Chapter 25
Chapter
Twenty-Five
MAL
“Holy shit, Astraea, what the fuck?” Clayton jumped away from the vanished thorn in Mal’s side, Marshall.
“Good riddance,” Mal grumbled, mentally giving whoever had gotten rid of Marshall a thumbs-up.
Clayton cocked his head to the side, and his eyes took on a dreamy quality.
After a few seconds, Clayton’s eyes cleared, and he threw the tree the stink-eye, saying, “That was entirely unhelpful, but I suppose it was better than nothing.” He turned to Mal and said, “Somehow Jack took Marshall back, though Astraea won’t tell me how. We’re on our own.”
Elena said something to Clayton angrily, and Mal went on alert.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I shouldn’t have been rude to your goddess. This is all very confusing to me.”
Elena, only slightly mollified, said something else, and Clayton nodded readily.
“Yes, of course. I’ll apologize at once. Please forgive me, Astraea. I shouldn’t have spoken to you so disrespectfully.”
Mal didn’t enjoy the game of only hearing half the conversation and then getting a shitty recap every five minutes, so he closed his eyes and turned his focus inward.
He reached out for the threads of reality around him and quickly sorted through them until he found the one involving fundamental understanding.
The underlying source of communication. It was closely connected to how he could sense a sentient creature’s fear. He simply added the ability to understand what they wished to convey and to be understood accordingly.
When he opened his eyes, only a handful of seconds had passed, and he heard Elena say, ”We may not worship our gods in the way that your people might, but we do respect them. Our goddess is like our mother. She loves and cares for us and deserves our respect.”
“Yes, madam. I understand fully and promise not to disrespect her again.” Clayton’s shoulders were hunched, and he spoke to his feet like a little boy who was being scolded by his mother.
Mal didn’t like that at all, so he slung an arm around Clayton’s shoulders and pulled him into his side. “He’s fine the way he is. If Astraea has a problem with how he speaks, she can come and talk to me.”
Mal liked his little fireball best when he was saying exactly what he was thinking and feeling. It was becoming increasingly clear that Clayton was two entirely different people when it came to home and work.
Something inside Mal stirred in pleasure when he realized that Clayton never spoke to him in an overly polite and solicitous manner.
Sassy and stuck up, certainly, but Clayton never shrank himself for Mal.
If he ever tried, Mal would hold him down and spank him until he turned into himself once more.
Clayton perked up with interest.“Can you understand them now? When did you…? You know what? Nevermind. I’ve decided not to be surprised by your weirdness anymore,” Clayton huffed and brushed his hands together as if he was dusting them off from Mal’s weirdness.
“Good for you,” Mal said and gave Clayton a squeeze.
“Please ignore him,” Clayton said to Elena. “It’s the smart choice, really. He’s completely uncontrollable, and if you try, it only makes him worse.”
“You’re so smart,” Mal poked Clayton on the nose and had the joy of watching the man go cross-eyed before slapping Mal’s hand away.
“Yes, I can see that. I’ll take your advice under consideration.” Elena came close to smiling, but her posture tensed, and Mal felt a surge of terror well up inside her. He realized from the flavor that she must have remembered her lost child. It was sticky and overly sweet in a vaguely rotten way.
Mal hated cases involving children, though they were a large portion of what he dealt with. He could feed off the abundant fear created when children were lost or murdered, but the flavor was revolting.
He still took the cases because feeding off a nice, well-seasoned child murderer was nothing short of bliss. Their screams enhanced the experience to perfection.
Once he and Clayton found their kids, Mal would feast like a king.
Clayton elbowed Mal in the ribs and whispered, “You’re drooling.”
Mal wiped his mouth and then grinned, showing off his teeth, making sure to give them an extra sparkle.
Clayton’s cheeks went pink, and his breathing grew shallow. He stayed professional, though, and asked the couple, “Do you have any idea how to find the people who tried to take your children?
Naerith answered this time. “Our main concern is finding our son and the other children. Our king and queen will find the ones responsible for the attack.”
“We came here hoping we’d find the children,” Elena explained.
“There’s no place safer in our realm than here.
None would dare enter this space without the permission of Astraea.
When we realized the children weren’t here, well…
I’m afraid we both fell apart. I’d already tried to locate where the spell sent our children, but I’m not good at that sort of magic, so I failed.
” Elena gave a wan smile, and Mal noticed she was pale and trembled with exhaustion.
“Eventually, I gave up and asked our goddess for help. She’s not generally one to help her adult children unless she believes them to truly be out of options, so it’s not something I would do lightly. ”
“Did Astraea give you an answer?” Clayton asked.
“You and your friends fell out of her tree shortly after,” Elena said, eyes gleaming with hope.
Mal rolled his eyes.
Everyone wanted a piece of Clayton. The world would take and take until there was nothing left unless someone stepped in. Fortunately for Clayton, he now had Mal to help with that.
“I doubt that’s a coincidence,” Clayton murmured. “I’m not sure if she’ll tell me what’s going on, but it can’t hurt to ask.” His eyes went distant. After a moment, he came back to himself, and with a touch of puzzlement to his voice, he said, “She told me that we already have everything we need.”
