31. Lenna
31
Lenna
T here wasn't any space left on the tables of their usual spot on the rooftop where Lenna, Theon, Ciaran, and the bunch sat around. They couldn't control so much stuff without the usual help of the service, which was nowhere to be seen. Maybe they were being kept sexually busy. Or being told off about how slow they were, only keeping them away from the tables and making it worse.
The table in front of Lenna had a varied array of empty and half-empty glasses of myster, cards and dies which had escaped the deck pile, empty plates of the snacks that have kept them entertained for a few hours now, spare valers and grolls here and there that had no clear owner after so many rounds of CoreCode.
The sky was dark. The red moon and its Cardinals-lightened stars the only sources of the reddish light above them. Next to Brendon and Sasha, Theon finally stood up and walked calmly towards the pretty woman on the other side of the rooftop who had been eyeing him all night, winks and tongue-on-teeth included.
“I saw that coming,” Lenna chuckled, turning to Ciaran. “You never told me how you donated petals to this lot to make them panoms,” she said, pointing at Sasha, Brendon and Carson. Indianna would join them after her evening shift at the Beftac Center for Injured Beings.
Ciaran looked at her, swiftly combing his dark hair with his metallic arm. “I only donated a petal for each of them, so they are not panoms. Not fully. They have barely enough to send ink, create some sparks and not much more. A bit like what you could do before your Fifth Ceremony.”
“ Not much more your ass,” Sasha said, the hand that wasn’t holding her current myster glass on her hip, asking Ciaran for an explanation.
“Don’t be rude, Ciaran,” Brendon nodded in agreement. “We aren’t part of the super fancy panom bosses, but we can do some pretty cool stuff. The sparks are always a winner in bed.”
“Until one of your lovers tells the roixers, and it comes to bite your ass,” Sasha spat.
Ciaran’s lips curled in a half smile. “I’ve told him to keep quiet more times than I can remember. He can’t resist showing off.”
“I mean, why would someone who works at the most secretive organization of Thyria be able to keep his own secret? It would make absolutely no sense.” Sasha rolled her eyes and took a long sip.
“Leave the Invisible Grand alone. One thing has nothing to do with the other,” Brendon said, frowning under his blond strands.
“The lady asked you a question, Ciaran,” Carson said.
Lenna smiled, nodding. “Thank you. He isn’t the best at sharing information. But he knows how to ignore.”
Ciaran was looking at the other side of the rooftop. At Theon and the pretty woman now sitting on his lap, as he whispered things in her ear and she chuckled. Ciaran’s mouth curled in disgust.
As if sensing that it was time to step out of this conversation, Carson, Brendon and Sasha started another round of CoreCode, loudly talking about their bets and therefore giving Ciaran and Lenna some privacy.
“Your interest in donation is because you want to give him powers,” Ciaran said, his long, sleek hair moving with the gentle breeze.
It wasn’t a question, Lenna realized. It pissed her off. “Well, you donated to your friends, so I wonder why the fuck I couldn’t donate to my friend.”
Ciaran took his blue eyes off Theon and looked at Lenna. “That man is not your friend.”
“Excuse me?” her eyebrows raised. “If you mean that I’ve wanted to fuck him since I’ve known him, that does not make him any less a friend of mine. And this,” she pointed at the tangle of lips and tongue that Theon and the woman now were in that chair, “means nothing. We have nothing. I genuinely don’t give a shit. He can fuck whoever he wants, and I can fuck whoever I want.”
It was true. Lenna couldn’t care less about who was in Theon’s mouth, chair or bed. Not as long as he was still there for her when it was time to train, when she needed to vent or just fancied to hang out. It had always been like that for them.
It probably wasn’t as true that Lenna could fuck whoever she wanted. Not until she figured out the mess she had in her head and core these days.
“I didn’t mean that,” Ciaran said, pausing. “I mean that Theon Chloid is not who you think he is. And you would regret donating part of your magic to him for the rest of your life.”
Before Lenna could tell him to fuck off because no one had asked his opinion on her personal relationships and that he could shove the donation information somewhere she had no interest in seeing, Ciaran stood up abruptly.
Half a second later, a sweaty Indianna stormed through the door to the rooftop and started running towards them. Carson, Brendon and Sasha had stopped their game, worry in their frowns.
