4. Hospitality 101 #3
“We can’t fight a hundred armies,” I said. “I can’t even fight Sabrina! And Gams knows her storm can’t be crossed. Which is why she told me to find a Lyrian.”
“She didn’t.” Mom called my bluff a second time, but even I was starting to believe the lie at this point.
“Then how do I know about the Lyrians’ secret door between Keldori and Skalterra?” I asked. “And even if it’s dangerous, it can’t be more dangerous than Gams’s storm. Do you really think she’d refuse to suggest one dangerous thing in place of another?”
Mom paled in the orange light of the kitchen fire as she pieced together what I was suggesting. She knew Gams would never ask us to go through a dangerous door. She also knew Gams would never ask us to reach her through her storm and all the armies gathering around it.
Which meant she was figuring out what Gams had actually asked me to tell the others.
Run south. Save ourselves. Leave her to die.
And Mom was just as justifiably selfish as I was. She didn’t want to lose her mother anymore than I wanted to lose my grandma.
“It’s too dangerous, Wren,” she hissed. “And if you fail, I’ll lose both of you.”
“We have to try.” Ciarán spoke from the corner of the kitchen. I wasn’t sure when he’d slunk back into the room, and Mom twisted to face him.
“You are free to try whatever you like, Grimguard,” she snorted. “My daughter stays where she’s safest.”
“If we go, we need the Sovereigns to reseal your mother in the Skal. Orla, Fana, and—” Ciarán tried to argue, but Mom cut him off.
“The Sovereigns?” She laughed. “If you do insist on being dumb enough to come to Keldori, you’ll have me. You don’t need Wren.”
Panic rose in my ulcer-ridden gut.
“Mom—” I tried to stand out of my chair, but an electric twinge in my side kept me seated.
“Don’t.” Mom held a finger to quiet me.
“If you seal the Rift without me, I’ll be stuck on this side.”
“You’ll be safe. That’s what matters.
I shook my head. “I’m going.”
“It’s out of the question. You’re too injured to travel, anyways.”
I clamped my mouth shut, but angry, restrained magick jumped in my fingertips. I’d always listened to my mom. She’d never given me a reason not to. At least, not until recently. Not until I discovered that the closet in my grandmother’s workshop led to an alternate world.
“Then I suppose all we need next is a Lyrian,” Aoife continued. “Might be difficult, considering they’re all hiding in the Lost City.”
“Not the dead Lyrguard’s granddaughter,” Ciarán said. “She left the Lost City with Wren and her friends.”
“The Lyrguard who first called you to Skalterra?” Mom scowled. If Galahad wasn’t already dead, I was sure she’d hunt him down herself for daring to turn her daughter into his Nightmare.
“That was her grandpa. Iseult had nothing to do with that,” I said. “She traveled with us to the Second Sentinel. She might still be there.”
“Ferrin killed her grandfather. If she’s still there, I can’t imagine it’s under friendly circumstances.” Ciarán leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. “But the Lady Quill should be able to help us find where they keep their prisoners in the mountain.”
The floor lurched, and voices called out in surprise in the next room over, but the earth settled as quickly as it had woken up, leaving a dusty silence hanging in the air.
Mom stood over me with her hands braced against the wall, as if prepared to shelter me should the entire building come crashing down.
A strange magnetic pull tugged lightly at my stomach.
It reminded me of my tether to Ciarán’s mind, but instead of linking me to a brooding Grimguard, I felt mass, heat, and tectonic power boiling on the other end.
Pressure and destruction churned behind an invisible wall, pushing on my heart and lungs, threatening to—
“We’re alright, we’re alright! It was just an aftershock from the earthquake!” Aoife’s assurances pulled my attention back to the kitchen and the strange tether evaporated, leaving me sweating and out of breath.
“Ciarán,” Sorcha hissed. Ciarán had grabbed her to keep her upright in the aftershock, and she patted his chest. “Find Lady Fireld and Lady Quill. You leave for the Second Sentinel at sunrise.”
“Fana and Orla both get to go?” I asked.
“They’ll need three Sovereigns to close the Rift,” Sorcha clipped. “So Lady Fireld, Lady Quill, and Eliza will all be needed in Keel Watch Harbor.”
Mom straightened up and adjusted her bathrobe without looking at me. “Speaking of Keel Watch Harbor, Aoife, I can’t protect it while I’m here. Send me back, please, before Ferrin shows up while I’m here.”
“Mom—” I tried to stand, but Ciarán put a hand on my shoulder to keep me in place.
“I’ll see you soon, Wren. You’re safe here. Okay? Aoife?”
Aoife bowed her head, and her braid crown fell loose to swing forward over her shoulder. “You are released from my service, my Lady.”
In the half-moment before my mother collapsed in a pile of dust and used-up Skal, her eyes met mine. She gave me the tiniest shake of her head, a silent warning to obey, or else, and then she was gone.