40. Hailon
Chapter 40
Hailon
I got out of the carriage, heart pounding against my ribs. The urgency to flee pressed on me, though Imogen had done her best to explain that it was just wards when I woke up panicked.
Lovette wasted no time knocking on the door.
“Isn’t it very late?” I whispered since speaking loudly felt like an invitation for disaster.
“It’s alright. We’re expected,” Lovette said, smiling as a wizened little woman opened the door. She was short and squatty, wrinkles carved deeply into her face. Lovette made a happy noise and bent down to give the woman a hug. “Hello, Ophelia.”
“Hello, my girls! Magnus. Come in, come in.” The little stone kin woman ushered us into a cozy hut.
I found it odd that Magnus lingered at the back, clearly uncomfortable, while his daughters entered without any hesitation at all. Thankfully, the urgent feeling the stone kin’s wards had woken me with disappeared once we were across the threshold.
“Have a seat, get comfortable. You”—she turned to me, her wrinkles rearranging a bit as she scanned me head to toe—“you take that one.” She pointed at a seat to the right of what I could only assume was her favorite chair. “What is your name, dear?”
“Hailon Derne.”
“Derne. Hmm.” Ophelia squinted, looking at me as she measured the name. She didn’t come up with anything familiar I supposed, and she shrugged. “Nice to meet you, Hailon. Shame your demon couldn’t join us.”
“Sorry?” I stuttered, surprised at her statement.
“It is a demon, yes? Your mate. Another one of the creatures that are so drawn to this city.”
The stone kin looked from one to the other, all grinning in amusement. I gathered quickly that Ophelia was not one to mince words.
“Yes, his name is Seir. He had to return to Hell. Temporarily, at least.”
“Mmm. Odd times, odd times,” she muttered cryptically.
“We appreciate you meeting with us, Ophelia,” Lovette said. “Apologies that it’s late. We were rather anxious to get back.”
“No trouble. I wasn’t sleeping anyway. Tea?”
Imogen reached for the tray. “I’ll pour.”
Ophelia laughed. “If you’re not in the mood for my whiskey, Imogen, just say so.”
Imogen chuckled as she started pouring the steaming brew into laughably tiny china cups. They were disproportionately small compared to her hands, not to mention Magnus’s. “You’ll have a roomful of unexpected overnight guests if we start drinking now. Been a tiresome ride.”
“That wouldn’t be so awful, now would it?” Ophelia asked.
“I thought you didn’t like visitors?” Lovette teased, giving the old woman a wink.
“I enjoy the right ones from time to time.” She turned her attention to me again. “Now you. Let me get a good look at you.” She spun completely in her seat so she could hold my face between her hands. Her soft fingertips brushed some wisps of hair away from my eyes. It was a gesture so full of gentleness that tears prickled. I’d never known a grandmother, but she embodied the kind of energy I expected from such a person. Ophelia turned my head back and forth, examining it in the light. “Been a long, long time since one of your kind graced my doorstep.”
“My kind?”
“We’ll get there, my dear. Drink your tea. I’ve a table to sort.” She got down from her chair with a grumble and went over to a little alcove behind the kitchen. Under a stained-glass window was a table, and on the table was a curious assortment of items.
Lovette gave me an encouraging wink. Imogen just leaned back in her seat, eyes closed as though she were going to take a little nap. Magnus sat stiffly in his chair, looking like he could actually do with a good serving of whiskey.
Out of habit, I pulled the little horse carving from my pocket and held it in my hand, stroking the gold parts. The smooth metal under my fingers never failed to calm my nerves.
“Come over here, Hailon.”
I stood, obeying immediately. They had all impressed very firmly that Ophelia could be dangerous if disobeyed or provoked. Magnus had reinforced this sentiment, but with much more urgency, and he’d been borderline distraught that he hadn’t brought some kind of candy for her. I didn’t understand his wariness, as all I’d felt from her was kindness so far, but perhaps my gauge was off.
