Chapter Twenty-Eight
Dante
Anxiety twists in my stomach as we walk through the wards and up to the building door.
I don’t know why I’m nervous. I’ve lived here for a couple of years now.
I’ve known Sam basically my entire adult life, which means I’ve known Kieran, while not as well, for just about as long.
Ophelia’s parents like me, and my mums are here, and Felix might be a dick about it, but he wouldn’t have rushed down here if he didn’t care.
Lark takes hold of my hand, threading his fingers through mine. “What is it?” he murmurs.
I shake my head. I’m being silly. We’ve been gone, what, two days? Three? It’s hard to remember properly. It feels like it’s been months, somehow.
What if Lark decides the bond between us doesn’t matter now that we’re back? Sure, we have to find the people who are supposed to wear the crowns, but beyond that… He had his own life before. And it’s been three days. God.
He frowns over at me, and I realise in a sudden rush that he might be able to feel all that now. I don’t have time to dwell on it. We reach the door of Kieran and Lucien’s flat, and Quinn doesn’t hesitate to swing it open, walking inside first.
Ophelia’s just behind him. She’s been chatting to him to temper her own nerves, I think. I know she’s mostly okay, but she did get kidnapped and held for a while before we got there. Sure, Oisin didn’t hurt her, but it must have been terrifying.
Her parents are already hugging her by the time we walk through the door. Felix hovers just next to them—out of her mum’s impressive reach, I notice—and he grins when I walk in with Lark. Lark doesn’t drop my hand, and Felix homes in on the touch, that grin turning a little evil.
“Told you that you’d do it,” he says instead of whatever else I’m expecting, and the hug he gives me is unexpected, too. Lark does let go then, if only so I can pat a hand against Felix’s satin-clad back.
My mums are there after, Mamma already crying, but Mum gives me a wary once-over and a kiss to my forehead before she turns her attention to Lark.
Through it all, Oisin stays back, unobtrusive, and when I look around, I see Kieran sitting in his usual chair, Lucien by his side.
He raises his eyebrows and smiles when he sees me looking.
Drew approaches slowly. Mamma is still talking, saying she’s glad that I’m back, asking if I’m injured, if everything is okay… But he walks over to Lark, not me, and his hands twitch as he clearly fights the urge to reach out.
“I’m glad you’re back,” he says. Adam watches from the sofa, eyes narrowed. I know that look, and I know now that it’s unwarranted.
“I am glad to be back,” Lark replies, then pats Drew’s shoulder gently. Drew stares at him, startled. “I always planned for them to return safely.”
Mum relaxes a little at that. Not like Lark can lie, and she seems to know that, too.
“No, you—I didn’t open the café,” Drew says, the words a sudden rush. “I didn’t know if I was supposed to, and then I didn’t want to if you weren’t there. People would miss you, you know? If you hadn’t come back.”
“Oh.” Lark blinks and his glamour flickers, just for a second. “I would miss you, too.”
I don’t think Drew can help himself. He hugs Lark tightly, and Lark huffs and pats his back slightly more awkwardly than I did Felix’s a moment ago. Adam beams from the sofa. No doubt Drew has been fretting about all of us since we left.
“All right,” Kieran says. “Let him go. Don’t want to squeeze the life out of him.”
Drew blinks wet eyes. “Oh, sorry. I should have—Sorry.”
Lark pats his shoulder again. “It is fine,” he says, and Drew ducks his head in a nod before he returns to Adam’s side.
Mamma hugs me again. There’s not a lot of room in here, not with all the people piled in, but then it looks like Kieran’s restricted who can be present, so Ophelia and her parents sit on the sofa, Adam and Drew moving to the floor next to Asher and Quinn, and my mums push me gently into one of the chairs, taking up positions on either side of me.
I look at Lark. I want him over here with me, but he’s sticking next to Oisin who, yeah, looks a lot more uncomfortable than the rest of us.
Kieran waits until everyone’s settled. And even then, he doesn’t turn his attention to Lark. He focuses on Ophelia, then on me. “What happened?”
Ophelia’s dad is a bear of a man and he has his arms wrapped around her. Usually, she’d wriggle out of that kind of grip, and it’s telling that she doesn’t now. “Fae took me when I was coming back. It’s not—Cecile is okay, isn’t she? I was all the way back here. I was almost through the wards.”
Kieran nods. “I know.”
We call Sam first, and he and the rest of them sit silently on the line—after Kieran warns them he doesn’t want to hear a word until the end of it. He knows we’re exhausted. We don’t want to spend all day telling this story.
Ophelia explains everything that happened to her before we got there. Being taken to the cell. Escaping. Running into Oisin—
Kieran looks at him then. “That’s you?”
