Chapter 28 Apropos of Familial Relations #2
Azrion gasped, pecking her cheek then continuing to clean up.
“Your mind is a marvel, darling! It’s unfortunate we can’t ask them first, but I think they’d rather be awake in their own bodies than trapped asleep inside some shapeshifted shell.
And fortunately, I know just the demon most skilled at that sort of thing. ”
Kat nodded because she knew who he meant too, and her stomach dropped down to her toes.
At the infirmary there was a lot of excitement, but Kat was trapped within her own mind.
She’d sent Brioni to collect their tattoo artist plus one, and Azrion had gone to the scholar’s hall and collected Fenthorn, but he apparently hadn’t been alone.
While the demon mages explained to Balran what needed to be done, Kat sat out in the hall across from none other than Melora.
The pink demon was even prettier up close.
Stunning really, from her delicate slippers to her form fitting dress to the daggers she stared right into Kat’s soul.
For fear of having it magically sucked away, Kat insisted on studying her wringing hands in her lap, not that she had time for whatever the hells the demon woman wanted their meeting to be because—
“We’re here!” Brioni’s bright but breathless voice charged up the stairs, crown of red curls cresting the landing, and with a flourish she presented a purple demon who could only be the famed Ozirax.
And ascending the stairs beside him was Kalypso.
The sound went all out of the infirmary, and the thumping of Kat’s heart filled in the space.
Terror, relief, anger, joy, it all flooded through her veins so that her hands shook and her throat thickened.
She was standing but didn’t remember getting to her feet, and then she was moving until she snapped back into herself and froze.
There was other movement, demons filing away, and the echo of Azrion’s voice charming Brioni to “leave the two of them be—we could use your help in here.” Even in her stupor, Kat knew that was a gentle lie, but a helpful one nonetheless.
The sick room’s door thudded shut behind the horde of demons and brought the world back into full color.
Kaly looked…well, she looked great. Her bronzy hair was in a neat plait over her shoulder, and her skin glowed like on those rare occasions when they had both enough to eat and a safe place to sleep.
She was outfitted with knives, which maybe shouldn’t have been a surprise, but to wear them so freely must have been a dream come true.
A terrible feeling passed through Kat then, one she was all too familiar with that told her she was small and weak and pathetic.
It came in a voice that belonged to neither of them, and yet it was theirs nonetheless—a voice that had called itself their mother long, long ago.
A voice that Kaly had stolen Kat away from to protect her. Always to protect her.
“I only came because Brioni said you wanted—”
Kat launched herself across the corridor and sprang into Kaly’s arms, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing as tightly as she could.
Nothing Kat could do would physically harm her big sister, but Kaly’s body still hitched under her embrace, and there was a sniffle in her ear as strong arms hugged her back.
It was like being twenty-four and fourteen and four all over again, celebrating after successful heists and huddling away from freezing rain, the good, the bad, the horrific, the wonderful.
Kat muttered apologies and refused to let go as tears ran down her face, and in all her gracious glory, Kaly accepted and apologized in equal measure for the nothing that she’d done.
Time slipped away, but when Kat realized she couldn’t make up for the weeks they’d spent apart, she eased off her sister. There was no letting go, though, just in case she had accidentally said something that would make her turn and leave.
Kaly of course stayed, wiping at Kat’s face and giving her a crooked smile. Then all the love and relief drained away from her features as her mismatched eyes slid across the corridor.
Kat looked over her shoulder to the guards standing vigil at the sick room door. They were much less frightening then, one with a quivering lip and the other trying to find something interesting on the ceiling to ponder. “Um, excuse me,” she said, “but can we have a moment?”
The guards hesitated.
“Fuck off,” Kaly growled, and the two ran into each other before escaping through the door they’d been guarding, leaving the infirmary hall empty save for the sisters.
Kat chuckled, a weary but grateful sort of laugh, then looked sheepishly back at Kaly. “This is the place,” she said gesturing up the hall. “I heard you out here cursing and calling for me when we first arrived. I thought it was a dream, but when I woke up, Rosalind said it was real.”
