Chapter 5
When Viri finally made it back to her apartment after a full day of sorting, she felt as if three hundred years had passed.
Fortunately, there had been only a handful more reports of missing children during her last few hours, all cases older than six months, making her wonder if she’d invented the threat just to occupy her mind.
Her lingering concern had faded upon leaving the ellixen-warded office, with only the smallest niggle of unease remaining—just enough for her to keep monitoring things in the coming days.
For now, however, Viri didn’t even want to think about the archives, not when there were much more pleasant things on the agenda for tonight. Because it was Friday, and that meant—
“Family night!” Wynter screeched, already dressed in fluffy purple pajamas and pouncing on Viri as soon as she walked in the door. “You’re nearly late!”
“ ‘Nearly’ being the key word,” Viri returned, removing her scarlet cloak and working the kinks out of her neck and shoulders.
“Hurry up and get changed.” Wynter prodded Viri in the direction of her bedroom. “Soren and Jessy are already here. Mom’s getting the games out. I’m on snacks.”
Viri halted mid-step and turned to give her friend a warning look. “Nothing weird, Wyn.”
“Weird?” Wynter’s face was a mask of innocence. “Me?”
“I mean it,” Viri said. “No experimenting. Not like you do with”—Wynter’s eyes rounded in alarm, until Viri rolled her own and finished—“coffee.”
It wasn’t the first time they’d used the word “coffee” in place of “alchemy,” especially when Sarielle was nearby.
She was rarely in hearing range, though, with her Magistratus duties often keeping her away from home.
Friday nights were the exception, something she carved out time for despite her busy schedule, making sure they knew family came first, always.
“I’ve had a rough day,” Viri went on, “and I need comfort food, not indigestion. Promise me.”
“No indigestion, promise,” Wynter agreed quickly.
“No experimenting,” Viri corrected, her voice firm. “Fruit. Nuts. Cheese. Crackers. The basics, that’s it.”
Wynter sighed at Viri’s serious expression. “Fine. Whatever.” She stepped closer to whisper, “But only because I have something new for you to test later. Deal?”
“Deal,” Viri said, trusting Wynter’s risky alchemy experiments considerably more than her food experiments.
Satisfied, Wynter skipped off in the direction of the kitchen, leaving Viri to continue to her bedroom and change into her favorite blue pajamas.
Comfort was a requirement of their weekly family nights and had been since they’d begun the tradition, back when Sarielle had opened her home to Viri after the deaths of her parents.
Originally, Viri had been meant to stay for only a few days while the High Council investigated the tragedy, but Sarielle’s heart had bled for the grieving Viri—a child barely a year older than her own daughter—and when the inquisition finally ended, Sarielle had refused to send Viri off to the orphanage and instead arranged to become her legal guardian.
Viri had been so numb that she’d hardly spoken for weeks, not even to Wynter, who she’d never met until moving into the bedroom next to hers.
But neither Sarielle nor Wynter gave up on Viri, their relentless love slowly mending the gaping wound inside her.
While Sarielle would never take the place of Viri’s parents, and Wynter was more often a sisterly pest than best friend, the two of them—and Soren, after Viri met him months later—were the reason she’d survived the darkest time of her life.
For that, she would forever be in their debt.
It was with those nostalgic thoughts swirling in her mind that Viri left her bedroom and sought out the family she’d been gifted after losing her own, finding them waiting in the spacious lounge area, seated around a circular table piled high with food.
An everbeacon chandelier lit the cream-colored room, its brightness increasing as the sky purpled into dusk beyond the sealed windows, the moon steadily rising over the lake resting far beneath them.
“Finally,” Wynter said as Viri approached the table.
“It’s been five minutes,” Viri said.
“Wars have been won in less time.”
“Name two.”
Wynter opened her mouth and then closed it again just as fast.
A soft giggle had Viri turning to take in the rest of the table, the sound having come from Jessalyn, though Soren and Sarielle weren’t hiding their mirth.
It was obvious where the blood relations were among them all.
With hair as dark as Wynter’s and eyes just as blue, Sarielle was undeniably Wynter’s mother.
Viri had never met Wynter’s father—nor had Wyn, for that matter—but whoever he was, there was little of him in his daughter.
Her lawbreaking tendencies, though…Viri did sometimes wonder if they might have come from him, since they certainly didn’t come from her mom.
