Chapter 20
Aurelia
Ihave no way of knowing how many days it takes me to recover at the bottom of the canal, but at some stage, I feel a pull to look upwards and see the light with the rudimentary eyes at the end of each starfish arm.
To see my friends. The ache in that leg of mine is soothed.
I flex and stretch it out and find it to be strong.
There is movement of shifted bodies above the water.
Then a muffled snort and a human voice. Shifting makes my joints creak and pop, which means it’s been days since I’ve last been human.
I grow tall, my arms stretch outwards and reach up, my head appearing where there was only the fifth arm of the starfish.
It’s always weird growing a head and face out of nowhere. It feels like entering a new dimension and losing another at the same time. A bit like a portal. And when I step through that door, I kind of miss the other side.
I gasp as my mouth breaches the water, breathing cold air and wiping the water from my eyes.
There’s a lioness’s chuff before I’m squinting at Minnie’s human form and Stacey in her golden lioness form.
“Oh, hey Lia!” Minnie pipes, stroking Eugene in her arms. “We thought we were doing rabid pack again, so Stacey was all for shifting now that she’s feeling a little better. ”
Rabid pack is referring to the time where I shifted into my lioness form and wouldn’t come out of it for days. This was after the council had declared I deserved execution. I’d hidden myself in here for months. My anima has different desires these days.
Telekinesis helps me get out of the canal and onto the cement landing. Rolling my shoulders to stretch them out, I grimace as I take the towel Minnie offers me. There are bags of food and bottles of water in piles about the stone landing, as well as backpacks with clothes and toiletries.
“I got injured,” I explain, gesturing to my newer leg, still a slightly lighter colour than the other.
Henry levitates over to me from where he’d been perched on Stacey’s head. Eugene gives a strained sort of cluck, and I grimace at him, shoving a finger in my ear and twisting it. “Maybe none of that for a while, okay, Eugene?”
He ducks his head, and I present my hand for Henry. The little nimpin sniffs the air, chittering with his beak before levitating himself onto my shoulder and settling there. He’s assumed the position of mother hen again, and today, I have no complaints with that. “So what do you guys know?”
Minnie puffs out her cheeks. “We know you did something bad enough to have an entire squadron of armed officers from the council come and raid the academy.”
“Bad enough,” I repeat with disgust. “I was defending myself against bullets and harpoons!”
Stacey shifts back into human form and grabs her backpack of clothes. “They said you destroyed six helicopters, Lia!”
“Lies!” I exclaim, waving my arms, and then crossing them defensively. “I counted four.”
Minnie chokes. “That’s really great and all, Lia. Like…really great, but it means there’s a very inconvenient arrest warrant out for you.”
“Wasn’t there already one in place?” Stacey says, re-tying her pigtails. “Or was that finished and they’ve begun another?”
“I can’t bloody keep track,” I mutter. “Arrest warrant this, arrest warrant that. Is there food?”
“Yeah, Beak left jacket potatoes with cheese and baked beans,” Minnie says, heading to a small table with a foil-covered plate.
“Savage would be proud,” Stacey chuckles.
That’s what does it.
My vision blurs, and I grab my stomach as if I can stop it from dry retching.
Something inside of me twists so violently I think I want to starfish-it again, but I can’t.
I just miss him so much. Miss them so much.
He’d been hurt. They are all suffering. I’m sobbing and dry heaving and arms come around me and Henry squeaks in my ear.
“Who said what to Lia?” comes Sabrina’s deadpan.
“It was me,” Stacey says thickly. “I’m sorry, Lia. I shouldn’t have brought Savage up.”
Someone pushes a bottle of water in front of my lips, and I gulp the cool contents down.
A hand pats my back, and somebody pushes my hair off my face.
Three faces swim before me, and Minnie whisks a tissue into her hand so she can mop my eyes.
“This is really hard,” I whisper hoarsely. “I saw them. They looked awful.”
“We saw the videos,” Stacey whispers. “But you did amazingly.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I hang my head back. “For all my bravado, I don’t know if any of it made a difference. They’re still captive right now. I’m still being targeted by my father. They’re sending helicopters after me. I don’t know how much longer I can go on doing this—”
“I’ve said it before and I’m going to say it again,” Sabrina says through gritted teeth. “They are alive, Lia. And while they are alive, there is reason to go on.”
“I’m sorry,” I sniff, feeling ashamed that Sabrina had to lose her mates to death to be able to say this to me, here and now.
“Don’t get sorry. Get even. Besides, your ass looked great as you walked out of the Jewel. Everyone’s saying so on socials.” I stare at Sabrina, and my leopard friend graces me a rare smile. “Girl, if the ass gives you followers, I say we milk that shit for all it’s worth.”
“Marketing campaign for Lia’s ass, roger that,” Stacey says, getting out her illegal tablet and pencil. “It’ll be a movement.”
Minnie hands me the uncovered plate of food, and I dig into the potato and beans with my hands.
“Marduk was in a state when we realised where you’d gone,” Minnie says, twirling her finger through a curl as she often does when talking about her oldest mate.
“But somebody was filming live, so we had our eyes glued to that for a while.”
“He said they’d come after me,” I say, wiping my mouth and only smearing more of the baked beans sauce. “I couldn’t have waited another second, Min. I just couldn’t. All I’ve done is research serpent magic and just thought about things. It was time for action. That crocodile cunt forced my hand.”
“I know,” Minnie says gently, handing me a serviette. “We all would have done the same.”
“Nuh-uh,” Stacey says. “Lia has those big dragon ovaries now. None of us have that type of courage. I mean, naked too? Come the fuck on. People will be talking about this with their grandkids.”
“Hopefully, for the right reasons,” I say darkly.
Once my stomach is full, I feel capable of leaving the underground cavern and facing the light of day.
We wave goodbye to the boat bopping on the canal waters and make our way up the spiral staircase and through the painting into the anima dorms. Beak has been trying to get into the cavern, but the girls refused to let him through.
He, Marduk and Yeti had been on the phone with Rufus to manage a couple of things with Scythe’s investments, and they are worried about another council raid.
No less than thirty armed guards had scoured the place, half of them serpents.
They could scent me, but with so many other hormonal animas around, and Christine the gargoyle hurling profanity at them, they’d left with empty hands.
Marduk had managed to convince them I’d gone off-grid with helicopter-related injuries, but we don’t know how long that excuse will hold up.
There is one thing of importance on my mind, and I wait until the last rays of the sun disappear under the horizon before I call for my fifth mate.