Chapter 21
Aiden
“Hey, y’all ready?” Zephyr whispered loudly.
Skye gave him an exasperated look. “You’re going to wake them if you keep whispering like that.”
I glanced down the hall to where I knew Wyatt and Rafe were sleeping on the couches in the living room.
It was dead silent and dark as hell, but something told me Rafe would hear a mouse tip-toe, so I chewed my lip nervously.
I turned back to the siblings, deciding that if Rafe heard something and woke up, at least it wouldn’t be my fault.
Zephyr rolled his eyes. “Let’s just get this over with.”
“Hey, so, feel free to tell me to shut up–”
Skye cut me off. “Never.”
I went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “–but, wouldn’t it be really bad if we were found in the middle of a closed-off crime scene?”
“We won’t be found,” Zephyr said a little ominously.
“I know y’all can teleport, but–”
Zephyr cut me off with a sharp laugh, then looked at Skye apologetically before speaking. “I don’t teleport.”
My eyebrows rose. “Oh? So…what the hell was…” I waved my hand around the kitchen, as if that gave any indication as to what the hell I was talking about.
Zephyr smiled, and it was a little scary. “Hopefully we won’t have to use my affinity.”
“Knock it off,” Skye hissed, batting him on the back of his head. Zephyr scoffed in disbelief. Skye grabbed my hand gently, then roughly grabbed the back of Zephyr’s collar. “Let’s go.”
Teleporting was wild.
One moment, we were in the apartment kitchen, the next, we were next door in the neighbor’s kitchen, almost identical to Skye and Zephyr’s. Except…
“Oh, my God.” Skye whispered.
Ohmygod was right. The place had been…trashed.
Kitchen cabinets hung off the hinges, and the trash had been knocked over so garbage littered the floor. I took a single step, and my boot crunched on some broken ceramic plates. The table was broken in half, with unmistakable singe marks across the top.
At least one fire affinate had been here.
“Jesus,” Zephyr whispered. “What the fuck happened in here?”
“They were taken, clearly,” I breathed, carefully moving from the kitchen to the living room, where I was met with a similar scene of disarray. More singe marks lined the hallway walls, burnt family photos curled and blackened in their frames. “And they put up a hell of a fight.”
A bookcase was toppled over in one corner, and books were strewn across the floor, with many loose pages on the couch. It appeared as if a book had sailed into the massive television, busting the screen.
But it was the space where a coffee table should sit that caught my attention.
Namely, how there were globs of what seemed to be melted glass scattered around a large metal plate of some sort.
I moved closer, nearly tripping over my own feet when I realized I was looking at the remnants of a glass and metal coffee table.
Melting something of this magnitude had to be the work of an incredibly powerful fire affinate. I could melt metal if I really tried, but glass?
A cold chill went down my spine, and it wasn’t entirely mine. I whipped around, looking for Skye, immediately knowing it was her.
I didn’t have to look far.
Skye stood, unblinking, near the door to the little boutique shop, an exact match to her and Zephyr’s café door.
There, a dark, dripping liquid had been used to carve out a shape on the wall.
Two crimson triangles, meeting in the middle to form an hourglass.
I was at Skye’s back immediately, pulling her to me so I could hold her. She trembled in my arms and I kissed her temple, which was cold and clammy. Fuck. I was horrible at comforting Skye. As much as Rafe’s suave demeanor pissed me off, I couldn’t deny that he always knew what to say.
“So it was them,” I murmured. Skye’s answering nod was stilted.
“Ah, fuck. What are you doing here?” Zephyr’s voice was like a gunshot in the silence, and Skye flinched in my arms.
I looked over my shoulder, my arms heating in preparation for whoever was here, then sagged in relief. Except this was only going to complicate things.
“Seems we all had the same idea.” Rafe said smoothly. Wyatt was right behind him, his eyes trained on the wall Skye stared at.
“Fuck, that’s the symbol the attackers wore.” Wyatt said.
“Good job, Wyatt. Your deductive reasoning skills are just–” Zephyr held two thumbs up.
A vein pulsed in Wyatt’s temple.
“Hello, darling.” Rafe purred, suddenly very close to us. “How is your night going?”
“Not good,” I replied. Rafe’s dark eyes flashed at me, and he pursed his lips before looking at the symbol on the wall.
“So…obviously the Pilgrims are involved.” Rafe said.
“Once again…” Zephyr said, holding two thumbs up.
I stifled a chuckle.
Rafe went on, ignoring Zephyr. “This might be a good time for me to mention that I saw these neighbors packing their belongings the other day.”
“What?” Zephyr snapped. “When did you see that?”
“When you were making a vase of flowers and scaring the shit out of Wyatt,” Rafe said.
Ah. That made sense. Rafe had been peeking through the windows like an old neighborhood gossip.
“Okay, so…they knew something was going to happen to them?” I said slowly.
“Yes,” Rafe replied with a sigh. “Pilgrims are also kidnapping families, it seems.”
“You think they kidnapped those other family Chains?” Wyatt asked. “The missing have been right where the Pilgrims were camping out.”
“You two have been following this shit?” Zephyr asked.
Rafe let out a long sigh, again ignoring Zephyr.
He put his hands in his pockets as he watched Skye’s face.
“We were discussing it during first term. There were more than just the storm here in the islands. Weather events were happening all over the world, then the continent, and there were reports of missing family Chains following each one. At the time, it appeared the storms were slowly making their way to the academy. But now there’s been another one here, and this family was kidnapped. Why?”
