Chapter 11
The more of the house I saw, the clearer it became that it had been built with bagu creature comforts in mind.
The bath was huge, of course, no normal shower there, but there were two sinks for washing, like there had been at the hotel.
There was a sauna in the bathroom, the door standing open, the wood dark with moisture, indicating it had been used not too long ago.
An oval pool took up most of the opposite end of the room, and Kinnek and Fellisse were already in there, while Vergis was about to climb in. Except a totally naked dude—human—had engaged him in a conversation.
“Are you eating?” the human asked, holding Vergis’s gaze. It had to be Charles. I had imagined him as older, but he didn’t look a day over forty, maybe not even that, his lush brown hair glossy and untouched by gray, his face wrinkle free apart from a few laugh lines.
Vergis rolled his eyes. “Yes, Dad, of course I’m eating. Why wouldn’t I be eating?”
“Well, you could use a haircut, unless you’re growing it out. Pardon me for wondering whether you’re taking care of yourself,” Charles said.
Vergis looked at Kinnek. “This is your fault. You didn’t have to tell him anything.”
Kinnek tsked. “Muffin, your daddy loves you very much. I cannot see why you have to be such a human rebel whenever he wants to take care of you.”
“What your father said.” Charles crossed his arms in front of his massive chest.
Vergis’s eyes found mine. He pointed at Charles with his thumb. “This? Your fault.”
“How—” But Inkiri nudged me forward and whisked the towel I’d been clutching away from me, just like he had done with my clothing, though noticeably not my jewelry.
I owned more precious bling now than ever before in my life, and my mate clearly liked me displaying it.
Which still made me feel all naked, even if I could acknowledge that it was a sexy kind of naked.
Not that I thought I was the most impressive person in the room, naked or not, especially seeing as how Lissir and Nokim were just in the process of rinsing off, and then of course there was Inkiri, and he was one nice piece of eye candy.
Charles turned, giving me a full frontal and testing my ability to maintain eye contact in the face of adversity. Years and years of theater had not prepared me for acting cool in a hot bath. Drama teachers needed to change their curriculum.
“Hi,” I mumbled, glad that the heat would excuse any and all blushing.
“Huh. You look a lot livelier than when your mate first brought you in here.” Charles gave an approving look. Damn, but that dude was toned. Which I noticed out of the corners of my eyes.
“I told you he was a tough little twink and that no one needed to worry so much.” Vergis finally lowered himself into the pool.
“Aww, Muffin, you’re making friends.” Kinnek wiggled his fingers against the water’s surface. “Oh, Charlie, that reminds me, he’s grounded.”
“Who? Vergis?” Charles went into the pool too, and Inkiri nudged me forward.
It took everything I had to resist cupping any of my parts, but I remembered all too well how that had ended for me the first time—to wit, with the bagua assuming I was about to masturbate.
I wasn’t going to make them think that again.
“Yes. On account of how the Loathly Lady had to save him from the cola asshats.”
Charles giggled. “That’s what we’re calling them now?”
“No,” Vergis said.
“Yes,” Kinnek said.
“I’m not a Loathly Lady.”
“We’ve been through that, snapdragon. It’s this or magic dispenser.” Kinnek snuggled up next to Charles, who put an arm around him and drew him close to his side.
“Didn’t we settle on magic dispenser?” Vergis sat across from his parents, closer to Fellisse.
Inkiri stepped into the pool ahead of me and helped me down, which was unnecessary but nice.
Like back at the hotel in Aer, there were steps leading into the water as well as a submerged bench running along the side, so the soaking was actually really comfortable.
Even with all of us in there now, there was still room for maybe three more bagua, five or more if all of them were cool with snuggling.
You’d even be able to swim a few strokes from one end of the pool to the other.
I wanted to just sit down as far away as I could from pretty much everyone who wasn’t Inkiri, but then it occurred to me that there might be some kind of etiquette to this, and as per usual, I wasn’t aware of it, so I let Inkiri take charge, which he did easily.
That way, we ended up between Fellisse and Vergis, with me sitting closer to Vergis, between him and Inkiri.
“I’m not a magic dispenser,” I grumbled at Vergis. This wasn’t in fact all that bad, once one was underwater. The pool was fairly deep, after all, and the tile or whatever it was lined with was a light gray; nothing that made me stand out too much compared to the bagua.
Vergis snorted.
“Vergis, if you’re grounded you can go up to the roof and deal with the pigeons,” Charles said.