Kaly grinned and held up her fingers less than an inch apart. “I was this close to killing them all. If not for Oz, I would have ripped a couple heads off at least.”
Kat bit her lip. “I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Yeah, yeah. Me too, I guess.” She rolled her eyes but snickered. “You said I should take this opportunity to start over after all.”
“Well, I owed you some good intel after—”
Her sister held up a hand to stop her. “Kat, it wasn’t your fault.”
“But if I hadn’t insisted we try to knock off that merchant, then we never would have been in that alley. I was too dumb to see it was a setup, and you said—”
“I said a lot of things I didn’t mean when we met in the park.
I shouldn’t have wasted our chance to talk with all that, I was just so thrown off that you wanted to stay here—I thought you were confused, but I get it now.
And setup or not, the only people to blame for kidnapping us are the people who kidnapped us.
” Kaly gripped her shoulders and shook her as if she could force the truth into her bones.
“I couldn’t see then what you were really saying. ”
Kat took a deep breath, and something opened in her chest. “You’re really not mad at me about that?”
“No!” Kaly snorted. “I mean, I was, but I get mad about a lot of things I don’t really mean.”
Kat chuckled. “I might do that too sometimes.”
“And anyway…” Kaly looked up and down the hall, but there were no demons or humans lurking anywhere and all the doors were closed. “This place…” She mumbled, head tipping to the ground.
“What?” Kat dipped her head too.
“I said Heck isn’t…”
“Kaly, I can’t—”
“It’s fine!” Kaly threw her arms out and gestured at…
well, everything. “The city, the demons and…all of it. It is good, like you said. I mean, there’s plenty of stuff I’d change, and more than a few demons could use a fist to the face or a horn up their ass, but you were right.
This was our second chance, and I should have tried to take it from the very beginning. ”
Kat blinked back at her sister, staring hard at the smile that was itching to spread itself across her features. She’d always had a hard time reading people, but never Kaly. “You really are happy?”
Her sister nodded, and there it was, that softness Kat always knew she had in there finally showing itself because their lives had become a little softer too.
“And it’s not just because you’re fucking that purple guy, right?”
Kaly gasped like she’d been slapped. “Katarina, what the hells?”
“Well?”
Her sister’s jaw worked and her brows couldn’t decide exactly where to land, but then she sighed, shoulders slumping. “I really am happy, and it’s not just because I’m fucking Spiky.”
“You have a nickname for him?” Kat put on a disgusted face she didn’t really mean. “You actually are soulbonded, I guess. Ew.”
“Yeah, well, I only do that for people I love, Kitty Kat.” And then Kaly attacked her, grabbing her around the shoulders and rubbing her knuckles into her scalp.
Kat squealed and slapped at her, then playfully dug her fingers into Kaly’s sides, knocking her sister into the wall and making her devolve into a fit of laughter.
“That was so gross!” Brioni announced as the door to the infirmary room opened and she spilled out into the hall followed by the two guards.
Of course there had been magic going on inside the sick room all that time—complicated, fancy magic that was much better left unwritten because words couldn’t capture just how awe inspiring it was. And anyway, the much more important magic had been happening right there between Kat and Kaly.
The two women straightened, Kaly pulling her shirt back in place and Kat fixing her mussed hair.
Kaly reached out and messed it up again before taking a full step away from her and grinning like she’d stolen a saucer of milk.
The author was also happy because she was getting to make actual cat references again since two characters were in a scene who knew what cats were.
Brioni was rubbing her arms as she walked over to the two, tongue out.
“I just watched horns grow, a tail recede, and skin bubble and change color! That might have been worse than watching a demon get ripped apart by veilhounds. But at least they’re back to normal now.
” Then she grinned. “Is everything fixed out here too?”
The sisters glanced at each other. No, it wasn’t fixed, but that was mostly because it had never really been broken. They both nodded anyway.
“Thank you for bringing her, Bri,” Kat said. “I knew I could count on you.”
Brioni turned almost as red as her hair.
“So Elliran’s back in the right body?”