44. Seir
Chapter 44
Seir
T he portal dumped me out on the grounds of d’Arcan, and my whole body thrummed with relief.
My beautiful mate was nearby, I could feel it.
I sprinted for the doors of the main building, only to have them fly open as I approached.
Immediately my instincts were triggered. “What’s wrong?”
Lovette’s face was determined but urgent, and my brothers were both in a hurry and armed, their wives lingering in the doorway not far behind.
“Your timing is impeccable, brother,” Vassago said, clasping my hand and pulling me in for a hug. “Come, we’re meeting up with Magnus. It seems your lovely Hailon has recognized one of the stone kin councilmen.”
“We’ll be prepared when you get back. Straight to the cellar, if you please,” Calla said.
Rylan surged forward and kissed her soundly. “Of course, Little Owl. We wouldn’t want to make a mess elsewhere.”
My heart jumped in my chest, and I released my wings out of habit. “Oh. I suppose that won’t work. Are we running then?”
Rylan smiled and let out his wings. He had feathers on the outside, the same bat-like flesh on the inside as mine. “You’ve missed a few things since you were gone.”
“Oh! Wonderful.” I flapped, hovering a bit, then a bit more.
“It’s barely dusk,” Vassago reasoned, his own feathered wings spread out wide, the white a stark contrast to Rylan’s black. “Stay to the rooflines.”
Then he was airborne, Rylan just behind, as I scrambled after them. I was going to need a quick catch-up very soon about how this was possible, but I was glad to be in the sky.
I followed my brothers to the council building on the interior of Revalia. We landed a street away and walked the rest, my eyes constantly scanning for the woman I knew had to be right nearby somewhere.
Magnus boomed with a friendly greeting when he saw us, and the man he was talking to spun, clearly nervous from the way his eyes widened, and shifted his stance.
“What’s this about then, archmage?” the councilman blustered at Rylan. “What business is it of a mage what the stone kin are doing?”
Rylan tilted his head to the side. “Are we not allies? We’ve collaborated on several things, Brookes. I’m offended you think so little of our friendship.”
“Of course, we’re allies. But what’s the meaning of this? Why are there so many of you? I feel very—” The man looked up, and his whole demeanor changed. “ You .” A myriad of emotions raced across his smug face, but anger was most prominent.
I turned and found his gaze locked on my lovely mate. My heart beat in rapid time as I drank her in.
“Don’t look at her,” I growled, dagger point indenting the skin at the man’s throat. “Don’t you dare.”
“What’s the meaning of this, Magnus?” he demanded, shifting his attention from Hailon to the large stone kin.
Magnus only chuckled. “Let’s go, Brookes. I’m afraid my kin have some questions for you. It’s likely to be rather uncomfortable.”
“Kin? You’re calling the demons kin ?”
“Indeed.” Magus smirked, unmoved by the horror on the councilman’s face at such a suggestion.
Brookes yelled and complained, but his voice was drowned out by the heavy sound of wings being deployed and bodies taking flight as they held him firmly between them. Brookes let his own wings out, and there was a struggle as he tried to get away, but Vassago and Rylan had too good of a grip on him, and Magnus was right there with them.
I dashed over to Hailon, sweeping her into my arms before taking flight myself. She yelped, one hand pressing a necklace into the skin below her collarbone. The other locked around my neck, her legs tight around my waist as the city street dropped out from under us. I lifted my tail as well, lashing it around her hips.
“I’ve wanted to do this with you for ages, Moonflower. This is what I tried to do, that very first night, in fact, when my wings failed me.” I smiled, wind rushing over my body as I kissed her like she was the air I needed to survive. Her sweet taste filled my mouth, my hands full of her but still craving more.
I could tell it wasn’t just being airborne that left her lightheaded when she finally pulled away. “You’re really back?” she asked.
“Yes.” I squeezed her closer. “I told you I would come.”
“I knew you would, I just worried it would take more time.”