She stood me in front of the table of random oddities, her hands hovering and adjusting something here and there. There was a small pile of salt and a mix of crystals all spread out from one another. Herb bundles and sand. Shreds of paper.
“Hold this.” She handed me a bell. “Ring that please.”
I shook the little bell by the handle, but the clapper only made a dead clanking noise. Ophelia gazed up at me and nodded, shifting around several things on the table. She turned a chunk of amethyst upside down and traded a decent-size piece of rose quartz for a smaller one of jade and a polished round tiger’s eye. She shuffled the order of things, stepping back when everything was to her liking.
“Again?” she prompted.
I was prepared for another dull clank but was rewarded with a vibrant clear tone.
Ophelia beamed. “Good, good.” She put her hand out. “The little carving you have, may I see it?” Reluctantly, I handed over the little horse. The ancient stone kin set the figure on the sill of the window behind the table after giving it a thorough examination and friendly pet. “Now. Let’s just…” She collected tiny amounts of sand and salt and a sliver of the jade that had broken off. She put all those in the smallest cauldron I’d ever seen, and once the candle under it was lit, added two pinches of the shredded paper. “Your hand?” I held it out to her, and she pricked the tip of my finger so quickly I barely saw her move. Two drops went into the cauldron. “Would your demon have been upset about that, do you think?” she asked cryptically.
“Sorry?”
She grinned and waved a hand. “Never mind, never mind. He’ll be sad to have missed it, I’ll bet. But it’s nice not to have to tell someone to mind their manners.”
Perplexed, I put the pad of that finger between my lips and sucked the sting away, still unsure what exactly she was talking about.
“Vassago wasn’t that bad,” Magnus chuckled. “It was Rylan who really got offended by it.”
Ophelia made some singsong sounds in her throat, clearly amused by the memory of Seir’s brothers reacting to her drawing blood from their mates. There was an odd comfort in knowing others had come before me through this strange ceremony.
The mixture started to smoke, first a billowy cloud of gray, then the smoke turned yellowish, and a square shape took form.
“What’s happening?” I whispered, stepping back when I realized that faces were forming, like a portrait being painted in puffy smoke.
“It’s alright.” Ophelia nodded. She reached over and patted my shoulder comfortingly, the other three stone kin still rooted to the chairs in her living room.
A woman’s face took shape first. Her smile was soft, her eyes too. Her cheekbones were prominent, and there was something about her hair that seemed unusual, but I couldn’t put my finger on quite what. The man was tall, broad. He had an impressive beard and expressive eyes. He also had what appeared to be slightly pointed ears.
“Who are you?” I muttered.
The man looked shy, almost ashamed, as though he could actually see me standing in front of him, hear my question.
The woman turned his way, smiling up at him as though he’d hung the moon. He turned and pressed his forehead to hers. It was then I realized what was happening with her hair. She had tiny horn nubs on the top of her head. Then they both turned back to the front.
Realization dawned, a flush running through me, first cold, then hot. These were my parents. The people responsible for bringing me into the world. The ones who vanished, leaving me with Sal.
And I didn’t even know them well enough to recognize them.
There was an odd rumbling noise, and the woman touched her collar, where a necklace chain disappeared under the fabric. I heard the sound of wood cracking and looked over just in time to see the front and back halves of my horse carving fall in opposite directions on the wide windowsill. What looked like a black rock fell out from the center.
My gut swooped and I took another step backwards as the portrait began to lose integrity. I was thankful that there hadn’t been much to our meal on the road as I grappled with what exactly any of this meant.
“Well. That answers that.” Ophelia dashed her arm through the remaining smoke and opened the window wide, retrieving the black stone that had fallen out of the carving.
I was grateful at least one of us understood what had just happened, but it certainly wasn’t me.
“I believe this belongs to you.” Ophelia dropped the smoothly polished obsidian into my palm. It was on a chain, set in a band of plain silver.
“A necklace.”
