Chapter 2 #2
"I am so glad those Twisted Sisters figured out how to make magic and technology work together,” he muttered, referring to the reason Nina was able to reach out to him at all. He went to the cribs first. “What happened?” His chest heaved like he'd run the whole way through the Hellmouth.
"We were at the farmer's market..." I began and trailed off as I watched Aidon examine our babies.
His hands hovered over each baby without touching them. Power rolled off him in waves as he checked them. No doubt he scanned for injury, magical residue, or any sign of harm.
Melaina woke first, having sensed her father's presence. She blinked up at him with her gold eyes and made a soft cooing sound. Then she reached up, her tiny fingers grasping for his hand. Aidon froze.
The tension in his body left him in a rush. It was replaced by raw emotion that I'd only seen a handful of times. When we'd gotten mated. When I'd told him I was pregnant. When he'd held each baby for the first time. And when he'd thought he might lose us to Lyra's parasite.
"Hey, Little Spark," he whispered, letting Melaina wrap her fingers around his. "You're okay. You're safe." His voice cracked on the last word.
Aidon's jaw clenched, the muscle jumping beneath his skin. "I should have been there."
"You were consulting with your father about protecting them," I said, standing up. My legs felt steadier now that he was here. He was my rock and always made me feel better. "You can't be everywhere at once."
"I shouldn't have left." He carefully extracted his finger from Melaina's grip and moved to check the other two. Thaniel slept on, tiny sparks still dancing across his hands. Nyssa opened her eyes for a second before falling back asleep.
"If you're done with the touching family moment," Nana began, "we need to strategize. Because whoever this asshole is, they found my great-grandbabies once. They'll try again."
Nana’s comment made Aidon turn to face me properly. The look in his eyes nearly undid me. "Yes, we do. Tell me everything," he said.
This time, when I went through things, Nina added more detail and more observation.
I was grateful she had been there too. I’d gone into mama bear mode while she'd kept remarkably calm during the attack.
She cast a protective dome without hesitation.
Another way my teenage daughter had been forced to grow up too fast.
"I got some footage. Let me see if it loaded to the cloud before Thaniel fried my phone," Nina added. She did something on the backup phone for several seconds before a smile spread across her face. "It’s there. It’s not a great quality. The smoke kind of ruins most of it, but..."
She pulled up the video, and we crowded around the small screen. Aidon's arm came around my waist, anchoring me, while Tarja leaped to the dresser to get a better view. Mom leaned in from my other side with Nana behind her.
The footage showed the market crowd, shaky and unfocused, as Nina had tried to film while moving. Then a figure in a dark hood, just for a moment. Aidon’s finger darted out, reaching for the screen. "Pause it there."
Nina froze the frame. The figure's face was still hidden, but you could see the pale, extra-long fingers.
And despite her claim, the quality was good enough to make out details I'd missed in the moment.
Each finger had an extra joint. And the nails weren't black from polish or paint.
They were blackened bone, curved and sharp like talons.
"What the hell is that?" Nina breathed.
"Nothing I recognize," Aidon said grimly.
"Nothing natural," Mom added, her voice tight. "That looks like a deliberate modification. Magical or surgical, I can't tell from a video, but that didn't happen by accident."
"Well, isn't that just peachy?" Nana muttered. "A monster with a makeover. Do we think this is a parting gift from Lyra?"
"Keep playing," Aidon said.
“That’s all for this one, but I have more. Hold on.” Nina scrolled back through the footage she'd captured before everything went to hell.
I hadn't even noticed her filming. I wasn't part of the generation that documented every breathing moment for the internet's consumption. But right now, I was damn grateful she was such a typical Gen Z-er, because what she'd caught on camera made my blood run cold.
The figure appeared twice more as Nina scrubbed through the video. Her phone screen cast a pale glow across her face. Each time she'd panned across the bustling market with her camera, there it was—lurking at the edges of the frame like a predator circling prey.
Always watching us and positioned with a clear line of sight to the strollers. My stomach dropped. This wasn't a coincidence. Someone had been hunting us long before we knew we were being followed. I'd been oblivious, worried about vegetables and whether my babies would behave.
“I should have monitored you closer,” Tarja projected, her mental voice thick with self-recrimination. “I would have sensed them.”
"You couldn’t have known," I reminded her. "We thought we were safe with Lyra gone."