Vergis narrowed his eyes. “What pigeons?”
“The ones that have been nesting all around the solar panels.”
“You want me to climb up to the roof so I can do pest control for you?”
Charles was another one of those people who did great, unflinching eye contact. I was really glad it wasn’t directed at me. “Well, are you telling me you’re making your father go up there to do it? The front door needs a fresh coat of paint as well.”
Yup, Charles was the best. I mean, Donna was good, and Lissir could handle Vergis, but Charles was like a truck bulldozing over Vergis’s attitude, and I loved it. I might even have giggled.
Vergis turned toward me. “Are you volunteering to come up to the roof and murder pigeons with me?”
“Oh! I’ll do that,” Nokim said as he excitedly lowered himself into the pool.
He sat on Vergis’s other side, making Fellisse move out of the way.
“Rory, Charles knows everything about solar panels. He was an engineer in the military, and his scientific training is so impressive. He explained all about microwaves!”
“Oh, cool.” I looked across the pool at Charles.
With a pang, I realized that the way Kinnek was smoothed against Charles’s side, one horn rubbing over his temple, those two were probably in love.
“How—you survived the apocalypse? What I mean—I mean—that’s…
” My throat closed up, and tears threatened.
I couldn’t really account for them. They were lovers.
They weren’t dead. Thank fuck, just thank fuck.
Vergis groaned. “When those humans got him to start the spell, they did it by making him wish for something, and our tortured twink here wished for all lovers to disappear. Guess who used to be a longtime single.”
Kinnek’s jaw dropped. “Oh, sugar cake, that’s—Muffin, did you explain to the poor thing that whatever he did, it just gave the people using him access to a vast well of sacrificial power?”
Vergis shrugged. “Yeah.”
Kinnek turned to me. “Snapdragon, I warded this place thoroughly. It was and remains quite safe.”
Inkiri clicked. “My mate has been blaming himself for the death of the humans for a long time, Kinnek.” He stroked my arms and flanks as I tried to get my breathing under control. I was here, I was safe, and I didn’t have to run away from the monsters anymore. But Cat and Jacob…
Fellisse growled, and it wasn’t friendly at all. “The next time we meet those humans, I’d like to get the jump on them. They almost… Without Rory there to do magic, Nokim would be dead, and likely Lissir as well.”
“That was the first time I almost died, and when Rory used his magic to heal me,” Nokim informed Charles somewhat sheepishly.
Charles looked at me. “Huh. Lucky Charm.”
“I just…” But I didn’t know what I’d just. My heart was racing in my chest. Why couldn’t I have wished for clear skies back then? Who even wishes for everyone in love to cease to exist? Was something wrong with me for being that mean?
A small voice in my head wondered whether the big purple monsters were after me because I was so rotten, whether they could sense that. It made me shiver, even in the warm water.
Inkiri clicked, drawing me close much like Charles was holding Kinnek close. “Kinnek and Vergis have offered to train Rory. Here.”
Heads tilted all around, apart from Vergis and Kinnek.
Lissir nodded. “That’s a very good idea. For various reasons.”
“Yes,” Inkiri said, maybe a bit too quickly. Kinnek looked at Lissir and tilted his head as well, but said nothing.
“I just…I don’t want anyone to ever be in mortal danger again. Couldn’t we maybe work on that first?” I asked.
Vergis snorted. “I’ll tell you if anyone is about to keel over. Apparently I do that now.”
“Oh?” Lissir’s orange eyes settled on Vergis.
“Ach, Rory told us that the cola assholes were about to take my baby, and so he called on Death to prevent that,” Kinnek said.
“I don’t understand.” Fellisse crossed his arms. “Everyone knows that magic cannot be used to kill, and yet Rory did that. We saw it.”
Kinnek inclined his head. “Correct. But those are the rules for our magic. Aer magic, bagu magic. Rory’s is nothing like that. Well, in a way it is, because the magic goes through him.
“When you start learning to ko, the first steps are relatively easy, and a koa—that’s a mage, Rory—can easily handle the amount of ko that he is naturally able to draw.
Like a metal straw that will only allow so much liquid through in one drag.
Unlike a muscle, that particular aspect of ko is fixed, and ultimately decides the limits of the koa’s practical capabilities. ”
He was talking to me, mostly, so I said, “Like someone’s height? The way only tall people can get stuff from the top shelf?”