“ Her necklace, I’d wager,” Ophelia said sagely, watching as I retrieved the two halves of my little horse. My heart hurt, the little item one of the only things I’d maintained from my childhood that had always brought me comfort. It had been taken from me in that horrible house, and I couldn’t have been more grateful to have found it in the lockbox. “Perhaps we can find a way to mend it.”
We reconvened in the living room, the three other gargoyles quiet as they watched the whole situation unfold.
“Those were my parents.”
“Yes, yes.” Ophelia reached forward and refilled her tea, making a face as she discovered it was lacking whiskey.
“You didn’t know them at all?” Lovette asked, expression empathetic.
“No. I was left with my Aunt Sal by my mother when I was three. She never spoke of my father at all. I don’t remember either of them. I was too little I guess.”
“That’s unfortunate,” Magnus said. His voice was deep and resonant, even when he was speaking softly. “I recognize your father. I’ll have to search my memories a bit better to be sure, but I believe he has roots in the grotesque house. I can check the records, of course.”
“Thank you. Sal said my mother’s name was Wyn. That she had some demon lineage.”
“The perfect marriage of all the bloodlines is required for a null to be conceived. It’s why there’s so few of you. People get very uncomfortable when magics mix that powerfully.” Ophelia nodded sagely as though this statement explained everything.
“All the bloodlines?”
“Human, stone kin, witch, demon, angel, and fae.”
I attempted to process this information but found myself stumbling. “You’re saying that I’m… all of those things?”
Ophelia smiled. “Yes, dear girl. There’s no telling how much of any of those elements is needed, but yes. Your mother clearly has demon genes, and your father some fae. I can hear the stone kin blood in you as well. You’re a healer, so that likely accounts for the witch part. The angel bit gets tricky, but it’s a requirement too. No null can exist without them all being present, at least somewhere down the line. A null has the ability to balance the magic of the world outside themselves by being composed of a perfect balance of magic within themselves.”
Except I wasn’t balanced. And I had no control over that terrible power.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized, head spinning. I put a hand to my forehead, willing the dizziness to stop. “I’m not feeling well all of a sudden. I’m not going to be very good at answering questions or puzzling much of anything out right now. I’m… tired.” Tired didn’t quite convey how much it felt as though my brain might start to leak from my ears soon, but it was the best I could do. I’d rested in the carriage, but even my bones felt weary.
“Of course, of course. It’s very late, after all. Let me get you set up in my guest room, dear.” Ophelia got to her feet and disappeared into the back of the hut. I hadn’t expected there to be more than one bedroom in the little building. After sleeping on the ground so much, the soft couch would have been perfectly wonderful.
“We’ll be back in the morning,” Lovette assured me as they prepared to leave. “Unless you want one of us to stay?” She and Imogen exchanged a look, and I could see a whole conversation passed between them in a matter of seconds.
Imogen nodded. “This is all very unusual, I’m sure. A lot to take in. But you’re safe here. Ophelia might be one of the oldest of us, but nobody crosses her. She’s still very capable.”
“Thank you. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
Lovette squeezed my hand, making sure I saw the reassurance in her face before stepping away.
Ophelia came bustling back in. “Your room is the one to the left. The bathroom is the center door, and my room is to the right.” She gestured vaguely.
“I appreciate your hospitality.”
“I’m happy to have you here with me, dear, you’re quite fascinating. We have much to discuss, but you need some sleep so you can get your bearings first.”
“Any requests, Ophelia? It’s market day. We can stop on our way in,” Imogen offered.
“I’ll bake some bread and brew the tea. The rest I leave up to you. Muffins are never amiss, nor chocolate. Or some of those crispy sausages you sometimes bring.” She licked her lips as though already tasting it.
“I’ll take care of it.”
Ophelia shooed me to bed while she cleaned up. I washed my face and took care of my necessaries in the adorably small bathroom, then tucked myself into the little bed in the equally tiny guest bedroom. It was cozy, and the size of the room made it feel like the house itself was giving me a hug.
Even with no tail wrapped around my ankle, I fell asleep in no time at all, comforted by the muffled homey noises Ophelia was making in the kitchen.