Chapter Thirty-Two Taissa
Chapter Thirty-Two
Taissa
Kion is a wreck. She’s not seen him all day, not since he hurried James to the infirmary, where a wide-eyed Edward laid James down on a cot and gestured impatiently for the Stymphs to leave.
Kion stayed behind (telling Edward that he’d have to forcibly remove him, and I dare you to bloody try), and has remained there ever since—until Niamh sends them both various emails summoning them to Bill Dodds’s office ASAP.
Taissa ignores the first two emails, instead lounging on Adriel’s couch while Mahina teaches her a good many interesting slang words in BSL and Adriel attempts to do Mahina’s hair in a ridiculous style he’d found on Cauldron (sort of, she thinks, like an updo from a BBC drama, but also somehow like a wobbly beehive).
Really, she suspects that Adriel just wants an excuse to play with Mahina’s hair, to touch her.
It’s obvious that Adriel Pollack knows nothing about styling hair, nor is he interested in it.
And it’s equally obvious that if Mahina Kehele asked him for the moon on a string, he’d march up a ladder and catch it for her.
By the third email, Niamh is practically demanding blood. The fourth email is accompanied by a crackle over the Nexitory’s loudspeaker, and Niamh’s very furious voice demanding their immediate presence.
Feeling rather like she’s being sent to the headmaster’s office, Taissa grimaces and rolls off the couch, much to the disappointment of Mahina, who’s in the middle of a very interesting sentence.
Taissa’s beginning to like the other girl: It’s hard not to be compatible with somebody who knows so many different variations of conveying something as simple as fuck you.
“You’d think she’d just, like, come track you down herself,” Adriel says with amusement, abandoning his efforts of playing hairdresser and using Mahina’s head as an armrest instead.
Mahina reaches up and flicks Adriel’s nose. The intercom crackles again.
“KION LOCKE!” screeches Niamh, who has apparently about had it with the pair of them. She is almost incoherent with fury. “TAISSA CHO! I WILL NOT WAIT FOREVER! I HAVE THINGS! TO! DO!”
She’s inclined to agree with Adriel. Niamh’s beginning to grate on her nerves.
As Taissa trudges into Bill’s office, she sees that Kion’s already there, sitting in one of the chairs before the expansive desk and glaring out the window.
The Springtides elf looks as frantic as ever, tap-tap-tapping away on that awful tablet as Bill scrolls through his phone.
Both look up as Taissa lowers herself into the seat next to Kion, knocking his knee with her own in greeting.
Although Kion’s expression is drawn and weary, he knocks back.
(Is she imagining how the harsh planes of his face soften as he looks at her?)
“Finally,” sighs Niamh, flicking a strand of blonde hair out of her eyes, and mustering a chipper smile although her eyes look intensely and concerningly murderous. Taissa wonders how many migraines she and Kion have given her combined. “I have some updates for all of you.”
“Good ones, I hope,” mutters Bill. The club owner looks like he’s halfway to tearing his white hair out of his skull from stress. Kion seems to be at that point, too.
Taissa isn’t far behind.
How’s James? she wants to ask, but Niamh is already speaking, her voice sparkling with excitement as she pulls up a graph on her tablet and flips it around to show them.
“Since the release of the Wily Witch shoot and interview, positive interest in the NCL Stymphs has increased by nearly twenty-fold, despite Taissa literally breaking a warlock’s fingers.
” She’s practically hopping from foot to foot in excitement.
“Cauldron is abuzz with Kiossa—that’s what they’re calling you—and major news outlets like UKHC Unveiled and Witchfeed have run articles about the original Wily Witch article.
” She swipes her finger, and a screenshot of one of these articles pops up.
The Captain and the Cheater. The press is eating the original headline up.
Kion makes a rumbling sound of displeasure low in his throat.
Taissa pokes the inside of her cheek with her tongue and looks past Niamh to the pitch, where smudged gray clouds roll above the siege towers and the verdant grass ripples in the breeze.
Morgana, what she wouldn’t give to be out there instead.
Soaring through the air, without a care in the world.
Certainly with no worries about the Sleeping Death, the Wild Hunt, her stalker, who on earth hired the púcas in the first place, or the fact that James Ridgeshaw recently keeled over like a tree felled in the forest and turned a disconcerting shade of gray while also looking rather… well, old.
(Sure, she thinks that James is a posh twat with a snotty nose and an ego bigger than a siege tower, but he’s her teammate—and for that reason of comradery alone, she’s worried about him. Besides, she had been rather hoping to get to know Warble.)
“This good PR has brought back some of our investors,” Niamh chirps.