“Everything we need for what, exactly?” Naerith asked.
“She didn’t specify. I told you exactly what she told me.”
“Is this common for you, speaking with deities?” Elena asked. “Our goddess speaks to very few people.”
“Not specifically, no. But I have a talent for communication. As far as I remember, I’ve always been able to speak to any creature capable of speech.”
“Is this a common ability in your realm?”
“I haven’t met anyone else who can, but I’m sure I’m not the only one.”
Mal had never met anyone from their realm who could, but he had met a fae traveler who had been able to do what Clayton could.
How long should I wait before I tell him these are probably his parents? Mal wondered silently.
It was as plain as day to Mal, but Clayton was taking his sweet time figuring it out.
His parents seemed to be equally clueless as well.
Even without all of the clues smacking Mal in the face, one after another, the fact that Clayton shared a face with Naerith and had the same striking green eyes as Elena drove the point home.
Normally, Mal would happily sit back and watch the awkwardness of such a misunderstanding unfold, but somehow, it didn’t seem as funny as it should.
Well, there was no time like the present to rip off the Band-Aid.
“You said that the children could be scattered through time as well as space, right?” Mal barely waited for Elena to nod before continuing. “How much time are we talking about here? If Merry and Tommy are some of your missing children, they’ve been in the Real for months, possibly longer.”
“Eira told me they showed up in Boston Below about six months ago, so it had to have been at least that long,” Clayton confirmed.
Naerith shrugged. “I’m better at using magic to kill things than anything else. The finer details of spellwork are lost on me.”
“I’m more of an artist,” Elena began, and when Naerith gave an amused snort, she glared at him.
“Crafting weapons is an artform, and you know it. While time and space magic aren’t something I’m overly familiar with, I’m used to working with deeper foundations of magic, which means I can at least make an educated guess.
If I’m not mistaken and the spell I used did as I asked, it would have been bound to the letter of my request and not taken anything else into consideration.
If it breached realms, then it could have easily sent the children years into the past or future. ”
Mal nodded, suspicion confirmed. He tapped his foot as he waited for everyone else to put the pieces together as well.
“Then it’s possible that Merry and Tommy are from your world,” Clayton said, completely missing the truth staring him in the face.
“But I think we should sort it out after we retrieve them. Mal, Astraea told me that she pulled you away from your original destination, and that’s why you used up so much of your essence to get us here.
Can you try again? Or do you need to be where the boat originally was to locate where it is now? ”
Mal deflated, disappointed at how obtuse his lover was being. His parents were no better. How could no one see such an obvious truth other than Mal?
Mal responded with a scowl. “After getting a lock on a location once, I can go there at any time. I do think we need to—”
“Can you take us with you?” Naerith interrupted.
“There’s a chance the people who took your children are the same ones who took ours, but even if they aren’t, we’ll still help you get yours back.
I promise you won’t regret it. We’re good in a fight.
” The man’s eyes flashed with an inner glow of purple fire as he spoke.
In the Real, purple essence was one of the stronger forms of personal magic and was often used for martial skills.
If it was the same in the fae realm, the man would be an asset.
Mal’s magic was purple, but mostly because he liked the color purple.
If he started liking blue more, it would probably become blue.
“You I’ll take, but what can she do?” Mal asked.
“She can speak for herself,” Elena snapped. She positioned her hands before her, one palm facing down, one facing up. Between them, a green glow formed.
Green usually signified healing or crafting magic in the Real. A healer could be helpful, though she would still be more of a liability than anything else.
Elena pinched the thumb and middle finger of each hand together and pulled her hands apart, drawing the magic out into a shape. She let out a strong, melodious trill, and her essence formed into a bow. When she cut off the sound, the bow solidified.
It was curved like it had been strung, but there was no string.
Mal could see magic as easily as norms saw solid matter, and the space between both ends of the bow shimmered with it.
With practiced ease, she mimed pulling a loaded bowstring back, pointed the bow to the sky, and released.
The resulting explosion overhead was so bright that it made the glade seem dark in comparison.
Mal’s eyes, being a magical construct, were unaffected, but Clayton rubbed his eyes, muttering, “Why did I look? Why do I always look?”
Mal patted Clayton’s back and said to the couple, “Fine, you can both come, but before we do—”
“No, no more waiting. Let’s go get our kids. The gods only know what’s been happening to them this whole time.” Clayton pulled on Mal’s arm like he could drag him to their kids by sheer will alone.
Mal ground his teeth together. “Fine.” The big family reunion could wait until the whole family was together. It wasn’t like waiting a little longer was going to affect anything. “You two said you’d been poisoned. Are you sure you want to go?”
“We saw the healers before we came here. We’re more than ready for this fight.” Naerith had a gleam of violence in his eyes that Mal could appreciate. Vengeance was a powerful motivator and would make his new in-laws useful allies.
“Suit yourself.” Mal closed his eyes and connected to the place in reality where the boat existed. Doing it a second time was much easier and would use less magic than before now that he had a previous connection, so when he opened the portal, he barely felt the drain on his resources.
“Stay behind me,” Mal ordered Clayton and entered the portal.