As for Jessalyn, she looked like a younger, female version of Soren, with long, sandy-blond hair that was slightly curly and brown eyes a shade lighter than his.
Her yellow pajamas suited her sunshine personality perfectly, but it was Soren’s bright pink set that brought a smile to Viri’s face—a punishment his sister had gleefully doled out when he’d lost last week’s game.
“Nice jammies, Sor,” Viri teased, bumping his shoulder as she moved past. “The color really brings out your eyes.”
The rude gesture he sent her—hidden from Sarielle’s sight—only made her smile grow.
Had anyone other than Jessy dictated what he wore, Soren might have ignored them, but he’d move the stars for his sister if she asked—a consequence of his becoming her sole caregiver three years ago, when their self-centered parents had left them to fend for themselves.
Their love for each other was deeply rooted, with Soren taking pains to make sure Jessy was happy, and her in turn knowing what it cost him and doing her best to return the favor—when she wasn’t causing mischief, which, admittedly, was most of the time.
“Now that Viri’s here, can we eat?” Jessy asked, jiggling in her seat.
“Go ahead,” Sarielle invited. She patted the chair beside her for Viri to take, her silky peach pajamas shimmering as she leaned in to ask, “All right, darling?”
Peering into Sarielle’s comforting blue eyes, Viri knew what her guardian was really asking. There was a firm no-work-talk rule at family night, but Sarielle had undoubtedly heard about Viri’s unsanctioned visit to Reeve—and her week of desk duty as a result.
“I’ve been better,” Viri replied. “But I only have myself to blame.”
And Reeve—she could blame him, too.
For so many things.
“The time will pass before you know it.” Sarielle squeezed Viri’s arm in reassurance. “Then you can forget everything about today, like it never happened.”
That was unlikely, but Viri offered a weak smile in agreement, determined not to give Reeve any more mental space tonight. Grabbing a handful of popcorn, she asked, “What are we playing?”
“We couldn’t decide, so you’re the tiebreaker,” Soren said, sliding a bowl of melted chocolate across the table, knowing Viri liked to drizzle it over her popcorn.
She refused to think of the silver-eyed boy who had first introduced her to the sweet-and-salty creation, and the fact that he was rotting in a cell at this very moment.
“It’s between Mage Quest and Dungeon Escape,” Jessy said around a mouthful of berries.
After the day she’d had, Viri grimaced at the idea of playing Dungeon Escape—a game that would require her to help free her teammate from prison—so she said, “Let’s go with Mage Quest. I’m in the mood for magic and treasure.”
Within minutes, the table was cleared and the board set up. They’d all played enough times to know their preferred characters: Jessy, an elemental mage; Soren, a nature mage; Sarielle, a glamour mage; Viri, a warrior mage; and Wynter, an alchemist mage.
As they began rolling the dice and moving their characters across the board, completing quests for treasure rewards, Viri’s mind wandered to the mages of old and the world they’d lived in—a world that could very well still exist beyond Elverdine Isle.
The blackmist was so isolating that no one knew whether magic flourished elsewhere, or if there were any mages left.
In ancient times, their numbers had been few, with most of the population made up of shallows—people who, upon reaching puberty, maintained shallow enough levels of ellixen to keep them from using all but the smallest of magics.
Only those whose ellixen continued to grow after age fourteen were considered to have enough power to train in the magical arts, and thus became mages.
It had been many generations since such a person had lived on Elverdine Isle—indeed, it was impossible for any of them to be mages now, not when they surrendered all but a drop of their ellixen to fuel the obelisks.
Viri didn’t mind; it seemed a fair trade, given that doing so protected them from reapers and the blackmist, and also from burnout—the painful death or, perhaps worse, mindless existence that came with a buildup of unstable ellixen, and befell anyone who didn’t yield their magic by age fourteen.
Long ago, the shallows and mages had all been taught how to control their ellixen—no matter its strength—and so avoided any risk of burnout, but that knowledge had been forgotten in time, leaving all those who remained on the isle no choice but to rely on the obelisks to absorb their magic and keep them safe.
Again, Viri felt it was a fair trade. Death by reaper, death by blackmist, death by burnout—none of those things appealed to her. At all.
“You’re quiet tonight, Viri,” Jessalyn said, jolting Viri from her thoughts. “You didn’t even notice when I stole your dragon to overthrow the Malevolent Queen.”
Viri frowned down at the board, seeing Jessy was right. “Sorry. Long day.”