“Smaller ones, of course, like Cruttenbolt’s Calamity Candies and Higgleworth’s Potions, but it’s more than we had a week ago.
” The elf’s strawberry-colored lips perk up in a smile.
“We’re right on our way back up. If you succeed at winning the Wild Hunt, and get these curses knocked off, we’ll be back in business in no time! ”
Bill rubs his chin, sending Taissa and Kion a shrewd look. “Nicely done,” he grunts reluctantly. “It’s better than I expected from this plan.”
“There’s more.” Niamh bounces on her heels. “More opportunities are coming our way—photoshoots and exclusives and even a few interested brands looking for deals…”
Taissa stares at the elf, all flushed and aglow with almost maniacal glee as the Wingeds of the UKHC lie sick and dormant, as James rests in the infirmary below them with no sign of what could be wrong with him.
“No offense, Niamh,” she says, trying to sound pleasant and not like she wants to pummel something, “but I don’t think this takes priority right now.
” She watches as the elf flushes all the way to her hairline.
Niamh is trying to smile, but the little exasperated huffs she’s making make it clear that she’s anything but cheerful about Taissa’s rebuke.
“We need to ride the wave, prepare for the future—”
“We need to train for the Hunt,” Kion says, gravel in his voice. “Look, Niamh, we already did the boudoir shoot. That should keep us tided over for at least another week or two, yeah?”
“No!” Niamh’s lips wobble. She’s on the verge of losing her composure. “These opportunities might close!” She turns to the owner. “Tell them, Bill!”
Dodds sighs, looking as annoyed as Taissa feels. Eyeing down her and Kion, he says: “We’ll compromise, yes? One more op before you go to Ballyford. Of Niamh’s choosing.”
“Bill, I swear on Merlin’s left nu—” grits out Kion.
“I don’t want to hear it.” Bill suddenly looks very weary to Taissa—very weary and very stressed. He stands, makes for the door, and then frowns. “The hells am I doing? This is my office. You three, out. Discuss whatever it is you need to in the hall.”
In the end—after at least thirty whole minutes of arguing with an increasingly irate and pitchy Niamh at the receptionist desk—it’s decided that Taissa and Kion will accept the offer to film a commercial for Cruttenbolt’s Calamity Candies in two days’ time.
Neither of them is overly thrilled about this (although Taissa has no problem eating sweets for cash, it means they have less time to train, which—again—takes priority).
As the lift descends toward the infirmary’s level, Taissa sneaks a concerned glance at Kion.
His hair is rumpled, he’s worrying his lower lip, and he’s clenching and unclenching his fists the way he does when he’s struggling, when he’s lost. She saw him do it as he’d hesitated to rejoin her in her sitting room after his episode, and she sees him doing it now, like he wants something to hold on to but knows not what.
(She knows what.)
(Don’t push the button, Taissa tells herself, but of course that only makes her want to push the button more.)
(And Taissa does what Taissa wants.)
With her index finger, Taissa pushes the little red button at the bottom of the lift’s panel. The lift slowly grinds to a halt between floors, suspended like a fly in a spiderweb.
Kion’s dark eyes meet hers. Puzzlement shines in them, along with a fair bit of annoyance. Clearly he wants to go see James—but look, really, at the state of him. He’ll be no help if all he does is pace back and forth in the infirmary. “Why did you do that?”
His hands are still clenching and unclenching. Taissa takes a small step forward and slips hers into his. His fingers go lax, as if he’s not sure what to do. Taissa stares up at him, memorizing the exact lines of his jaw, the angles of his cheekbones, the strong ridges of his aquiline nose.
“I just wanted to make sure you’re okay,” she says softly, feeling his calloused palms in her own.
“I’m fine.” He doesn’t look at her.
“Don’t be a numpty,” she murmurs, squeezing his hands. “Although I realize that’s like telling the sun not to shine, or the world not to turn on its axis, or like telling Knox Tanaka to please not antagonize óríon Magnússon on account of your blooming headache.”
A muscle in Kion’s jaw pulses, but not in a way that says, Shut your gob. More in a way that looks like maybe, just maybe, he’s trying not to smile. “It just…” he says, leaning his head against the wall of the lift.
Taissa waits.
“It just,” says Kion again, clearly struggling. His throat works, like he can’t decide whether to swallow his words, or to let them spew right out.
“Tell me,” she encourages softly. Kion Locke is not exactly the most verbose man she knows. Especially when it comes to emotions that don’t fall along the spectrum of anger or general grumpiness. “Go on.” Taissa gives his hands another squeeze.