“I didn’t have any to waste. I hated being away from you.” Collegium d’Arcan came into view very quickly, and I braced for impact as we dropped toward the ground. I could see the other members of our group already down, several hands hanging on to the councilman as they led him into the building. “Everything will be fine,” I assured her, and we landed with a jolt.
Hailon didn’t hesitate to follow everyone into the school. She detoured into Vassago’s classroom, then rejoined me in the hall so we could go down the stairs into the cellar.
“What is the meaning of this? Magnus! I’ll be filing formal charges against you and this lot of?—”
Hailon had pushed her way between my brothers, and with her fancy little blade, shut the councilman up by punching it through the soft place right between his collarbone and shoulder.
“You bitch ,” he snarled, trying to back away from her. Unfortunately for him, the blade was still imbedded, so she stepped right along with him.
“That’s unkind,” she said softly, twisting the blade, making him scream. “I just wanted to take a sample , after all.”
My brothers, their wives, and the gargoyles all looked to me, quietly stunned. I shrugged, a wide, proud smile on my mouth.
“A perfect match, then,” Vassago muttered. “Well done.”
The stout man reached out and snatched at her hair. She cried out, and I pushed forward, stopping him before he could get even a single step away from the cell my brothers had opened for him. I wrapped my tail wrapped around his ankle, and once Hailon had dislodged his fingers from her hair, I gave a tug, and he went face-first into the packed dirt floor with a satisfying thud .
“Are you alright?” I asked.
She was rubbing her scalp with the heel of her hand, a scowl powerful enough to melt flesh from bone on her face. “I’m fine.” A clump of mixed dark and light strands floated toward the floor when she pulled her hand away.
My fury manifested in a growl, my scalp tingling as my horns burst out through my hair. My teeth grew even sharper in my mouth, and I fought my wings coming forth. There really wasn’t space for that down here. I heard my brothers muttering vaguely calming things, but nobody made any attempt to stop either of us.
He pushed himself up on his forearms, turned on his side, then sat up on his knees. He was out of shape and had enjoyed his bureaucratic position and good food for far too many years. “Please,” he raised his hands. His begging fueled my rage an unreasonable amount. “Please!”
“ Please ? You dare beg for mercy? After you touched her in such a way just now? After all you’ve done? There’s none of that here .” He focused on my eyes and reared back, clearly afraid of what he saw in the glowing red there. I flicked my wrist, sending my smallest blade into the man’s meaty midsection.
“Seir.” Hailon stepped between us as he howled, and I bowed to her authority, forcing my rage to stand down if only for a moment. She turned to the councilman. “What you did to me? That’s not where you started being a terrible person. You all were far too comfortable with what you were doing for that to be true. There’s a full complement of witnesses here. Perhaps you should confess your misdeeds so you can truly be held accountable.”
My chest puffed proudly. I’d never been more in love with her. “You heard the lady.” I gripped his collar, pulling him roughly to his feet only to fling him down into the straight-backed chair inside the cell. I yanked out my blade, and Hailon retrieved hers, not a single effort made to ease the pain or flow of blood.
This man wasn’t likely to survive the night, and he was going to suffer the entire time as he made his way out. I could see Rylan’s electricity around his hands, Calla’s green earth magic when she exhaled. Vassago’s teeth looked quite a lot like mine, and Magnus looked all too pleased to be a part of the goings-on, as did his daughters. Greta stood off to the side, frowning at the man as though thoroughly disappointed in him.
He would atone for grabbing at Hailon like that, for sitting by while she was abused, after ordering it done. This was her opportunity to make him pay, to make at least one of them die slower, as she’d said she wanted that night. He was going to arm us with everything we could possibly want to know about him, his merry little band of miscreants, and what they hoped to accomplish by taking pieces of my mate to experiment on.
“What do you say we start at the beginning?” Rylan suggested, stepping into the cell with us.
“I don’t have to tell you anything.” The councilman was putting up a good front, being stoic.
“That’s true enough,” my brother nodded.
Hailon pulled the little spell book from her pocket. “I suppose I should thank you for this.”
The councilman made a grab for it, but she held it out of his reach and gave it to Rylan. “So you’re a thief as well as a?—”
My fist flew out, a satisfying crunch under my knuckles as his nose gave way. He groaned, hands flying to the new injury.
