39 FRANCOIS
The Bevan kitchen smells of woodsmoke, damp clothing, and coffee.
I sit on a mismatched wooden chair that creaks precariously under my weight, my hands resting on a scarred tabletop.
Across from me sits Gareth Bevan.
Taliesin’s father looks aged by pain and worry. His legs obviously barely work, and he drags himself around using a walker with worn gray tennis balls on the feet.
“Explain what the fuck happened to my wife,” he growls, slamming a chipped ceramic coffee pot onto the table.
I understand his priority, but every second we waste sitting in this kitchen is an invitation for the guards to catch up with us.
My mind calculates timelines, road barriers, and search parties. We’re sitting ducks. The Bevan family home is such an obvious place for us to be at.
James, or Jim as he is apparently more known, sits with his hands wrapped around a mug. He’s been filling his friend Gareth in with what he knows. His own kidnap when the Director did a sweep to pick up men to become her serfs.
Basil has passed out asleep on the sofa, and Sky is dozing next to Aurora in the back bedroom.
None of that is important right now.
We have to move from here, as soon as Aurora is stable.
“Mom hadn’t shifted before?” Taliesin asks.
Gareth’s hands white-knuckle around the bar of his walking aide.
He looks toward the dark kitchen window, where the torrential rain is still lashing against the glass.
The storm is howling, pushing cold gusts through the ill-fitting cracked panes.
I raise my hands, casting a small barrier spell to keep out the chill.
Gareth pauses, looks at me, shakes his head slightly then returns his attention to Taliesin.
“No, son. Neither of us have shifted. Not so many Ashgrave folk have found the ability. But now Opal? Where has she gone? Is she alright?”
“I think she became a Caladrius,” I tell him. “A healer bird. They act as a physical sponge, drawing out illness and disease. The bird absorbs illness into its own tissue.” There’s a draft blowing from under the front door as well, so I send another spell in that direction.
This time Gareth doesn’t pay it any attention. He’s concentrating on what I’ve got to say. “Opal took a bullet for that girl. That’s what you’re saying. What does that mean for her?”
I glance outside into the dark sky. “Lore says the creature must take flight instantly, the altitude can burn the rot out of its blood. She should return healthy, her feathers pure white again.”
“Should,” Taliesin sighs. “But we don’t know. We don’t know anything. I take it there is still no internet out here, Dad?”
“Of course not, son. So I’ll have to trust your posh-friend’s word for it all. But I don’t like it. Who is that girl? And these two?” He looks from Taliesin to gesture at London and me.
I keep my face impassive as the older man inspects my face, obviously critical. I’m not surprised, even in borrowed clothes, I don’t look like I belong in a place like this.
“The girl is Aurora Drakeward,” Taliesin tells him. “And, Dad, I love her. These two are London and Francois. We were all in Quo together, but the little girl sleeping next to Rory was taken from Quo by traffickers. We escaped to get her back.”
“Drakeward,” the old man rumbles, focusing on the first piece of information. “The sister of Cosmo, right?”
“Yes. Shit,” Taliesin exclaims. “I forgot, you must know him. You sent him to Quo to get information on the rebels.”
Cosmo Drakeward is an associate of Gareth Bevan?
That I did not see coming.
I turn to Taliesin. “This is not important. It’s not safe here. Not safe for Aurora. We need to leave.” A thought occurs to me. “But if you know Cosmo, Mr. Bevan, then you have a way for us to contact him?”
We need all the outside help we can get, and I feel certain Cosmo would burn down the world for his sister.
Taliesin’s eyes darken with exhaustion and deep cynicism. He wipes a streak of mud from his forehead. “I don’t think so. How do we know we can trust him? I heard Tyrus Drakeward died, isn’t Cosmo his heir? You think he wouldn’t have gotten sucked into the politics and power of the Conclave?”
Before I can reply, Gareth speaks, shocking us all. “He’ll help. He’s honest.”
“What?” Taliesin blinks, completely caught off guard.
“I’ve got to know Cosmo quite well over the last few weeks,” Gareth says, his brown eyes fixed on his son. “He and his friends have stayed with us.”
