25. Visitors
Visitors
“Please stop. Just for one minute.. please.”
“For one minute?” he scoffed.
I felt so much in those three words, anger swirling through bitterness, grief, a longing pain that both separated us and made it impossible to stand next to him and not want to touch him.
I stood next to him on a hill, overlooking a town with warm lights in most of the windows.
I tried to catch hold of his arm, but my hands and fingers went through him.
“Please. Just talk to me for a few seconds––”
“Get the fuck out of here, Leda.”
“I can’t.” I fought the tightening in my magic, my heart. “You know I can’t.”
“You have to. Don’t pretend you don’t understand.” He visibly gritted his teeth. “Why would you even want to be here? What is the matter with you?”
I could feel the instability there.
I knew that instability was likely the only reason I’d gotten through.
Bones’s magic rippled around his black-clad form, sparking erratically where it connected with the flaming black crystal over his head.
Unlike me, he still had his lower primal.
The bone dragon sat on his shoulder, clacking its jaw at me, but it didn’t look or feel angry at me, not like he did.
It looked at me with worry in its eyes, and it clacked at me as if to warn me not to get too close, like it didn’t want me hurt.
“Is it your brother?” he asked. “Is that why you’re here?”
I felt the difficulty of him asking it. He forced out the words, as if each one had nails sticking out of it, and they cut his mouth.
“I’m trying,” he said. “I’m trying to protect him, Leda.”
“Let me get him out of there,” I thought back urgently.
He hesitated at that, then slowly shook his head.
He didn’t speak, though, didn’t explain, and I could only look at him, and try to understand through the shifting expressions on his face. His magic fought to stay away from mine, but even where it touched me, it didn’t tell me anything.
Nothing I could really understand.
“Why?” I asked finally. “Why can’t I at least try to take my brother and Varya out of there? If you won’t go, at least he’d have less leverage over you.”
He turned, staring at me.
His gold eyes glowed strangely in the Aether space.
I could see his face past the mask he wore, probably because I wasn’t truly there, and I could see him past the disguise, but the effect was strange. The mask was still there, visible to me as a shining gold, but I could his face through it.
He looked at me like he couldn’t believe what I’d just said.
Or maybe like what I’d said struck him as unbelievably stupid.
When he continued to stare, I saw others watching him surreptitiously, their expressions visibly confused as they seemed to be trying to determine what had caught his attention.
Four robed Magicals stood at four points around him, forming a strange square, and I could feel the magical barrier crackling around him, protecting him from any hostile magic that might have otherwise reached where he stood.
Guards, I realized.
They were guarding Malefic’s weapon.
He winced, almost like he heard that.
“You can’t stay away forever,” I told him, softer.
He looked away only then.
He stared out over the village below, and I could feel the fury on him, mixed with a lost, futile feeling as he seemed to be thinking about my words.
“You sound just like my father, mongrel,” he said bitterly.
* * *
I couldn’t comprehend what jerked me out until the connection snapped. I opened my eyes, confused at first, nearly light-headed.
Had Bones shoved me out?
It hadn’t felt like that.
He’d been there, right in front of me, his magic pulling on mine, winding into mine, nearly cajoling, nearly lost, as if his aura and primal operated in a completely reality than everything Bones said.
I didn’t know if I should feel relieved by that, or even more worried.
The selfish part of me was relieved, feeling the intensity of that need, but I could feel how dangerous it was, how easily he could tip over the edge.
He’d insulted me, tried anyway, reverting to the old standby of “mongrel.” But somehow his words felt meaningless when his magic felt entirely divorced from it.
Still, he hadn’t just been lashing out, either.
I could feel how badly he was trying to stay away from me, and while I hated it, I couldn’t ignore the desperation I felt around it.
He said he was trying to protect Archie. Was that why he was staying away? Did he make some kind of deal with Malefic to keep Archie safe?
Trying to think about it was exhausting.
I knew some of that was the effort it took for me to stay away from him, too.
I was about to close my eyes, to try reaching him again––
When someone pounded loudly on the door.
That time, I immediately recognized the sound.
