Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
Grayson
Patience wasn’t something I had a wealth of past experience with.
Unfortunately, I was now learning it wasn’t one of my strongest assets.
Maybe I was being unfair to myself. We were all on edge, waiting for Thalia’s arrival while simultaneously worried about Verona.
Martin told me earlier today that Thalia was currently in the air—using an airplane, not her wings—and that she was expected within seven hours.
I felt like we were all waiting on the edge of a knife.
I couldn’t imagine the eggs would have anything good to say.
Then again, their song hadn’t been negatively affected when I’d mentioned Alethia’s name, just Huxley’s.
I had no idea what the maturation rate of wyvern eggs were or how cognizant young were when hatched.
Were the creatures within capable of logical thinking?
Was that even what Thalia was looking for?
Complete thoughts and sentences, or was it more of a feeling she needed from them?
How did one communicate with a being that wasn’t even born yet, that had been in a state of stasis or possibly hibernation?
Considering all the ins and outs was making my head ache.
The constant background hum of the core buzzweed didn’t help.
Now that I knew and recognized its song, I couldn’t seem to completely eliminate it.
Martin helped, but it was still there, like a niggling thorn constantly poking my brain.
It was a huge effort to keep my wisp form from it.
So much so that Martin and I’d kind of put any further treasure hunt on hold.
Assuming we were still alive after Thalia’s visit, perhaps my concentration would be better and we could resume the search. Maybe by then, Holland would have a workaround for the core buzzweed and we could finally get rid of the thing.
“You worried?” Henry asked. He’d planted himself on my shoulder and was currently holding onto a lock of my hair, using that chunk to steady himself as I walked through the halls.
Martin was currently in his dryad form, soaking up the sun and nutrients from his birth soil.
I’d stayed with him for a couple of hours, but I couldn’t get my mind to settle.
I’d finally given up and taken to restlessly meandering the never-ending corridors that made up the Magical Usage Council.
The farther I wandered, the stranger the place seemed.
Was there truly any rhyme or reason to its layout?
“Yes and no,” I finally answered.
“Well, that’s a bit noncommittal of ya,” Henry answered with a huff.
I wouldn’t say Henry could always make me grin, but I did find myself smiling a lot around the house dweller. “Can’t argue that. But to clarify, what I mean is that, yes, I’m worried, but I’m trying not to let it consume me. I don’t imagine there’s much I can do to help or hinder.”
Henry scoffed. “You could leave. No one here would blame ya, not even Martin. Least of all, Martin.”
I didn’t need Henry to tell me that. I’d rarely been so sure of anything in my life the way I was about Martin’s feelings. Such surety should have felt foreign. Instead, it felt right—as if that feeling had been inside me all my life, just waiting for a beam of light to illuminate it.
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t considered leaving.
That thought had lasted just about as long as it would take to say the words.
It was there and dismissed just as quickly.
The very thought of leaving Martin made me physically ill.
Will-o’-the-wisps didn’t have a word for those we mated with, and as far as I knew, we didn’t have the equivalent to the bond shifters had.
Maybe anchoring was our version of that special bond.
So few of us had either needed or chosen to anchor ourselves that I doubted my species knew for certain.
At the end of the day, the semantics didn’t much matter.
All I knew was what I felt deep in my core.
Martin was it for me. He was everything I never knew I wanted or needed wrapped into a deliciously handsome package.
Despite what was currently going on around us, I couldn’t help but think I was the luckiest will-o’-the-wisp out there.
Mulling over the question of leaving, it suddenly occurred to me that Henry had also chosen to stay. “You could leave too. I doubt Lazarus would stop you.”
“Not likely.” Henry sniffed, and I couldn’t tell if it was in annoyance or sadness. “This is my home. House dwellers don’t cut and run when things get dicey.”
I thought our current situation was a bit more than dicey but chose not to argue. Turning another corner, a seemingly endless hall stretched out before me, I asked, “Have you traveled every inch of the compound?”
Henry gave what I imagined was a thoughtful pause. “Not sure. I’ve logged a lot of hours roaming around, but I can’t say I’ve stepped foot in every nook and cranny. Maybe I’ve seen it all, and maybe I haven’t. Can’t rightly comment on an area I might not even know exists.”
That sounded fair and I said just as much. “I’d like to see an aerial view of the place or maybe some architectural plans.”
Henry cackled. “Good luck with that one. The only one who knew the entire layout was the asshat that created it, and Huxley’s long gone. May his sleeping soul never rest in peace.” Henry spat the last part of that sentence with a level of vitriol I rarely encountered with him.
Growing quiet, I felt Henry’s subtle weight shift on my shoulder, a slight tug on my hair quickly following suit before he asked, “We just walkin’ to walk?”
Considering I was the one walking and Henry was just hitching a ride, I answered, “My brain’s too busy to rest.”
“Hmm, I know what ya mean. My wanderin’ mind gets my legs movin’ too.”
Another grin lifted my lips. I really would need to turn around soon before I became hopelessly lost. I should have brought my cell phone.
Since I didn’t consider my phone part of my personal treasure, it didn’t travel with me in my wisp form; therefore, I didn’t often have it on me.