Unexpected.
Taliesin’s mouth falls open. “What the fuck, Dad?”
“It’s a complicated story, but in essence, Cosmo is the boyfriend of your mother’s daughter,” Gareth says flatly. “A baby she had before I met her and had to give up.”
The look on Taliesin’s face is stunned. My mind is also racing.
Cosmo and Opal Bevan’s daughter?
“What’s her name?” I ask, but Taliesin talks over me. “Mom had another kid? I don’t understand.”
Gareth sighs softly, a hand reaching out to his son. “Opal was raped by a Conclave bastard when she was seventeen. She had the girl in secrecy, and the child was eventually adopted and won a scholarship to Validus Vale Academy, where Cosmo met her. She’s good friends with your cousin Willow.”
My mind stutters.
There is only one person who that can be. “Theodora Wilson.”
I turn to Taliesin. “Theodora Wilson is your sister?” Bordel de merde!
Gods, this is too much to unravel right now. Especially the fact that Theodora is so much more than the rest of us. That it’s because of her, the Conclave fell.
“I don’t know who the fuck that is,” he snaps at me. “Fuck, poor Mom. Who was the bastard who raped her?”
Gareth clutches Taliesin’s hand harder. “Breathe, son. Now is not the time for vengeance, it’s the time to mind your own safety, and those you love.”
For the first time in a while, London chimes in. “Much as I agree, Mr. Burts-dad, your tale is making my teeth grind like a stone in a mill. Can we at least have a name, so I can come up with some fun plans on how to dismember this rapist? I’m thinking eyeballs first.”
“I’d enjoy seeing that,” Gareth gives a dry half-chuckle. “The bastard was called Thomas Crankshawe.”
My father.
Of course.
Violence flares throughout my whole body.
“That man still lives, despite the Conclave's downfall,” Gareth goes on, not noticing the rigidity in mine or Taliesin’s frame, of how my mouth must be hanging open. “One day, I’d be happy to see him ruined, but for now, son, you are my priority.”
Tally and I meet eyes. By mutual agreement, his father is not informed that the rapist he hates is also the man who spawned me.
Theodora is my half-sister.
And she’s also Taliesin’s.
There is no blood between us, but still. We are kin.
And Cosmo is fucking ‘our’ sister.
That is a thought for another time. Action needs to happen. Time is being wasted. “We should call Cosmo. He’ll have the contacts and resources to clear out the Director’s hunting lodge, save the girls, and bring the Grieves island to its knees.”
London immediately nods, his face looking slightly less haunted. “Yes please, Shane. I promised a little pixie in the woods that I’d go back for her but didn’t. I feel sicker than Sidney about it. Keep thinking how to get back there and help. I left her up a tree.”
Up a tree?
I guess I cannot criticize the maniac for his choices. There was not a lot of time for sound logistics during that battle.
Gareth opens a narrow drawer in the kitchen table and pulls out a piece of paper. “All their cell numbers. Aurora, Cosmo and their friends are here. The one called Alexis Feniks has his head on his shoulders.”
Feniks? The Validus Vale professor?
He passes the list to Taliesin, who pushes it in my direction. “You know these people?”
“I do. Students at Validus Vale, apart from Alexis Feniks, who is, or was, teaching there. I’ll call Cosmo. He knows me.”
Layla’s father clears his throat. “Gareth,” he whispers, his eyes worried. “Calling the Elites for help? When has that ever worked in our favor?”
“These kids are different, Jim,” Gareth rumbles. He looks up at me, his face an unyielding mask of stone. “You call him. Right now. You said there are other kids that need help. Kids those Grieves bastards have locked up?”
I nod, taking the paper.
“Do you still have a cell-phone, Dad? We can’t call him from the house line, too easily traceable.”
“What am I thinking? You’re right. The phone is in the hallway desk. Just hope it still has some minutes on it.”
I nod to Taliesin. “Fetch it. Then let’s see if Cosmo Drakeward wants to help us burn that fucked up empire to the ground.”