frowned at one note in particular, its edges crisp.
“If you guys aren’t really in a bingo league, what are you?
” Lia narrowed her eyes. “Are you…guardians?” It was the only part of her papa’s story that could make sense.
Maybe he, along with Leo, was a guide, one of better morality she hoped.
That’s why he needed all of these maps. Lia liked to think she’d know if her papa was some cosmic guardian of fiction.
Leo’s bark of a laugh quickly dispelled that theory. “No, not at all. Did that story of Julian’s not explain how the First Rift was dealt with?”
Lia and Kayce shook their heads.
“It was chaos,” Leo sighed, walking around the table so that Lia and Kayce were closest to the open door.
Kayce relaxed further, and it loosened some of the tightness in Lia’s chest. Leo continued, “Men and women suffered under terrible beasts. Some took to magics of the darkest sort. But others rose in the face of such wild fantasy, prepared to defend the land that had become theirs to nurture. For they also sought to protect the dreams and pure creatures that had come through the torn barriers.”
“What was done to the nightmares?”
“Certain brave souls were gifted an ember, fed by the breath we all came from,” Leo said, pointing to the table strewn with maps. “These humans, Flamehearts, gained unlimited access to these other worlds for a singular purpose: to put back those creatures that escaped.”
“Even the good ones?” Lia dared to hope that the precious creatures could remain.
It would add some interesting perks to her own mundane life.
What better excuse was there than saying a fire fairy burned her homework?
Or even claiming that one was too busy swimming with mermaids and fighting off pirates to think about the assigned reading?
Not that she would dare forget the reading.
Though, a girl could wonder. But thinking back to those cryptid newspaper clippings behind her, Lia’s hesitancy returned.
Leo shook his head. “Flamehearts were tasked to return everything that did not belong in the physical realm of Man. This was for protection. It was the Flamehearts’ stories that housed the creatures and folk of the Emperium. Such stories, woven first as songs and poems, became written words.”
The Emperium—where fiction had a life of its own.
“And those stories, as Flamehearts captured them, are the ones that live today,” Lia surmised.
Her pulse fluttered in her throat. All of this was so new and difficult to grasp.
Despite the many pinches over the last few hours, she wasn’t fully convinced this all wasn’t a dream.
Her gaze drifted back to the destroyed study.
Or a nightmare.
Maybe throwing up would help. Or maybe she needed the breakfast she’d skipped.
Leo studied her. “The older you are, the easier it becomes to accept that life isn’t as straightforward as we think.”
Lia was wrong before: that was the understatement of the century. And easier said than done.
“Apologies, sir, but Aurelia has a faster wit than you give credit for,” Kayce interceded. “Just a little slow on the draw.” He patted the hip where his scabbard should have been with a smirk directed her way.
She scowled, wishing she had his sword. How could he joke around right now?
How was he so calm about this? Maybe the fact that this all validated his existence had smoothed any lingering tension from that morning.
But he often hid his fears under banter.
She had never cursed that fault more—even if she shared it.
“Kacerion Weatherstone.” Leo turned toward Kayce and extended his hand. “I had my suspicions, considering the clothes. And the sword out front. But your commentary proves it.”
“I don’t know whether to take offense or accept the compliment.” Kayce chuckled, shaking Leo’s hand.
“Can we focus, please? The Emperium exists, but what does a Flameheart do now?” Lia ground her teeth. Something didn’t add up.
“Well, we—Flamehearts past, I mean to say—have written many of the stories back, but we can still traverse the various realms. See the creatures and worlds like the reality they are. Live a little, as they say.”
“Like what, exactly?” Lia pressed. She wasn’t sure what to expect; she braced herself on the map table.
“Where do you think myths and legends come from?” Leo allowed a small smile.
“Dragons large as castles. Creatures that were half man and half beast. Little folk that could lure you to a glen of nothing but revelry. Sea monsters that could cleave a ship in two. And I happen to know an ogre who’s a pretty good cook. ”
Lia shuddered at the thought, thinking about all the stories out there, about the seas and the terrors they held. Even Norenth’s aquatic clouds were relatively tame, a kraken or two notwithstanding. Yet delight held sway too, that fantasy was real.
To think, a time where all that the human mind could imagine was here.
And those things still were, just locked in a plane apart from them.
The urge to turn around and scour the maps itched at Lia, but she forced her focus to remain on Leo.
Even as her heart leapt at the wonder. But that logical part of her brain kicked in.
Should she mention that little demons with pointy teeth were here in Seattle?
The words were there, but she wanted more answers.
Lia’s eyes narrowed, assessing Leo. “What did Papa do?”
His smile turned pained. “He made it his mission to build all this.” The complicated web of notes and clippings, maps and sketches attested to that fact.
“How did he get there?” Kayce asked, looking back at the table. “It must have taken him years to make.”