40. Chapter Forty
40
CHAPTER FORTY
KAIUS
“ H ello,” I said to the little Fae creeping round the door, keeping my eyes on the room that unmistakably belonged to a teenager.
I let my magik drift through the room, skimming across a messy bed that contained a surely uncomfortable amount of pillows. Let it hover over photos that had been taped to a mirror in need of a wipe, faces beaming from each image. Light footsteps padded into the room, brave little footsteps to walk in here when there was a full-grown warrior standing amongst the discarded notepads and crumpled clothes.
Pushing energy into every corner, I searched for anything out of place as I turned to the small person beside me.
Her eyes were a darker shade of blue, but the face looking at me was the image of her sister, golden hair plaited down her back, the braids a little dishevelled as though she had been in them a while.
“What’s your name then?” I asked as she watched me carefully.
“Myla.”
“Hello, Myla.” Her focus lingered on the bed, on the threadbare teddy that was half tucked under a blanket.
“Are you looking for Rina?” she said in that small, high voice that seemed universal for children.
“I am,” I answered carefully.
“Rina said when she got back, she would help me build my fort.” Those big eyes blinked up at me, confusion pulling her fair eyebrows together. The expression pulling at my heart, too.
“She did?” I asked, as her eyes flicked down to the daggers strapped to my hips. Not in fear, I realised, but in curiosity.
The girl nodded as she looked back up at me. “But she hasn’t come back.”
I waited, sensing she wasn’t done yet. My magik continued its sweep of the room, pushing and poking at everything it could find. An outdated laptop on a desk.
“We always make forts when she comes home from school.”
“Did Marina tell you she was going anywhere new?”
“No.”She shook her head. “I tried to make one, for when she comes home, but I’m not good at it.”
“You’re not?”
“No. I’m too small. Rina could reach up high.”
She assessed me then, her child eyes surveying me head-to-toe. “You look like you can reach up high.”
“You’re right, I can.” I huffed out a quiet laugh as I watched the thoughts churn in her mind.
“Then you can help me finish this one.” It was more of a demand than a request, and bemused by the little Fae, I followed after her, letting my magik continue in my absence.
Her room was a mess of blankets and pillows and toys and teddies. An orange sheet was shoved into my hands as she kicked away whatever was in her path.
It needs to be high, was all the direction I got as she made a start of her own section of fort, one corner already precariously jammed in a drawer.
I opened up the sheet, eyes flying wide at the small burns that littered it. All roughly the same size and shape of the little Fae’s hands who had just commandeered my fort making services.
“Did you do this, Myla?” I held up a particularly scorched patch.
“Yep,” she said, after giving it a quick glance. “Mum lets me use the old ones for my forts.”
Maybe Marina won’t be the only Anomaly in this family then.
“Does it happen a lot?”
“Just sometimes.” Myla shrugged, and I made a note to keep a tail on the family. If someone had stolen Marina for her power level, then Myla was well on her way down that same path.
“Did Marina ever tell you about her friends at school, Myla?”
“Sometimes,” Myla answered as she dragged a corner of a sheet over to the wardrobe, trying to secure it in the doors.
“What did she tell you?”
She was quiet for a while as she fought with the fabric, determination stamped over her face.
“One time, Rina and her friend found a baby ignis lizard. She said they took turns letting it sleep under their beds, but it got found by Teacher Toad Face and they got in trouble.”
An ignis lizard was definitely not something you wanted sleeping under your bed; the day they reach adulthood and gain the flames that wreathe their body wouldn’t be the day you’d want to be sleeping above them.
“Do you want to know what happened then?” Myla asked, trying to suppress a smile.
“Go on then.”
“Teacher Toad Face,” she continued as if I had any idea who Teacher Toad Face was, “made them clean out the friesian horse stables after Perry Tyrrin had fed them chocolate drops. Rina said it took ten washes to get the smell out of her hair.”
A giggle filled the room, and I couldn’t help but grimace as I imagined the carnage that would have occurred.
“You haven’t got any baby ignis lizards hidden under your bed, have you?” I asked, as I secured a corner of the blanket I had been put in charge of to a door handle.
“Nope.” She turned to me, after finally getting her corner wedged properly. “Just toys.”
“That’s good then,” I replied, pausing as my magik snagged on some books hidden under Marina’s bed. Probably diaries; I’d get Calida to collect them.
“You’re good at that.” She pointed to where the fort draped across the room.
“Thank you, Myla.”
“Do you make them for your sisters, too?”
My fingers froze at the knot I had made in the blanket, securing it to the frame of her bed. “How did you know I had sisters?”
“Because you helped me make my fort.”
