Chapter 22 #2
Raum chuckled. He then tapped a single finger to his temple. “I can see you, Ezra Redmayne, down to the very core of what makes you, you. And you’re trustworthy. Remember, you told me to look. And what I saw told me I can trust you with this secret.”
“I—oh,” Ezra floundered, blinking rapidly. He fought back unexpected tears. “That’s the sweetest and craziest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
Raum went to his desk and grabbed a few tissues from the box sitting on the corner, and he handed them to Ezra, their fingers touching. Ezra smiled and took the tissues, wiping his eyes while Raum watched him patiently.
Ezra tossed the tissues in the trash. He then went back to the door, unlocked it, and opened it just enough for him to verify they were still in the history department. He softly shut the door, leaning on it, and asked, “How does no one notice that your office moves around campus?”
“Summer session,” Raum replied. “Fewer students and faculty, fewer staff. If I have office hours, I’m here in the history department building.
If I’m doing research, I’m in the Special Collections room of the Rutherford, or I’m here, using the department’s research library.
When I teach, I leave the office here, since my classroom is in the building.
You’ve only seen me in the Rutherford the last week because I’ve been working on my bibliography and sources list for my book.
During the regular year I don’t move the office unless I’m going home. ”
“That’s convenient,” Ezra observed, and Raum shrugged one shoulder, not denying it. “Tell me about the underhill?”
“What do you want to know?”
“Is it just this room?”
Raum tipped his hand back and forth a bit. “It grows every year, and is actually a bit larger than the confines of the office. The borders aren’t strictly defined.”
“Who else knows?” That was a worry suddenly blooming in Ezra’s chest—who knew about this gigantic secret, and how he could keep Raum safe.
“My parents, Grandpa Saemund, and you.”
“Okay,” he breathed out, and went to the couch, sitting heavily on the center cushion. “Okay, that’s really good.” He bent at the waist and put his head between his knees. “Gimme a moment.”
“Ezra?”
He tried breathing slowly, but his heart was racing.
The High Court Sidhe were almost extinct because humans hunted them across the planet to gain access to the faerie mounds, the sidhe underhills—known by many names, but they all described a legendary type of magic, something humans never managed to learn—the harnessing of pocket dimensions and the altering of reality by sheer will and thought.
True conversion of energy into matter and back again.
The closest humanity ever got was the creation of reliquaries, which were considered miniature pocket dimensions, but they were restricted by how big they could get, they couldn’t alter reality, and anything bigger than a cat died the instant they were placed inside a reliquary. Humans died without fail.
Raum was in so much danger. And he told Ezra his most dangerous secret without skipping a beat.
“Ezra,” Raum came to him where he sat hyperventilating on the couch. A warm hand rubbed his shoulders and squeezed the back of his neck, and Ezra focused on the heat of the man touching him, hoping for some calm.
“I’m not in any danger, not at the moment,” Raum assured him in a warm tone that sounded like a hug. He needed more of that feeling.
Ezra needed to get his head out of this anxiety spiral.
Raum sat beside him and pulled Ezra into his arms, and Ezra unabashedly crawled into his lap and wrapped his arms around Raum’s neck, holding on for dear life.
A soft kiss went to his hair and Raum squeezed him tight for a long moment before relaxing. Big, warm hands stroked up and down his shoulders and back.
“You knew I was panicking,” Ezra murmured.
“Yup,” Raum replied easily. “Saw it clear as day.”
“You calmed me down.”
“Mmhmm.” A hum in agreement, accompanied by more stroking and hair kisses.
“I love that so much.”
“I’m really glad you do.”
Raum
Ezra almost fell asleep in his lap, and while Raum wanted nothing more than to let that happen, Lilith and Ezra’s belongings were still at the library.
With a thought, his office shimmied in space and time, and with nary a hiccup, slid back into place in Special Collections at the library.
Everyone thought he was renting the space in the library for storing his books and research materials, and no one aside from the MERS officers knew he had a more entrenched office space in the restricted section.
The guards never went back there on their rounds—they were meant to monitor access to the section, not patrol the inner reaches, so no one had yet to notice his storage cubicle was a bit more complicated than it should be—but then he was also being a bit reckless with his secret.
Ezra grumbled and pressed a kiss to the side of his neck, making Raum shiver and tighten his hands on Ezra’s hips. Ezra was a delightful armful of lean muscle, smooth skin, soft hair, and a bit of chaos. All of which appealed to Raum very much.
Ezra got up and stretched, arms over his head. “Are we back?”
“We are,” Raum replied. He admired the strip of flesh he could see around a trim waist as Ezra flexed before dropping his arms.
A cranky yowl sounded through the door, and Ezra hurried to open it, revealing a very put-out cat sitting at the threshold, black tail flicking in annoyance.
“I am so sorry we left you,” Ezra said, kneeling down and petting Lilith as she began to purr. “We’re back now. I’m gonna get you some treats as an apology.”
Raum followed Ezra out of the office and he opened his senses up wide, including his empathy.
His range for emotions was line of sight, but he was able to sense living beings and the ambient magic fields within a few hundred feet if he opened himself up wide to the world.
There was no one around but him, Ezra, and Lilith.
Merely a guard and a staff person at the desk outside the access door, and they never came in unless they were escorting someone without a badge or bringing him a delivery.
People rarely came into the Special Collections room during the summer session, but he’d been playing fast and loose with his secret lately, and being cautious now was only wise.
It was a secret he’d had his whole life, or damn near.
He’d always had the underhill, though when he was a little kid, it had been no bigger than a small closet.
As Raum grew, so too did the underhill. Neither of his parents, nor his grandfather, could command it, the underhill answering only to Raum.
That had been an exciting experience as a child, and it took Saemund and Nórr and their ability to teleport to rein in some of Raum’s truly wild youthful adventures.
Ezra was feeding some treats to Lilith from his bag when Ezra’s phone chirped. He pulled back his awareness and waited as Ezra checked his phone, thumbs flying over the screen. He paused, reading whatever was on the screen. A moment later, Ezra looked up, eyes bright.
“Simmons knows who the skull belongs to.”