Chapter 18 #2
Without their very genuine fear of what Faris was capable of, there would be fights over territory. Endless power struggles, in which the weak and the vulnerable would inevitably become collateral damage.
The rest of us would fight to prevent that from happening, but without Faris’s reputation to shield us? The battles would never end, and he knew that as well as we did.
With a sigh that seemed to shake the very floor beneath our feet, he picked up the glass in front of him, eyed it in resignation, and then drained every last drop before setting it back down with a gentle clink.
“These walls,” he rumbled quietly. “I know they’re only bricks and boards.
But they’re more than that to me. I’ve lost sleep and cried tears and dripped sweat over every inch of this place.
My blood is in the earth beneath this foundation, and I know every grain of dirt, every bit of gravel, every tiny hairline crack.
I know how it shifts, how it groans, and how it weathers every storm.
It’s a part of me, or I’m a part of it, and I couldn’t walk away, even if I wanted to. ”
He couldn’t seem to look any of us in the eye, but he was staring so fiercely at the table in front of him, I half expected it to burst into flames.
“And it's the same with all of you.”
Then he glared around at the lot of us. “So you can stop looking like we’re all at a funeral. Give a man a chance to be maudlin for half a second before you decide he’s lost his mind.”
The room went silent for a count of five before we all dissolved into relieved laughter.
Kira put her face on Faris’s shoulder and hugged him while she cried.
Seamus walked back behind his bar, shaking his head, a tiny grin tugging at his lips, while the rest of us turned to survey the damage. Wondering how much could be saved.
“This,” Callum murmured from beside me. “This is what I want for the shapeshifters. The feeling that we have one another’s backs. That it’s not clan against clan, but a system of mutual support.”
“And they’ll see it eventually,” I told him, leaning against his shoulder, almost as if to remind myself that he was still there. Still standing. Still fighting for this future we both wanted. “Even if they have to pout a little first.”
He squeezed my hand. “Shall we go figure out what Blake is up to?”
I squeezed back. “You do know the way to a girl’s heart.”
As much as I wanted to stay and help begin the long process of restoring The Portal, Jeremiah and Tabitha needed me.
There were so many here who cared, and many more in the Idrian community who would show up once they knew what had happened.
It might take time, but The Portal would be back in business.
Every board and stone back in place, every trace of fire removed, and every broken beam repaired.
Even the bar—the heart of The Portal, that had been broken nearly in two by the dragon’s attack…
Ethan was standing there now, running his fingers along the splintered edges of the crack, back and forth, just as he had on the headboard in Jeremiah’s room.
For once, his hair was tucked behind his ears, and as I walked over to stand beside him, I could see his expression clearly.
His eyes were unfocused, as if he were gazing at something beyond the reach of normal vision.
“What do you see?” I asked him carefully, wondering whether this level of destruction might trigger a response from his magic.
He remained silent for a few moments—fingers still in motion, eyes still unfocused—before he answered.
“I can see how to make it right.”
My breath caught.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean”—his voice was soft, his vision still turned inward—“I can see how it all fits. All of the tiny pieces that make it what it is. How they go together. Earth, air, fire, water… I see them. They’re just…
different shapes and colors. Hot or cold.
Bigger or smaller. Sometimes they share the same space and make something new.
” He shook his head, as if words truly could not describe it.
And perhaps they couldn’t. My elemental magic saw water as color. Color that changed depending on its form and intensity. With all four elements at his fingertips, who could even begin to guess how Ethan saw the world?
But if he could truly see how it all fit together? Could see how to make it right?
“Ethan, whatever you did yesterday…”
“Yes,” he said simply.
And just like the day before, I wasn’t fast enough to stop him. He was still touching the rough, splintered edge of that yawning crack in the bar, but now his fingers stopped moving and he smiled.
Closed his eyes…
I stood caught between wonder and terror. The last time I saw Ethan with that dreamy, detached expression on his face, five people died.
But this time? It was like pressing a rewind button. Like watching a disaster in reverse—the healing of a wound replayed in time-lapse.
The polished walnut surface of the bar began to glow slightly, like a coal lit from within.