“I do have sisters. I have three sisters and two brothers.” My chest ached a little as I pictured their faces. Fuck, it had been so long since I’d been home.
“That’s a lot.” Myla’s eyebrows shot up as she did a mental count.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “It is a lot.”
“I only have Marina,” she said, her voice barely a whisper, and my heart squeezed for this little girl. “Did something bad happen to her?”
What could I say to that? Even I knew it was bad to lie to children. Again, her eyes flicked to my daggers, so I crouched down in front of her. She followed the movement, head still tilted upwards at me. No fear to be found in them.
I pulled one of them out, twirling it round my tattooed fingers before holding it out to her. Hesitantly, her eyes flicking to mine for a second, she clasped her small hand around the silver hilt, fingers tightening a fraction as she took on its weight.
“It’s pretty,” Myla said as she studied the intricate markings worked into the hilt.
“Will you bring my sister home?” she asked, staring into my eyes, and I couldn’t help admiring the bravery of this little girl.
“I will try, Myla.” It wasn’t enough but— though I hated it —it was all I could offer.
“And if she doesn’t come back? Will you help me build a fort again?” Offering the blade back to me I took it, chest cracking as if she had plunged it into my ribcage.
“Sure, kid,” was all I could reply as I tugged lightly on one of her plaits earning me a toothy smile.
I straightened, turning my attention to the layers of blankets and fabric that were draped across the room, and away from the shaky, almost-promise I’d made to Myla. Who was now tucked away under that colourful canopy.
My search of Marina’s room had concluded right around the time I was busy preventing a fort collapse. I flicked out one last flash of magik to the spotted blanket that was starting to slip from its place tucked into the wardrobe and left on silent feet to the sounds of Myla tugging at whatever the hell it was she had stashed under the bed.
Standing back in the hall, I pulled out my phone, fingers flashing across the screen as I typed out my orders. I halted at the stairs, finding Calloway stood halfway up them as though that was as far as she could bring herself to go. Her face angled towards me, eyes shining with unshed tears. She blinked them back, descending the stairs as I followed behind.
“I’ve called in a unit to keep an eye on the house. Discreetly,” I told her quietly so no little ears could hear.
Calloway’s eyes flew wide. “Why?”
I pointed a look back up the stairs, to where a little Fae was busy arranging pillows in the newly finished fort her big sister hadn’t been around to help her with. Her shoulders sagged, and she nodded in understanding.
“Has she been tested?” Calloway shook her head, swallowing hard. “Good. Keep it that way for now.”
No need to add a second target on the house.
I reached for the phone that I knew would be held firm in her hand, quickly adding my number into the contacts. “If anything changes,” I handed the phone back. “Or if she needs anything, let me know.”
“Did you… find anything they didn’t?” she asked, hope and despair warring in her eyes.
I narrowed mine slightly; I didn’t want to give her false hope where it was possible there was none. “I’m not sure yet, but I’m sending one of my team to collect a few things.”
Blair had silently slid into place by my side, Calloway starting a little as she noticed her there before I reached for the handle to the front door.
Outside, I sucked down a breath of the frigid air that attacked my face, pulling my hood back up as I scanned the area for anything out of place. It would only be minutes before my team arrived anyway.
To guard the mum and little girl who had already lost enough.
The door clicked closed behind us, and I made it across the road before I turned to look up, to the little dark blue eyes peering out from behind a curtain, likely standing on one of her many toys in order to reach the glass. Myla ducked back down as our eyes met.
The shrill ring of my phone disrupted the otherwise quiet of the street, pressing accept on Bastian’s call I lifted it to my ear while walking towards the nearest alley.
“Get back! Now!” he roared down the phone before I had a chance to say a word. The line crackled as Bastian’s voice was drowned out by static and whatever else was happening on the other end of the line.
“Bas!” I shouted as dread slithered down my spine. “What the fuck is happening?” I pulled away, staring down at the screen that yielded no answers, before dragging it back to my ear. The disconnect tone sang through the speaker, and I shoved it back in my pocket, instincts flaring at the need to get back.
Magik pushed at my skin from the rush of emotions, but despite it being Bastian’s voice at the end of the phone, it was Elodie’s face that swam in my vision.
“Blair!” I whipped around searching the now empty alley.
Looks like she’s found something better to do, then.
I reached inwards for the energy that would take me where I needed to go and braced myself for the push and pull as I travelled.
My feet stumbled slightly as the ground I landed on juddered, and my mind adjusted to the new location, an unexpected one that shouldn’t have been possible this far from the wards. And if I thought the dread I felt at Bastian’s frantic voice was bad, it was nothing like what washed over me now.