Chapter 15 #2
Caught! Dammit. I might need to review my stealth skills.
Pouting, I pull the door wide and grab the package of cookies—and a container of almonds—then join the three of them at the table.
“How did the calls go?” I ask. Aidan makes a face, and Percy sighs.
“They could have been better,” he admits.
“Everybody’s in agreement that we need to offer sanctuary to the elves and dragons, but there’s a lot of shock about that fact that they exist, that portal travel exists, and that the CCA is not just an irritating cult but is in league with an attempt to take over the world.
Ideally, we’d give the leaders time to process and find a way to slowly and gently share this information with the wider community, but…
” He shrugs. “They’ll just have to process on the go.
We can’t put living beings at further risk because we need time. ”
David nods, but he’s frowning. “I know their numbers are shockingly low when you consider that’s all that remains of entire species, but it’s still not going to be easy to find places for them on such short notice.
I don’t want to traumatize or isolate them by making them spread out, but a sudden influx of population will be noticed by humans in most places…
not to mention we need to find housing for them.
Our priority has to be to keep families together, and I thought we could put out a call for host families for singles and couples.
See if we can get people to volunteer their spare bedrooms and/or vacation homes. That might give us a bit of a cushion.”
“You can have my place,” Aidan offers, leaning over to grab one of my cookies before I can slap his hand away. “I’m staying here with Alistair for now anyway, so that’s four bedrooms going empty.”
“And I’ve got an empty room,” I volunteer through cookie crumbs. “It doesn’t have a bed, but I can order one.” Even if that means Aidan and I have to be quiet during sex.
Percy’s smile is a reward for my sacrifice.
“Thank you both. Let’s have PR come up with a campaign to attract host families while we look into long-term arrangements.
I might be fooling myself, but I think our community will step up to help people displaced from their homes under threat of extinction. ”
“Tish and éibhear are going to find out about this really soon,” I warn, then glance at Percy’s laptop. “If they don’t know already.”
“Then we’ll just have to deal with it. There’s no way to safely keep it secret.”
“Let’s be as vigilant as possible over the next few days,” David adds. “Once there’s a substantial number of elves here, we’ll be in a stronger position to deal with an uprising. Tish has to know that, so if they can, they’ll strike immediately.”
I nod. “Gideon and Garin have already discussed that. They’re making contingency plans. The first priority is keeping civilians safe, and the second is keeping the humans ignorant.”
Aidan steals a handful of my almonds. Is this the future I have to look forward to? A lifetime of guarding my food?
There’s a small commotion in the other room, and we all look in that direction. A moment later, Andrew appears in the doorway, face grim. “Percy, David.”
I bring what’s left of the cookies with me as I follow them out of the kitchen.
Back in the living room, everyone’s standing tensely.
The ruckus seems to be centered on Eerika, the elf historian, although a few people are looking at an intern standing by David’s wall of data.
No—not at the intern (who looks like she’d like to shit her pants and cry), at the picture tacked to the wall beside her head.
I study it. It’s of a stylized design that’s vaguely familiar, and after a second, I realize it’s the official sigil of the lucifer.
It’s not something I’ve seen often—the lucifer is the government, so on the rare occasions he has cause to affix a seal to something, the CSG sigil is the one used.
Most people probably don’t even know this one exists.
It’s been purely symbolic for more years than I’ve been alive.
But this is the design of the seal that we believe Tish and the elves are after.
“What seems to be the problem?” Percy asks calmly, drawing my attention to where he and David are now standing beside Eerika and Noah.
She raises a shaking hand and points to the picture. The intern, face crumpling in terror, ducks away, and Sam hurries over to her. In mere seconds, he ushers her and the other intern into the kitchen and comes back.
“What is that?” Eerika asks.
I don’t know about you, but I have strong feelings that this is not good.
Percy looks at the image, and from the way his face tightens, I know he has the same bad feeling. “That’s the design on the seal éibhear and Tish were trying to steal,” he tells her, then glances over at Caolan. “Did that come up when you were briefing the king?”
