Chapter 13
The noises outside grew in volume, and Fellisse, for all his talk about waiting, ended up leaning against the wall right by the window so he could watch, and whatever he was seeing, he seemed none too happy about it.
I shifted on my cushions. “What’s happening out there? Is all of this my fault?”
“Your fault?” He growled. “How is any of it your fault, Rory? You and your mate were taking a stroll, and you got attacked by Koa Esher agents. There is nothing there for which you could be held responsible.”
“But…they wanted me, and—”
“Stop.” Fellisse turned to face me. “The Koa Esher want many things, but if it were up to me, they wouldn’t get one of them. They do not get you, most definitely. Do not blame yourself for their misguided desires.”
I looked down at the cushions I was sitting on.
They were a cream color to match the stone and the curtains both.
I could see the stitches that held the fabric together.
They sat evenly, one next to the other, making the seam strong.
I wanted that seam to be a metaphor for the Raiken and my guys, a kind of sign that confirmed that all would be well. But in the end, it was just a seam.
A knock on the door had Fellisse across the room in moments. He pulled the door open.
A small bagu was on the other side, and recognition hit when he looked at me. “Sonyo,” I said, and the kid’s smile widened.
He held out a folded shirt and said something to Fellisse, who waved him inside.
“He’s brought you a change of clothes on Hove’s orders,” Fellisse said. “You know him?”
The kid unfolded the shirt and said, “Rory.” He was so sweet. The shirt was light gray like the uniforms I’d seen the teenage bagua wear around here, though Sonyo wore copper. I took it from his hands.
“We sort of ran into him and his brother yesterday. With Lissir.”
“Ah, I see.”
The kid watched me take my torn shirt off, and maybe unsurprisingly, his eyes widened when he saw my chest. Clearly, my nipples were stealing the show again. Who’d have thought they’d ever get this much attention, and for simply existing no less?
The kid pointed at my bandaged elbow and said something to Fellisse, who responded.
“He just wanted to know how you’d gotten hurt. I told him your brave mate protected you.”
I smiled and slipped the new shirt on. It tied at the side, and the kid made grabby hands and said something, and I nodded. The salespeople yesterday had been pretty much the same before touching me, and the kid just showed me where to tie the shirt. He kept chattering on all the while.
“He says he likes your friendship bracelet,” Fellisse translated, then flashed Sonyo his own. Sonyo headed over to Fellisse while I finished the last two ties on my new shirt.
Sonyo didn’t seem fazed about reaching for Fellisse’s wrist to get a better look at his bracelet, and they were kind of cute together, big Fellisse and the wide-eyed kid examining his bracelet.
That cute scene wasn’t meant to last, and with how the day had been going, I really shouldn’t have been surprised.
There wasn’t a knock on the door this time, no, Vergis just burst right in, panting, staring around. His eyes locked on me.
“We’re leaving,” he said.
My jaw dropped. “What?”
“You and me, we’re hopping through the veils again.” He looked over at Fellisse. “Koa Esher came across the wall where I hadn’t finished the warding yet. They had guns. They are definitely working with humans. The ones who tried taking you back at Tara,” he said to me.
Fellisse cursed in Lugarra, and Vergis strode into the middle of the room and pulled his knife out.
I backed away until I was sitting on the table.
“No, wait! Everyone’s here. We can’t just leave.” I pointed at the kid, who had no idea what was going on, but he looked scared. “We can’t leave.”
Vergis rolled his eyes. “When did you have time to grow a backbone? Fellisse, find Inki and the others. I can get us back exactly to the southern ko seal for the wall, right inside the seal. They’re breaching from the northeast. With Rory, I should be able to get us there and back with some firepower in twenty, twenty-five minutes. Earth minutes.”
“What?!” Breaching and firepower didn’t sound like anything I wanted to be involved with. The Koa Esher were nothing I wanted to be involved with. Magic was definitely nothing I needed in my life.
“We’ll clear that for you,” Fellisse said. “But Vergis—”
“Yeah, yeah, I won’t let the fucking white mages take us.
” He looked at me and closed the distance between us.
Before I could scramble across the table and get away, he grabbed my ankle.
“Stop the fucking squirming already. We’re doing this, princess.
” He tossed me a bag I hadn’t noticed he was carrying.
It was tied at the top, and something was squirming inside it.
“Wish for clear skies,” Vergis said, and pulled me toward him across the table.