I hadn’t really heard it in that other place, but somehow I knew that was the thing that knocked me out. It wasn’t the first time they’d knocked.
Wraith had been dead asleep where she sprawled over my lap, but she jumped when I did, only a lot more dramatically.
She got actual air when she leapt up, all four paws splayed, and she landed the same way, each small foot gripping a different part of one of my legs.
She looked up at me reproachfully and let out an indignant growl.
I rubbed her head and ear, and briefly, she looked mollified.
Then I started to unfold my crossed legs, and she meowed again in displeasure.
She leapt off my lap and stalked over my thigh, aiming her fluffy feet to another spot on the couch. Before she left entirely, she gave me an over-the-shoulder look that could have scorched glass.
I finished unfolding my legs and winced. I rubbed my thighs to try and get the circulation back, bending my knees a few times before I tried to stand. The knocking started up again, louder that time, and I gritted my teeth.
“Coming!” I called out.
They probably couldn’t hear me, I realized belatedly.
The chimaeras on that door and wall were dense.
Still trying to regain the circulation in my legs, I stumble-walked in the door’s direction, holding onto the back of the couch where I could, then the kitchen bar, then a work table, until my legs and feet started working a bit better.
I made it past the bed, still walking a little out of balance, then took off across the open floor between the bed and the door.
My mind hadn’t really grappled with who was out there yet.
Our private study group, as we generally referred to ourselves in public, all had access to the tower’s chimaeras by now, at least the core members.
That meant Luc, Nyx, Jolie, Alaric, and Darragh could enter the door at the base of the tower without my permission, and could get into Bones’s alchemy lab without my being there.
Once inside his lab, they also had access to every room, including all of the storage and supply areas.
None had access to my living area at the top of the tower, not without me, not even Alaric, although I’d been tempted to alter the chimaeras to grant him permission to the upper floor.
I worried he might need a place to hide at some point, given his precarious situation with most of the royals still attending Malcroix.
I was still thinking about that when I unlocked the bolt and swung open the door. It only occurred to me after I’d opened it that I’d already decided my visitor must be Alaric, since no one else would likely come here after I’d told them not to.
It wasn’t Alaric, though.
Luc stood there, looking sheepish, hands stuffed deep in his pockets. With him, flanking either side of his lanky form, were Miranda Rook and Draken Joran.
All three of us just stared at one another for a few seconds.
I found my eyes kept wanting to return to Luc, maybe as the safest option, but I couldn’t stop myself from looking at Miranda when I saw the look on her face as she stared at me. I felt my throat close when I finally met her gaze.
I don’t know why that time, of all others.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen her before.
We didn’t talk, but I’d seen her in classes.
I watched her and Draken surreptitiously sometimes.
I’d even tried smiling at her a few times, but she usually looked away, and often before I could tell if she’d even seen me trying to make an overture.
Maybe it was where I’d just been, with Bones on that hill overlooking another city he was probably attacking right now, on his father’s orders.
Maybe it was because she’d never come to visit me here, or even acknowledged this place at all, likely because of who it belonged to.
Whatever it was, I struggled to control my facial expression, and in the process I glanced at Draken, too. I saw a pained look on his face, and what might have been regret.
My eyes shifted back to Miranda, and she hadn’t looked away.
Worse, her eyes had brightened.
Before I could wipe my own eyes, or control my spasming face, Miranda leapt at me with a loud sob. She wrapped herself tightly around me and squeezed, shocking me with those freakishly strong arms of hers. It almost made me want to laugh, but I couldn’t get out any sound but a sob of my own.
I hadn’t yet managed to take a full breath when Draken enveloped me in a hug from my other side and crushed both of us into his chest.
The three of us stood there, clinging to one another and crying, for I don’t know how long. Even with tears running down my face, all I could feel was relief.
It got awkward again after I’d ushered everyone into my room.
I offered tea and chocolate in a stammering voice, and then they were all sitting around my fireplace on the couch and the two leather chairs as I fussed about in the kitchen, yanking down clean mugs and trying to remember everyone’s drink as I put the kettle on and fumbled with various packets and jars.