A strange hum hovered at the edges of my hearing, vibrating against my teeth until it grew almost painful.
And then… I was staring at the splintered edges along the break, and watched in disbelief as each jagged spike of wood began to melt and flow.
Molding themselves back into place. The gap between the halves began to shrink, bit by bit, thinning to only a hairsbreadth before the grain suddenly melded together, stretching and curling as if more liquid than solid.
The glow intensified, capturing everyone in the room, holding us hostage to the bizarre and unimaginable miracle playing out in front of us. No one had ever seen magic like this before. It was likely that no one had ever done magic like this before.
Ethan’s eyes were glowing like stars, and showed no signs of fading, so I took a step towards him, unsure whether he would be able to stop—whether his magic was controlling him in the same way it had in the past.
As if sensing my worry, Faris stood up, knocking his chair over in his haste to get closer.
I had no idea what he intended to do, so I couldn’t have stopped him.
Couldn’t have guessed what was about to happen.
He reached out, hand extended towards Ethan, and in the blink of an eye, Ethan turned.
Lashed out and grabbed Faris’s wrist. His eyes flashed brighter, and then Faris let out a hiss of anger or pain. Yanked his hand back…
The entire room froze, in a bizarre tableau that seemed to stop time itself—at least until the glow in Ethan’s eyes suddenly died and everyone took in a breath that finally shattered the tension.
Faris and Ethan stood only an arm’s length apart, staring at one another. Faris’s chest heaved, and his eyes went wide as he stared at his hand.
“What did you do?” he breathed. “How did you…”
Ethan took a step back, and his chin dropped, allowing his hair to fall in front of his eyes once more.
“I didn’t mean to,” he muttered. “You moved too fast. It was all the same magic, and I couldn’t stop.”
Couldn’t stop?
What had he done?
I grabbed Faris’s hand. Looking for wounds. Checking for burns. But all I could see was bloodstains on unblemished skin. “There’s nothing here.”
“He healed it,” Faris said softly.
He’d healed it. Ethan’s magic had mended Faris’s torn and bloody knuckles.
My boss stared at his hand, flexing his fingers as if still not quite able to comprehend what had happened. “How in the hecking heck did you…”
He at least kept his expletives suitable for six-year-old ears, though I could immediately hear my Ari-bug giggling and murmuring “hecking heck” to herself.
“What you just did… It’s impossible.”
“So am I,” Ethan retorted, an unmistakeable challenge in his tone. “So are you, if you ask a human. Fifty years ago, all of this would have been fiction.”
The two of them locked eyes.
“Then call it a miracle,” Faris said in a low voice.
“And never doubt that I’m grateful. But you need to think very carefully about what you want next, and whether you want anyone to know you can do this.
Whether you even want to do it again. Because the moment anyone outside of this room finds out… ”
Trust Faris to be thinking of Ethan’s future instead of how he could use this unexpected gift. And he was right. What Ethan had done—both to the bar and to Faris’s injured hand—was unprecedented. And if the general public understood what was possible?
It would be almost worse than what Ethan had already endured. He would be hounded to the ends of the earth. Locked up and used. Subject to enormous pressure and scrutiny.
But whether this became a gift or a curse depended most of all on Ethan himself. On what he wanted and how he chose to move forward.
And I hoped he understood that what Faris truly offered him now was a choice.
We’d had no choice in what had been done to us. What we’d experienced had been brutal, cruel, and unimaginably painful. But just like I’d discovered that night at the Symposium, Ethan, too, had a choice in who he was going to become.
This power that we’d paid for with so much suffering—even this could have a purpose. Even this could be more than a liability or a curse, or a tragedy waiting to happen.
But it was up to him to see that path and choose to take it.
“You already know,” Ethan said, his stance shifting so that he faced Faris fully. “So what are you going to do? Do you want to lock me up? Use me for your own benefit? Sell me to the highest bidder?”
Faris just snorted. “Thanks, but no thanks. As much fun as ruling a criminal empire might be, I’m too busy babysitting and running a business to add kidnapping or extortion to my plate.”
I saw Seamus and Kira crack smiles, but Ethan remained still and watchful. He didn’t yet know Faris the way I did.