“Yes.” Oisin seems to be mostly keeping his distance from Drew and Quinn, which, huh, I guess he’s never met a wolf before either. He seems to know there’s something different about Kieran, too. Maybe that’s some more magic I can’t see.
“All right. Go on.”
I pick up when it gets to us coming together, and Ophelia shoots me a grateful smile for it.
Felix is standing next to Mamma, and he reaches over and grabs my shoulder when I talk about the witch, about the announcement, and obviously I skip all of Lark’s and my intimate moments—they’re hardly relevant—but something tells me Kieran picks up on them all the same.
He sighs once I’m done. My voice is hoarse. Drew appears out of nowhere and hands me a glass of water, and I laugh despite myself. “Thanks.”
“So what now?” Kieran asks. “The crowns are there, waiting.”
I look at Lark. I don’t really want to mention the deal I made; at least not yet. Not with all our parents here, Jesus. Mum will never let me hear the end of it, and I’ll be lucky if Mamma doesn’t drag me all the way back to Italy, even if they don’t live there anymore.
“We need to find the crownbearers,” Lark says. “I will begin the search as soon as possible.”
“I or we?” Kieran asks. He stares at Lark unblinkingly, one hand loosely tangled with Lucien’s. “Are you part of this pack or not?”
Lark baulks. “I am not—” He winces and swallows hard. “I did not know.”
“Clearly,” Kieran replies dryly. Then he grins. “If it helps, neither did I. Not until you left. Whatever help you need, we’ll give it. There are enough fae in this pack to help. You really think you’ll find them in this realm?”
“Yeah. One of them has to be from here, I think,” I say. “Well, me and Grant think.”
“You were right about everything else,” Ophelia says.
I shrug, my cheeks growing warm. Mamma rubs my back encouragingly. She loves it when I get a compliment.
“Fine. I’ll talk to Grant when I can.” Sam’s voice is distant over the line. “And about his magic, too. He needs some proper training if he’s going to be doing things like pull through the fucking veil.”
“Proper?” Paxton sounds disbelieving, and Kieran scowls.
“What did I say?”
Sam’s huff is audible. Cassian has been silent the entire time, but he speaks now.
“Where are you even going to begin? And why would the bond to the oak break? That kind of power…”
“Not sure yet,” I say, trying to keep my tone light. “And it did. I asked the tree, and it did it.”
“You asked?” Cassian sounds disbelieving. He for sure knows something is up, but fortunately, he decides not to press. “Fine. If we get any information that can help, I’ll let you know. We’ll be fielding enough fae as it is.”
“Same here,” Kieran mutters. He taps the fingers of his free hand on the arm of his chair.
“Okay. Go. Rest. Come back when you’re ready to get started on this and we’ll see what resources we can use.
I’ll talk to Deacon, and I’m sure Maurice will talk to Njáll.
Whatever you need for this, you’ll get.”
“I—Okay.” I nod. “Thanks.”
Ophelia’s parents are already drawing her to her feet; they seem keen to get her out of here and I wonder if there’ll be an argument about how she should obviously return back home before they go.
I know she won’t. She loves it here, and even now, she shoots me a look that tells me she’s fully prepared for that discussion, too.
“We’ll stay with you,” her mum says, and when Ophelia looks at Kieran, he shrugs. Yeah, it’s been a tough couple of days for him too. Not that he blames them, I’m sure, but Ophelia’s parents can be… a lot.
She looks at me next. Does she want them to stay? For a day, maybe; I can see that. “Take my room for tonight,” I say. “There’s not enough room in the living room. You won’t be comfortable.”
“Thank you,” Ophelia’s mum says. As if suddenly remembering, she comes and gives me a hug, too, almost squeezing the life out of me. “Thank you,” she says a second time, and this time, I hear tears in her voice.
“Don’t worry about it.” Like I’d have done anything else. That moment’s hesitation I felt at the Guardians’ house makes me burn with guilt.
“What, are you gonna stay with me?” Felix asks, waggling his eyebrows. “I’ve been stuck in Quinn and Asher’s living room, so it’s going to be a bit cramped if we’re both squeezing together on that sofa…”
Lark scowls. I press my lips together so I don’t grin because I know Felix is only trying to wind him up.
“No. No, I’m gonna…” I glance up at Mamma, and she pushes my curls back from my forehead.
“We’re at a hotel nearby. We can get another room with space for you, Dantino, no problem.”
“He can stay with me,” Lark says, and Mamma winks at me. “I mean… It is not far away.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m gonna do that.”
“Uh-huh.” Mum’s not having it, but she’s not about to interrogate me here. No, that’ll be— “We’ve got our hotel room for a few more days. We’ll have lunch, then dinner with both of you.”