Chapter 8 Lit With Wonder
Koa
Twenty minutes later, Cas and Zane were back in the library.
Zane’s “I Pooped Today!” shirt was torn at the neck, and Cas’ braid had lost its band somewhere along the way.
As Zane sprawled beside her, Seri excitedly motioned for Cas to sit on the floor in front of her.
For a moment, I thought he’d refuse, but one resigned sigh later found him folded up cross-legged on Persian wool.
“Koko, can you see if there’s a rubber band in that desk?” she asked with shining eyes and pink cheeks as she gathered Cas’ waist-length hair into her eager hands.
“Rubber bands create friction against the hair shaft, which can damage the cuticle layer and lead to split ends—”
“I have something better,” I ruthlessly cut off Casimir’s panicked rambling.
Slipping a velvet band from my wrist, I shot it at her, and she caught it with a grin, then began finger-combing his long blond locks.
I was and wasn’t surprised he was allowing this. Was because, for someone so unsentimental and practical, he was quite vain about his hair. Wasn’t because he, like Z and I, would put up with much, much worse to make her smile.
As our beloved happily braided away, I turned back to my laptop and found the folder I wanted.
“Remember how we were dancing two nights ago?” I began, watching her face carefully. “It was new moon, and the alarm wards tripped while Zane was crushing your toes?”
“I remember.” She grinned as she tied the end of Cas’ braid with the velvet band. “And he was dancing beautifully, not crushing my toes!”
“It was your stepsisters.”
“Here?” Her wide eyes speared me, and the shock and fear in them were hard to see. “But—”
“Spying. Looking for weaknesses, gathering intel. I found them in the hedge maze and released some spy eyes to track them.”
“Spy eyes?” She tilted her head.
“They’re tiny surveillance devices I created. They look sort of like mechanical ladybugs. Tiny metal bodies, gold-veined clear wings, red eyes hiding cameras.”
“They sound beautiful! Can I see them sometime?”
“Beautiful?” Zane snickered and squirmed closer until his head lay on her lap. “They give mad scientist vibes, darling, not beautiful.”
Using the end of Cas’ long braid, Seri tickled his ear, making him swat at it.
“They are efficient. More than efficient.” Cas scowled as he got to his feet. “And my hair is not a weapon, Seri.”
“Anything can be a weapon,” Zane argued as he flipped onto his stomach and wrapped his arms around her waist, his face buried in her stomach.
“Good. Keep him there, Seri,” Cas muttered. “Muffle his endless lip-flapping.”
“Back on topic, we’ve been monitoring the Harrows since then,” I said. “That’s how we knew they sent the hawk and that the curse is called The Withering Veil.”
“You’ve been watching my— Their house?” Seri’s eyes widened, and I nodded.
“Do you want to see?”
She hesitated, then squirmed out from under Octo-Zane and came around the desk. I pulled her onto my lap, her back against my chest, and Zane and Casimir crowded behind my chair. Taking a deep breath, I clicked on the live-feed of a spy eye currently sitting on Eluned’s shoulder.
The crazy ass bitch was in what looked like a storage room, arranging jars on shelves. My little beauties relayed crystal-clear images, but I needed to figure out a way to improve the sound quality. We could barely hear her muttering even with my volume cranked.
“It’s not fair,” Eluned pouted, holding up a vial of something dark and viscous. “I don’t see why I can’t go. The only good thing is Amabel can’t, either, so there.”
Eluned stuck her tongue out at no one, and Seri’s breathing quickened. I almost stopped the video, but she gripped my wrist, her eyes fixed on the screen.
Then the door swung open and a voice called, “Did you find it yet?”
Arabesque strode into frame, black hair swinging like a curtain of midnight, her pale green eyes cutting through the gloom. Even through my laptop, her presence filled the room like poison gas.
Seri’s fingernails bit into my thigh. She didn’t scream, just exhaled this awful punched-out whimper as she folded inward, arms crossed over her stomach like she’d been shot.
Cas slammed the laptop shut, but it was too late.
Our beloved was already sliding into panic, her pupils blown wide, her skin clammy, her chest heaving with shallow, desperate breaths.
“She’s not here, Seri. You’re safe.” Turning her in my arms, I cradled the back of her head in my palm, her breathing coming in quick gasps against my collarbone.
She was beyond words, trapped in some private hell where Arabesque held all the power over her.
Zane dropped to his knees beside us, his hand on her knee.
“Breathe with me, firefly,” he urged, his voice layered with swan-song and gentle in a way few ever heard. “In and out. In and out.”