Considering I had no intention of allowing my wisp form free rein, I should have tucked it in my pocket.
I had known a will-o’-the-wisp that did consider their smart phone part of their treasure.
The phone traveled with them in wisp form, but that was hell on the electronics and the phone became little more than a paperweight.
“What do ya think Huxley meant to do with all them buzzweeds?” Henry asked, pulling me from my cell phone musings. “Pixie magic.” Henry made a sad, little huff. “I can’t even imagine doin’ somethin’ like that.”
“Thankfully, I doubt many could.” Ogres were known to capture pixies.
For an ogre, pixie dust was an addictive drug.
It gave them a high they wound up chasing all their lives.
Pixies faded during captivity and, if not found and recovered in time, died.
While tragic, one could at least understand that the addicted ogre didn’t intentionally harm the pixie.
It was a disease that led them to perform such a heinous act.
Did that truly make it better? Probably not from the pixie’s point of view. I suppose the difference to me was that it wasn’t maliciously done. What Huxley had done… There was no understanding that.
I focused on Henry’s question. It was something Martin and I’d discussed earlier. “Martin thinks it was a defensive move.”
“How so? I mean, how would it work?”
I started to shake my head but realized that might dislodge Henry. “We’re not really sure. Pixie magic is mostly defensive, so protecting Huxley himself or maybe the Magical Usage Compound seems most likely.”
“Yeah, I get that, but what’s the conduit?”
My heart fluttered, an ache starting in my chest. I knew what Henry was asking. “Could Agent Frost do it?” Frost—or Phlox, as he was also known as—was a half nature pixie, half Pallas’s cat-shifter. “It seems like you’d need a pixie to wield pixie magic.”
“Hmm, don’t know. Doesn’t seem likely as he’s a nature pixie and only half at that. Not sure how specific pixie magic is.”
Martin and I didn’t know either. “Martin seems to think it would need to be a magical being, but not one that has a lot of magic of their own. I think he said something about needing a large receptacle capable of holding the magic without competing with one’s own.
” I shrugged, jostling Henry and earning a few scathing curse words.
I offered a half-ass “sorry,” before adding, “Neither one of us is sure. Martin said Keir will probably contact Frost when this business with the wyvern is done. If Frost doesn’t know, maybe he knows a pixie he can ask. ”
“Ya know, if it weren’t such a clusterfuck, it’d be interestin’ countin’ up all the species Huxley managed to piss off and screw over.”
“That number is expansive.”
“And ever growin’,” Henry lamented.
I couldn’t disagree. “So far, I don’t believe we can add will-o’-the-wisps to that inauspicious group.”
Henry grunted. “Give it time. I’m sure somethin’ will show up. I don’t think Huxley met a species he didn’t see a way to manipulate and suck dry.”
It was an uncharitable yet sadly true sentiment. I was gearing up to agree when the hall vibrated. The ripples were small and barely felt, yet there all the same. I stood stock-still, arms stretched out and feet planted a little wider. “Did you feel that?” I asked Henry.
“Sure as fuck did.”
“Earthquake?” Did Minnesota have earthquakes? I wasn’t certain.
“Not likely.”
The ground rippled again, the vibration soft and barely noticeable, but there all the same.
“What’s going on? I—” My hand flew to my chest, fisting my shirt as Martin’s piece of magic flared with alarm.
“Something’s happening. Martin’s upset.” He wasn’t just upset.
Martin was scared. “I need to get to him.”
I twirled and ran back down the hall. My mind raced as I tried remembering all the twists and turns I’d taken.
Why the fuck hadn’t I brought my phone? If I had my phone, I could call Martin and find out what was going on.
I nearly slammed into a wall, two choices available as one hall led off to the right and another to the left.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. “Which way?” I was starting to panic.
The floor vibrated again and Martin’s fear escalated.
“Calm down,” Henry ordered. “I don’t know how, but since you anchored with Martin, you’ve always been able to find him before. You just gotta do it again.”
Henry was right. With a herculean effort, I forced my racing heart to calm and focused on the bit of Martin’s magic I carried with me. The effect was immediate and I took off running again, left this time.
“I’ve got him,” I told Henry.
“Good. Now, put those giant-sized legs to use and get us there.”
I didn’t have the heart or time to tell Henry that by nearly every other standard, I was far from giant-sized. Size was relative, and in Henry’s perspective, I might as well have been ogre sized.
This time, the shaking floor nearly sent me to my knees. Small pieces of rock and plaster fell from the walls and ceiling, kicking up clouds of dust.
“Dammit! Look at this mess. It’ll take me years to clean all this shit up,” Henry lamented. “I don’t know what’s doin’ this, but when I find ’em, I’m gonna give ’em a taste of my claws.”
I had no doubt Henry would do just that.
I only hoped he didn’t get himself killed in the process.
As another jolt of fear lanced through Martin’s bit of magic, I growled, “I’ll hold them down for you.
” My mind spun, my chest ached, and my heart hammered with fear.
Whatever was threatening Martin was about to have a pissed-off will-o’-the-wisp and house dweller on their hands.
Most wouldn’t consider that much of a threat, but I had to think desperation and intent magnified our abilities by at least a hundredfold.