“But—”
“They’re attacking with guns, and there are none here, which needs to change,” Vergis said. “Wish for clear skies already so we can change it.”
I thought I felt a heartbeat where I was clutching the small, fluffy thing in the bag to me.
“Clear skies,” I said, and felt the heat of magic, the brightness of shifting through the veils. In my hands, the bag stilled and grew empty. If I looked now, I’d see nothing more than black ash inside.
The smell was what let me know I was home. Well, not home, but Earth.
“Good. Now up.” Vergis pulled me to my feet.
I was lying on damp ground, tall trees overhead, like redwoods. I didn’t know if Ireland had these kinds of trees, but I was reasonably sure we weren’t on the Emerald Isle right now.
I scrambled to my feet. “Where are we?”
“Canada.” Vergis pocketed his knife. “It’s easier to keep weapons here. Or it was, when it used to matter. Come on, move. We have an appointment to keep.”
“What’s happening?” What was happening to me was that I was being led into the forest like Red Riding Hood, only not romantic. Then again, Red Riding Hood wasn’t really supposed to be romantic, was it?
“We’re getting guns. Inkiri and the others all know how to handle them. The Koa Esher don’t. I didn’t see any of the humans with them, but chances are there are at least a few. We need to put them down quickly before this gets too bloody.”
The forest floor wasn’t clear. There were branches, fallen trees, and clusters of mushrooms standing like sentinels under the canopy of leaves and branches.
Animals made the underbrush rustle while remaining unseen.
While I had once successfully played a tree, that didn’t mean I was any good at navigating a forest. I was scratched up pretty badly after only a few steps, and then I tripped and almost fell.
Vergis pulled me back up and along with him.
“Move your legs, damn it,” he ground out.
“I hate hiking. And the outdoors. Why did you bring me along?”
“There’s a river not too far from the cache,” he said. “Means you can get us back fast. Unless you want to stop and smell the flowers?”
“I told you, I don’t do outdoor activities.”
Vergis groaned. “More walking, less talking, princess. All I expect from you is that you don’t slow me down. Give it your best shot. Not like you’re wearing heels or anything.”
“I don’t even understand what this is about.” I did my best with the walking. It was like the trees parted for him and huddled closer together for me.
“Best guess, humans want to finish whatever spell they started when they used you, and the Koa Esher saw a chance for an alliance or to get guns. Then again, maybe the Koa Esher want you too. It doesn’t matter right now.
” He stopped suddenly. “Right. You remember that thing about doing as you’re told?
” He cleared leaves and dirt away to reveal a hatch in the forest floor.
“The thing that never works out so great for me?”
“Because you suck at it. I’ll be faster carrying the stuff up myself. Can you please just shut up and stay here? Don’t get eaten, don’t run. I don’t have the time for any of that shit right now, and definitely not the patience.”
He opened the hatch. It looked kind of heavy, and it was dark down there. I really didn’t want to climb a ladder, fall off, and break my neck.
“Is there…anything that would eat me in these woods?”
Vergis rolled his eyes as he started down the metal rungs. “I’ll be right back. Just don’t move for five fucking minutes.”
Step by step, Vergis went down until even the tips of his horns were gone, swallowed by the darkness beneath. Terror rose, and I wondered what would happen if he never came up again. If I was left alone out here.
I could still hear his feet on the rungs of the ladder, but only if I strained my ears, and about two seconds later, those sounds vanished as well, and all there was around me was green silence and sunlight filtering through the leaves.
Time ticked by. Bird calls rang through the air.
I looked around, checking the forest for movement.
Why would people voluntarily go on hiking trips?
I’d never understood that. Who knew what out here could kill me?
For all I knew a falling tree might do the trick.
I took a closer look at a nearby trunk, but it looked sturdy.
Minutes passed way too slowly. I worried.
About something big and hungry emerging from the foliage, but also about what was happening back on Aer.
Inkiri didn’t know about the Koa Esher attacking, did he?
What if he came looking for me and I wasn’t there?
Would he think they’d gotten me after all, and would he go after them to get me back?
The cola ash people scared me. The way that celadon dude had looked back at the lake in Ireland made my skin crawl.
“Give me a hand,” Vergis said.
He’d come back up, but he’d been nearly silent, and so I stepped back, and there was a branch or something, and I fell on my butt.
“Ow!”
“Dude. Are you for fucking real? How even are you functional at all?”