Cas appeared with a glass of water, seeming as controlled as ever, but I could see the fury in the tightness around his mouth and eyes. Not at Seri, never at her, but at what had been done to her.
“I’m sorry.” I held her trembling body as Zane coaxed her to breathe. “I’m sorry, baby.”
It took nearly ten minutes to bring her fully back. Ten minutes of soft reassurances, of steady breathing, of three men collectively terrified by how easily she’d been pulled under by just the sight of her tormentor.
When she finally calmed, she buried her face in my neck, her tears hot and thick against my skin.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“No.” The word came from all three of us at once, fierce and immediate, and I tipped her chin up, forcing her to meet my eyes.
“You have nothing to apologize for. This is on me.”
“And me,” Casimir said. “I should have considered how seeing her would affect you.”
“We all should have,” Zane added without his usual smart-assery.
“You couldn’t have known I’d react that way.” To my astonishment, Seri reached up and brushed her thumb across my cheekbone. “I didn’t know myself.”
Her forgiveness burned worse than blame would have. I caught her hand, pressing a kiss to her palm.
“I’ll do better,” I promised her and myself.
A heavy silence settled over us, thick with the ghosts of what we’d seen and what we hadn’t said. Then Zane clapped his hands together.
“Right. New plan for today. We’re not sitting around brooding like Cas on his birthday.”
“I don’t brood.” Casimir arched an eyebrow.
“You absolutely do,” Zane countered. “But the point is, we need something fun.”
“I thought we were going to bathe Brummy?” Seri sat up, wiping her eyes on the backs of her hands until Cas waved them away and cleaned her face himself with a white handkerchief.
“Bathing Brummy is not going to be fun,” I assured her, although Zane tried to argue that point. “What about a walk in the woods? There’s a path we found when we were placing the warded perimeter runestones the other night. It’s peaceful and quiet, and we only saw a small part of it.”
“Walking is mentally and emotionally relaxing,” Casimir nodded, warming to the plan. “Good idea, Ko.”
“With a picnic!” Zane added with a grin. “Food makes everything better!”
“I’d like that.” Seri took the hanky from Cas to blow her nose.
“Then I’ll talk to Mrs. Wentzel about lunch.” I squeezed her hand and stood.
For the first time since the video, she smiled. A small thing, but real and well worth tackling the dragon in the kitchen.
#
At seventy-two, with salt-and-pepper hair pulled into a tight bun and reading glasses perched on her nose, Mrs. Wentzel looked exactly like what she was: A chef who’d come out of retirement after an exchange of favors with the vampire king.
She also occasionally looked like she was regretting that decision.
“A picnic,” she repeated flatly when I explained our plan. “For lunch. Which I’ve already started preparing.”
“Sorry for the last-minute change, but Seri—”
“Had a panic attack,” she finished, her eyes softening. She might be prickly, but she wasn’t heartless. “I could hear her heart thundering from here.”
“The path through the north woods,” I said. “Do you know where it leads?”
“Of course I do. I’ve been at Evermere longer than you boys have been alive. It goes to a garden of native plants. Pretty spot, especially this time of year. Should all be in bloom by now.”
Her description settled something in my chest. A meadow full of wildflowers sounded like exactly what Seri needed. What we all needed, really.
“Will it work for a picnic?” I asked.
“Well enough. Addison!” she called over her shoulder.
Her grandson appeared from the pantry, his thin shoulders hunched, dark eyes wary. At fourteen, Addison Wentzel was a study in contradictions: Eager to please, but quick to retreat, brilliant with food, but hesitant with people.
“Si, abuela?”
“Fetch one of the good blankets from the linen closet. The picnic blanket, not those flimsy throw things.”
As he scurried off, Cas appeared in the doorway.
“If you can carry the picnic things, I’ll get what we need to check the runestones.”
I fought a grimace. Those runestones. Another mistake of mine. I’d forgotten to include vertical parameters in the protection wards, leaving us vulnerable to air attacks. Hence the hawk getting through.
“Good plan.” I kept my voice neutral.
Casimir’s eyes narrowed slightly. He saw right through me, of course.
“Not your fault. Sorry I implied otherwise. I was distraught,” he said quietly. “We all missed it, Ko.”
But that was the thing. They shouldn’t have had to catch my mistakes. As the only half-human among our quartet, I had to do better. Had to make up for not having magic, for being the weakest link. The thought sat cold and heavy in my stomach.
“Did you find out what she wanted?” Casimir asked me as we waited. “Before her first panic attack.”
His hands fisted, and I could all but hear the lightning cracking under his skin.