“I’m asking what you want,” Faris clarified. “Because that matters. And you’re a part of this court now, so I’m willing to fight to make sure you get it.”
Logan shuffled forward to stand at Ethan’s elbow. “He means it,” he said earnestly. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. And he’ll protect you if anyone else tries to make you.”
“Don’t believe him.” Shane suddenly appeared a few paces away, looming over my shoulder, golden eyes glittering fiercely.
“My mother was murdered by the fae in her own home, only ten minutes from here. They held me hostage for years and forced her to do what they wanted, and when they were done with her, they killed her—right under Faris Lansgrave’s nose.
And he did nothing about any of it. So don’t let him fool you into thinking he or his precious Shadow Court will protect you. ”
Faris shifted his gaze to Shane. I could tell my boss was tired, heartsore, and completely out of patience. The conflict that had been brewing between these two for months was finally about to come to a head, and I wasn’t sure whether I ought to step between them or grab the kids and run.
“Nothing?” he responded coolly. “Is that what your mother told you?”
“She never had a chance,” Shane retorted.
“If you have any interest in the truth,” Faris growled back, “then come ask me any time. I decided a long time ago never to tell you, because I wanted your memories of Misty to be clear. You’d had enough trauma and tragedy in your life, and there was no reason for you to suffer more.
But if you’re going to keep spreading this idiocy around, it’s going to fracture the very safety your mother gave her life for. ”
Shane went very, very still. “Why would I believe anything you say about her?”
“I don’t care what you believe,” Faris said bluntly. “But she begged me not to intervene. She said that if the fae found out I knew everything—if I made any move to protect her—only death would follow.”
Shane’s fists clenched in anger, but Faris wasn’t finished.
“At first, it was your death she feared. But once you escaped, it was the deaths of everyone else here in the Shadow Court. Elayara was so determined to have Kira, if she knew she’d lost her hold on Misty, she would have done anything—kidnapped, stolen, tortured, or killed.
Done her best to obliterate whatever defenses we threw at her.
And if you don’t believe me, recall what that woman did to her own son.
Your mother knew that. So she said I had to pretend I didn’t know. ”
Shane was visibly shaking with some combination of grief, shock, rage, and helplessness.
“Like I said, you don’t have to believe me,” Faris continued. “But until you understand fully what your mother sacrificed and why, I’m going to ask you to stop trying to tear down what she died to protect.”
For the next few moments, I could see Shane fighting some kind of deep, internal battle. And in the end, he turned and walked away—past the rubble, past the boarded-up entryway, and out into the street.
Kes’s face was pale, but she didn’t look afraid—more as if she were going to cry.
But I knew Shane wouldn’t go far. He might have demons to wrestle with, but he would never leave Kes and the kids. Not after all he’d gone through to protect them.
Ethan still appeared to be lost in thought, but I could tell something had changed.
He’d tucked his hair behind his ears once more and was staring at the bracelet on his wrist, turning it over and then back again.
As if for the first time, he felt free to actually consider what he wanted.
What he hoped for. What his future might hold other than pain and despair.
In spite of everything—in spite of Blake’s best efforts, in spite of dragons and destruction, assassins and poison, prejudice and political games—there was hope here, and for the first time since Callum was attacked, it felt as if my mind cleared.
I could see all the different emotions competing for my attention and choose my own path forward.
If Ethan could choose hope, so could I.
And not only for myself, but for Jeremiah and for Tabitha. For this entire city—human and Idrian alike.
“We should go,” I said quietly to Callum. “I think they can handle things here.”
As much as I hated to leave while The Portal lay shattered and torched and everyone I loved was in turmoil, Jeremiah and Tabitha needed us more. Tairen needed us more. Someone had to get to the bottom of these events, and right now it looked like that someone was me—with Callum’s help.
And with or without his magic, he was the first person I would choose to have at my back.
“Help me find some kids and ruin Blake’s plans?”
He smiled, and for the first time since he’d awakened, that smile looked real. “There is literally nothing I’d rather do.” His hand caught mine and tugged me closer. “But only because it’s with you.”
I turned around and pulled him out onto the sidewalk behind me before anyone else in the room could see me blush.