“Tsk.” Vassago shook his head. “That’s just foolish.”
“Whose was this?” Hailon asked, holding up the obsidian dagger.
“Go to hell,” he grumbled.
“Do you really believe that to be a threat in a room with three demons?” I asked. “I was there earlier today.”
His eyes snapped up and he glanced between us. I could see the moment he fully understood who he was trapped in a cellar with.
“What were you planning to use a demon for, anyway?” I asked. He only scoffed, but after thinking it over all this time, I thought I’d finally figured it out. I started to laugh. “You thought you were going to summon a demon, and they would just take up the task of making your stolen power potions because you controlled them? Perhaps they’d be in charge of handing the vials out after you sold them and took the profit, all while lending you their magic to accomplish it in the first place?” My brothers also snorted at the idea, but the councilman’s eyes rounded like I’d guessed correctly. “They would have laughed in your face.”
Hailon leaned close, sinking the tip of the obsidian blade into his thigh as he tried to bat her away. “Whose blade was this?”
“Nobody’s,” he snarled. “It came out of the archives, the same as that useless little book.”
“You’re a disgrace,” Magnus growled. “How was it catalogued?”
“I’m not a fool. It wasn’t. The previous owner was unknown.”
Hailon seemed disappointed in that answer but removed the blade and stepped back. She seemed to have gone to that faraway place again. It worried me.
Rylan moved in to continue asking questions, and I pulled Hailon off to the side. “You alright, Moonflower?”
“I feel too calm,” she said. “I’m so angry, but I can’t really muster the energy anymore. He’s nothing. He held so much power over me before, but that’s done, isn’t it?”
I held her face between my hands, looking down into her eyes. “Yes. They won’t let him die without finding out every last detail. We can leave. Right now, if you want.”
She shook her head. “I want to stay. For now.”
We stepped out of the cell, allowing Magnus and Rylan their turn at interrogation. We listened as the councilman began to slowly reveal nearly a century’s worth of plots, schemes, and shady deals.
Greta had been quiet as she watched Magnus and Rylan work in tandem, Vassago a quick third when they needed a hand at encouraging the man to keep talking. But suddenly her hand was shaking as she pointed at him.
“Ask him about my mother.”
“Little niece?” Magnus turned, a frown on his mouth.
“You’re the man in the suit. The one in the woods. She trusted you, and then I never saw her again.”
The councilman grunted as Magnus turned his way, fire in his eyes. “You’ll never find any of them.”
“Any of who?” Hailon asked, interest piqued.
“They were all going against express council orders. I took care of it. All of it. All of them . You shouldn’t even exist .” His words were directed at Greta, but Hailon also seemed bothered. Calla, too, stepped forward.
“You’re the reason our parents are missing,” Calla said coldly, green plumes of smoke billowing around her.
“Someone had to do the hard part. Passing regulations and making rules only goes so far. I told Hugo and Auggie?—”
Magnus roared, his hand around the councilman’s throat. “Rotten to the core, the entire cursed council! You will tell me what you’ve done with my sister!” He started making several demands of Brookes, none of which he could comply with given the meaty fist around his neck.
Hailon stepped away from me, boldly walking right up to the councilman, who sneered at her. “Were you going to try to weaponize my healing power? Or was it another ability you wanted to sell?”
“It doesn’t matter, does it? You were nothing more than a means to an end. A lucky find from a useless town.”
I shook my head at the foolish man. Hailon pulled the obsidian dagger from her belt and approached him. Magnus backed away. Nobody spoke or moved to stop her as she took what she wanted from him.
I recognized the revenge in her strokes. She cut sections of hair, bits of skin, nails. She used the handle to knock out a tooth. When she was finished, she handed the weapon to Imogen.
“I’d like to go now,” she said, walking past me and up the stairs to the main floor.
“Third floor, second on the right.” Calla pressed a key in my hand, and I dashed after Hailon, leaving the rest of them there to deal with the councilman as they wished.