He nods. “I did mention it, but he had no insight.”
“Did you show him this image?” Eerika demands, and Caolan blinks at her.
“No. I didn’t have this image. This is the first time I’ve seen it.”
She sucks in a deep breath. “I apologize. I am… shaken.”
“Come and sit,” Noah urges, taking her arm. “I’ll get you some water.”
We wait while Noah settles her and makes her comfortable. I’m not the only one feeling impatient, but she’s genuinely shaking, so we’d all be assholes to not let her have a minute to collect herself.
“Thank you,” she says at last, handing Noah her empty glass and turning to Percy. “I-I have some questions.”
“Ask anything you wish,” he says immediately.
“The seal… what is it made of?”
“I’m not entirely certain,” Percy admits.
“We’ve never had cause to check. The handle and base are wood of some kind, but I know they’ve been replaced at least once due to decay—the most recent instance was around three thousand years ago.
The sigil itself is some kind of metal—brassy in color, but I don’t think it’s brass or gold.
As far as I know, it’s the original sigil used by the first lucifer. ”
She leans forward. “How did the first lucifer come to have it?”
Percy makes a face. “I’m sorry, that’s unclear.
It seems to be more legend than fact. The story is that the magic itself gifted it to him as a symbol of its faith in him.
Although… if I recall correctly, there was also something about the gifting being witnessed by a dragon, so it might be that the story is completely factual and we just didn’t know it.
” He rubs his brow. “This is going to take some getting used to.”
I’ll fucking say. Aidan comes up beside me and takes the last cookie from the package, then slips his free hand into mine. His touch and the highly tense scene playing out before us are the only things that stop me from demanding to know how he can guiltlessly deprive me of food like that.
Eerika closes her eyes briefly. “This seal—it is safe? You have it secure?”
“Yes,” he says immediately. “When Noah told us Tish had promised it to éibhear, we took steps to ensure it wouldn’t be stolen. We don’t know why he wants it, but it seemed the wisest course of action.” He hesitates, watching her. “You know why he wants it, don’t you?”
She nods.
We wait.
She sighs. “When existence began, it was willed out of nothingness by the life force—the magic. The essence of life itself. It willed itself to be and is the consciousness of all existence.”
I close one eye and try to make sense of that. For something to will itself, it must first exist, right? Nothing can’t be something. This is a chicken and egg thing all over again, and Sam and I nearly ended our friendship debating that one time.
The safest thing for me to do is just trust that the existential magic knew what it was doing, however it came about.
“It created dimensions, universes, and worlds. From there, single-cell organisms came about and evolved. The life force guided it all, part of it all. As higher-intelligence species came to be, it found delight in their—our—existence and antics, and often made itself corporeal to take part.”
Someone drops something, someone makes a startled sound, and my knees wobble. Only Aidan’s quick reflexes save me from tumbling to the floor. I look down at his stunned face, then around the room to see similar expressions on the faces of my friends and the other elves.
The magic can make itself corporeal?
It can take physical shape and walk the world?
Fuck. Me. Dead.
“But taking the forms of its children changed the life force. It is impossible to live as a corporeal being and not have the experiences and emotions of one. It found itself forming bonds with others, and when those others entered into conflict, it joined them in a show of friendship.”
“Oh, man,” Noah mutters. “That can’t be good.”
Eerika smiles, but it’s little more than a movement of her lips.
“No, indeed not. It was only when its comrade was wounded and the life force found itself preparing to wreak havoc in response that it realized the implications of its actions. It immediately called an end to the conflict and forced both parties to the negotiating table. The primary debate was of leadership—both were strong leaders in their own right, and both felt they would best serve as overall leader to the elves. The life force heard them out, and in its corporeal form, it wanted most of all to endorse its friend. It recognized then that it could not remain, that in this form, its judgment was swayed by emotional bonds. Its power was limited to what could be contained by its physical body, and while that was still vastly more than any other, it did not allow for the true impartiality of its ethereal form.”
That kind of makes sense. Nobody says a word. We’re all waiting for her to continue and the other shoe to drop.