“What the fuck?” Lenna asked.
Indianna reached their corner, panting. Lenna felt Ciaran lifting an invisible barrier surrounding them, as if he had Given it silence. A way to ensure those curious looks from all the other busy tables minded their own business.
“Catch your breath, girl,” Sasha put a hand on Indianna’s shoulder, her usually immaculate black bob all over the place from the running. And to be in such a state, Lenna had almost no doubt that she probably had run from the other side of Corentre, where her workplace was.
“What’s wrong?” asked Ciaran, and he opened his hand towards her. She inhaled deeply, thanks to the presumably hyper oxygenated air he Gave her.
“Found out,” Indianna managed to say, still panting. “Furious.”
Lenna clenched her jaw with impatience. She knew she was not the only one who didn’t understand anything. Sasha pulled Indianna down onto one couch while Ciaran opened his hand a few more times, allowing her to take some deep breaths.
Indianna’s brown eyes finally focused. On Lenna and Ciaran. She lifted her head to the sky, and she almost looked like she was going to cry. Lenna was going to cry from frustration soon too if this woman didn’t chill and talk.
“Sorry,” Indianna said. “The Organ Mandor brought Raoul to the Beftac Center an hour ago. He ordered us to put him in the highest security medical vault, and to not provide any care until he found out who had brought him back from Verdania after being discarded by panom order. I came as soon as I could leave the unit.”
Lenna felt the floor disappearing from underneath her feet, and thanked the five Cardinals for being sat down already, immediately regretting any thankfulness and damning every single one of them. They were fucked. She looked at Ciaran and saw the concern in his frown, too.
Raoul had been in the West House, cared for by their healers all this time. Lenna knew Ciaran and his father wouldn’t have informed the Organ Mandor of his body’s return to Thyria—because who knew where his mind was—, so this would most definitely be considered treason. Even if they never clarified how Raoul had arrived there, Lenna had a feeling that nothing would convince the Organ Mandor of their innocence.
Ciaran and Cobrian Castel were going to be punished for trying to keep Raoul alive. Every single one of those healers was probably going to be killed, unless the Organ Mandor felt generous and discarded them instead. And why would he feel generous, when a discarded being had returned against his orders, and it had been kept from him?
Lenna felt a sting in her arm at the same time as Ciaran twitched his biological arm. Both looked at their skins simultaneously. She knew that every panom in Thyria had just received Rhei Coralt’s ink. And that every panom would also have felt the pain, because it was not normal ink, Lenna realized with horror. It was bleeding ink.
Lenna tried to wipe the Organ Mandor’s bleeding ink from her arm, but it was not going away, and she was only getting her forearm red all over. She had already tried Taking it from her skin with no success. Next to her, Ciaran was not bothering, the dripping drops of his blood still dry on his arm underneath where the ink read its message.
“It will not go away until we’re there,” he mumbled, as if his mind was somewhere else.
“Good, that the dead of night is minutes away,” she said, standing up to stretch her legs in Ciaran’s living room. The bleeding message could have also read twelve ante meridiem , but that the Organ Mandor had not picked those words was not a mere coincidence. His message had been very clear.
Ciaran had moured all of them from the rooftop to his apartment in Corentre. All of them except Theon, who had been so busy playing with the woman that had missed the commotion Indianna’s sprint had caused in the other tables. And who, by the time Ciaran started mouring them, was nowhere to be seen. Nor did his companion.
Ciaran put his metallic hand over his eyes as he muttered, “Something is very wrong.”
“I agree,” Lenna said. “We’re cardinally fucked.”
Ciaran only shook his head slightly, his silver fingers protecting him from the light in the room, as if he was trying to concentrate.
“I’m pretty sure if we are late to this summoning, it will be five times worse. Shall we go?” she said. Ciaran ignored her, still shaking his head. Lenna wasn’t sure if he had even heard her, so she insisted, “Ciaran Castel, can you moure us to the Cardinals Temple right now, please?”
He finally stood up and placed his hand on the back of her neck. Lenna couldn’t identify the dark glimmer in his eyes. Her best guess would have been extreme dread or extreme worry. She would definitely agree with both.