"It’s clear now," Nana said, "that we need to try harder. We need to stick together until we know what we're dealing with."
Mom nodded. "Agreed. And I'm calling in some favors. The witches in the coven want to help more. They enjoyed being part of things."
Mythia zipped between the cribs, her agitation showing in the rapid flutter of her wings. "The pixies will keep our eyes and ears open. I’ll start asking around."
Aidon rewound the video to the clearest shot of the figure's hands. "Send this to Jean-Marc. He might be able to enhance the image and get us more details."
"On it." Nina's fingers flew across her screen.
Aidon kept staring at the frozen frame. "The energy you described—reddish-orange and reeking of decay. That's not standard offensive magic."
"No kidding." I crossed my arms, suddenly cold despite the room's temperature returning to normal. "It felt... hungry. Like it wanted to consume."
"It’s like a wraith," he said, his voice going dark and deadly.
"Is that what we're dealing with? Some kind of wraith?"
"If it is, they've been altered." His hand tightened on my waist, fingers pressing into my hip hard enough to bruise.
"It could have been modified, like Mollie suggested.
Not only do they look different, but wraiths are opportunistic scavengers.
This thing? This thing had intent." His jaw flexed. "If that had hit Melaina—"
"It didn't." I turned to face him fully, cupping his face in my hands and forcing him to look at me instead of spiraling into whatever nightmare scenario was playing out in his head. "It didn't, because Nina reacted fast, and my deflection worked. They're safe."
"This time." He leaned into my touch, his eyes closing briefly.
When they opened again, the fear there gutted me.
"Phoebe, something is hunting our children.
Something with enough power and knowledge to track you to a market, cloak itself from detection, and launch an attack that could have killed on impact. "
“I know,” I replied.
"We need to call Stella and tell Layla, Selene, Tseki, and Murtagh." Aidon looked around the room. "The witches are fine and good, but we need the rest of our family up to speed. I want to find this thing before it gets another chance."
"I can’t wait," Nana said with a smile that could freeze fire, "to introduce it to the concept of consequences."
"We can call Stella tomorrow," I said firmly. "Tonight, we secure the house, hold our babies, and refuse to fall apart. That's what they want."
He studied my face. "When did you get so calm?"
"I nearly vomited twice on the drive home, and my hands didn't stop shaking until you got here," I admitted. "This is me faking it."
That surprised a laugh out of him. It was short and sharp but genuine. "Fair enough." He pressed his forehead to mine. "Tomorrow, we hunt them. Tonight we—" Nyssa started crying.
It wasn’t her normal baby cry. This was the sound she'd made during the attack. It was high and piercing. Thaniel joined in a heartbeat later. His electrical field spiked hard enough to make the lights flicker. Melaina's crib erupted in flames.
"Shit!" Nina lunged for the magical fire suppression system, but Aidon was faster. He made a sharp gesture, and the flames were snuffed out. It left Melaina startled but unharmed in her magically fireproof bedding.
“Do you sense anything?” I asked Tarja.
My familiar jumped onto the windowsill and looked out the window. “No. And our wards have not been touched.” That was exactly what I had picked up.
"They're reacting to our stress," I surmised, hurrying to Nyssa. Her shadows reached for my hands. "They can feel what we're feeling."
"Then we need to calm down." Aidon scooped up Thaniel, the baby's sparks went harmlessly into his chest. Nana picked up Melaina. “Everyone, take a breath."
Gradually the triplets settled. Shadows retracted. Sparks faded. Temperature normalized.
"They've never synchronized their freak-outs before," Nina observed in a neutral tone.
"The attack triggered something," Aidon said. "Defensive instincts, maybe."
“They know,” Tarja projected. “They know someone tried to hurt them. Even if they don't understand it consciously.”
That thought sat in my stomach like a stone. I didn’t like my infants burdened with these fears. There was nothing I could do but reassure them and make them feel safe and loved.
We spent the next hour putting them back to sleep. Nina hummed off-key lullabies. Aidon murmured prayers in ancient Greek. When they were finally settled, the others left us to do other things. Aidon and I stood in the doorway, watching three small chests rise and fall.
"Bed," he said quietly. "We need rest for tomorrow's war council."
I nodded, but my feet wouldn't move. My eyes kept tracing Melaina's crib and the obsidian runes. "Phoebe." His hand found mine. "They're safe. The wards are holding. Tarja's standing guard."