“What were their affinities?” Wyatt asked, looking to the siblings.
“Fuck if I know,” Zephyr replied defensively.
“Skye?” I murmured. “Do you know?”
“Water,” Skye whispered back. “The mom and dad have water. The kid…I don’t think the kid has awakened.”
“I’d bet he has,” Wyatt said.
Rafe nodded. “I agree, and it’s probably not just water.”
“There’s more hidden affinities in this world than we give credit,” Wyatt commented.
Zephyr snorted. “There are.”
Wyatt opened his mouth, probably to say something rude, but then the front door opened, and voices drifted in from outside.
It sounded like fucking Stevens again.
Rafe dove for Wyatt, and Skye spun around, reaching for Zephyr, but it was too late. I felt the warmth of Skye’s affinity holding me still just as Stevens strode into the room, a woman hot on his heels.
“Jason, you know this is serious,” she was saying. “We need to inform the Crown. This many missing Chains is–”
“The Crown doesn’t give a shit, Carol.” Stevens shook his head. “I saw the Prince myself. He only cared about keeping his girlfriend out of trouble.”
“A Key isn’t a girlfriend!” The woman hissed. “You know that.”
“We have no proof she’s actually his Key. Why hasn’t there been a Royal announcement? And besides, the Crown doesn’t give a shit about the islands. That dickhead at the WAA only came right after the massacre as a publicity stunt.”
Carol made a sound of disagreement, but didn’t reply.
The two came to a stop in the middle of the room, and Carol put her hands on her hips as she stared at the wall.
…Through me.
She stared right at the symbol that should’ve been blocked by my head.
Neither one reacted to seeing us.
Rafe and Wyatt were shock still, but Skye turned to look at Zephyr, who hung his head in relief. I realized then that Skye must have been holding them still with her affinity as well, otherwise they definitely would’ve spoken.
“Something is off about that girl,” Stevens said. Skye scowled.
“Good grief,” Carol muttered. “She was scared to death because you’re a hardass. She’s not hiding anything.”
“She definitely is, I just can’t figure out what.” Stevens chewed his lip as he studied the hourglass symbol on the wall.
I felt like I had to be dreaming.
The two agents were staring right through us as if neither one could see us.
They were staring. Right. Through. Us. Skye had to be doing something to their brains, or maybe…
It hit me, then.
Zephyr.
What the fuck was this? Was he also a Telepath? He had to be fucking with their minds. Either that, or…he could go invisible? He could go invisible while making us invisible?
This was…so fucking cool.
I’m going to teleport us out then come back for Rafe and Wyatt, Skye said into my mind suddenly. We don’t know if Rafe can shadow-walk while incorporeal.
A weird giddiness filled my chest.
Incorporeal.
Zephyr could go incorporeal!?
I blinked, and I was back in the siblings’ kitchen with Zephyr at my side. A breath later, and Skye reappeared with one hand on Rafe’s forearm, and the other barely touching Wyatt’s shirt.
“Holy fuck!” I cried, and Zephyr laughed. “Incorporeal?! Not just invisibility?”
“Incorporeal,” Zephyr confirmed. “We could have walked through the wall. Well, maybe. I couldn’t guarantee they wouldn’t hear us. I can’t believe I was able to hide so many of us at once.”
“You’re fucking kidding me,” Rafe said, shaking his head. “Who the fuck are your parents? How do the two of you have such crazy affinities?”
“I could ask you the same,” Zephyr snarked. “What do your parents do again, exactly?”
“My mother was the strongest Telepath on the continent, until Skye came along.” Rafe answered smoothly. “She drives people insane.”
My jaw dropped, because what?
“I thought Telepaths were the ones supposed to go crazy,” Zephyr said, chuckling uneasily.
“Oh, yes, she’s also losing her mind.” Rafe said as if it were no big deal.
Zephyr and Skye shared a look.
“Rafe, don’t be a dick,” Wyatt said. “Her mental health struggles aren’t related to being a Telepath.”
“Agree to disagree, Wy.” Rafe sing-songed. “Anyway…where were we? Ah, yes. A visit to Shafer is in order. Rare affinates are being kidnapped for reasons we don’t yet understand. Zephyr can go incorporeal. Stevens is onto both of you…”
“Stevens isn’t onto shit,” Zephyr snarled. “Just because I had beef with the neighbor doesn’t mean I disappeared them.”
“And that was months ago,” Skye muttered.
“What happened, exactly?” I asked.
Zephyr groaned. “I offered to buy their apartment so we could expand and make more room for Levi. They said no, but the guy was a dick about it.”
“The wife had been talking to me about how she wanted to move, too.” Skye said. “It’s not as big of a deal as Stevens made it sound, but I’m wondering who told him that.”
“I don’t know,” Zephyr said. “We’re friendly with everyone else on the street.”
Skye yawned, and I pulled her to me. “We’re not going to solve this tonight. Let’s actually get to sleep.”
“Good idea,” Zephyr said with his own yawn. He checked his watch, then groaned. “Skye, can you–”
“Good idea, Aiden and I will open the café.” Skye said brightly, and I stifled a chuckle. He’d clearly been about to ask her to feed Levi.
Zephyr only nodded though. “Alright. Sounds good.” He pointed at Rafe and Wyatt. “You fucks better be gone when I get back up.”