Chapter 22 #2
Clayton took them in. They were both tall and willowy. The woman had long, golden hair, and the man had a glorious mess of red, artfully tousled hair. Clayton caught a glimpse of a pointed ear peeking out from the man’s hair. When he examined the woman closer, he saw she had pointed ears as well.
“I’m sorry to have startled you, but I need to know. Are you also missing children?” The woman asked anxiously.
Clayton was too preoccupied to connect the dots right away, so he didn’t answer, assuming Marshall would take the lead as usual. There was something familiar about her voice that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
“Clayton, do you understand her? I can’t use magic, so you’re our language guy.” Marshall admitted sheepishly.
Clayton perked up immediately, happy to show off his skills in front of Marshall for once. “Yes, madam, we’re missing an entire boat full of children and their caretakers. Do you know anything about it?”
“We don’t know about a boat, but we’re also searching for missing children,” the man said.
His voice was also eerily familiar, and something about it made the connection click. They were the voices Clayton had heard the last time he’d been stuck inside Astraea’s tree.
“Can you tell us what’s going on? I can’t understand them.” Marshall reminded him.
Clayton relayed the exchange easily, distantly marveling at how he hadn’t keeled over and died from embarrassment after making such a mistake in front of Marshall.
Marshall's eyebrows drew together in thought, and he asked, “Can you ask them to tell us more? If we have the same problem, we might be able to help each other.”
Just as Clayton was about to follow Marshall’s instructions, Mal swayed and fell to his knees. Clayton raced to his side and kneeled down, realizing that Mal was likely suffering from magic drain like he had when he’d dragged a handful of kidnappers between realms.
Mal’s skin was chalk-white, and he was shivering. When Clayton went to touch him, his hand passed through like he wasn’t there. What on earth?
“He’s discorporating,” Marshall said, crouching down next to them. “Is Mal… Could he be a dreamwalker?” He frowned, shaking his head slowly as if to negate his own words. Marshall didn’t think Mal was a dreamwalker any more than Clayton did.
“He’s never told me what he is,” Clayton said cautiously.
He was unwilling to go into details about Mal.
Just because Clayton respected him and believed him to be a good man didn’t mean he’d trust Mal’s secrets with Marshall.
He was still a guardian, after all. If Marshall thought Mal was a threat to the Other, he could legally kill Mal on the spot.
“I’m fine,” Mal rasped, trying to push himself back to his feet.
“You bloody well are not! What were you thinking, portalling us all here like that?” What had Clayton been thinking?
How could he have forgotten what had happened before in the tunnels?
If he hadn’t been so caught up with worry over his missing family, he would never have let Mal do such a stupid thing.
“It needed to… be done… and I thought… I had more essence this time,” Mal whispered and gave up trying to stand, instead sprawling bonelessly onto the grass.
:That’s my fault, I’m afraid. I diverted you all from your original destination, so he used more energy to get here than he realized. I would help if I could, but he can’t feed off of anything I can offer.: Astraea’s voice was genuinely regretful, so Clayton found it difficult to be angry with her.
“What do you mean by feed?” Clayton asked thoughtlessly. “What does he feed off of?”
Astraea didn’t answer, and suddenly, something inside Clayton clicked.
It was like a veil had been ripped away from his mind. All the information had been right in front of him, but Clayton hadn’t been able to connect it for some reason.
Now, with astonishing speed, Clayton began to piece all of the small mysteries Mal had presented into a cohesive whole.
Mal was like a dreamwalker, but through a distorted lens. Mal didn’t flow through life as though he belonged. He barreled through, taking instead of receiving.
In Boston Below, when the magic box had exploded on Mal, he’d not only survived unscathed, but it had woken him from extreme magic drain. Such a violent explosion of magic would have been a challenge for any dreamwalker, let alone a half-dead one.
After Mal woke up, he’d sucked the life right out of the kidnappers and had completely recovered from magic drain afterward. How had Clayton simply glossed over that? How could anyone have glossed over something like that?
“Oh my gods,” Clayton whispered.
He should be forgiven for not noticing what Mal was right away. Clayton didn’t sense magic the way everyone else in the Other did. He couldn’t see, or smell, or hear it. He just knew it was there.
It was like one big, synesthetic, amorphous blob that overloaded his system too much for him to understand.
So even though every member of the Other with magic perception was trained from a young age to notice the tell-tale signs of the boogey-man of their society, Clayton had a handicap and wouldn’t be punished for not knowing.
Marshall wouldn’t execute Clayton on the spot for harboring Mal.
Clayton met Marshall’s gaze as they both came to the same conclusion at the same time, only Marshall was the one to voice the conclusion.
“He’s a nightmare.”