Chapter 21
Tap
The walk up the stairs to the observatory stretched out as I mentally prepared and then discarded several responses to my brother. I ended up giving the simplest one.
“I suppose it’s Seir’s fault. He’s the one who dragged me to Vincara.
” I had meant it as a joke but saying it like that felt wrong.
It was nobody’s fault I’d met Phin. It was truly the happiest accident that could have ever occurred.
“Just blind luck, honestly. I’d never have gone there if not for him hunting down some seeds and things for Hailon. ”
“Tormund sent word after he first saw you there,” Magnus chuckled. “He sends his thanks, actually. Now that she’s no longer being cloistered in the church, he can be reassigned.”
“He did tell me I could pass along a message. He said he’d see you soon.” Magnus laughed. “How long was he there?”
“Twelve years.”
“He’s very good at his job, then. She only suspected a little bit.”
Magnus grinned proudly.
“It’s a development none of us could have predicted,” Rylan added.
“We only wanted to see you less overworked, perhaps to get out more. You finding your mate is well beyond anyone’s imagining.
She seems like a good match for you, though.
” He glanced over his shoulder at me as we continued to ascend, a smirk on his mouth.
“The Fates sure are having a laugh on our account lately. Falling like stones, the lot of us.”
I made a noncommittal noise in my throat.
“Are you not pleased by the development, brother?” Vassago queried.
“I am. But it is very complicated. Was it simple for either of you?”
They scoffed at the same time, and Magnus boomed with laughter, the sound of it echoing around them in the stairwell.
“That one”—he pointed to Rylan—“was in such self-loathing denial he had to do a spell before he believed it was real, and this one”—he shifted his finger Vassago’s direction—“was convinced he’d accidentally do Greta harm. Terrified and foolish, the pair of them.”
“Let us not forget how your face looked when Grace began aggressively returning your flirty advances, stone man,” Vassago teased.
“Exactly. You nearly fainted right there on the dining room floor over a shirt color,” Rylan chuckled.
“It was even odds she’d kill me for trying to woo her,” Magnus insisted, but he didn’t seem all that put off by the idea.
“Yes, one little human woman could definitely have taken you down,” Vassago teased, eyebrow raised.
“I’d go happily,” Magnus said. “Same as you.”
“Fair enough.”
“How does Phin feel about things?” Rylan asked.
“She … doesn’t.”
Everyone came to an abrupt stop.
“Surely that’s not right.” Vassago pinned me with a look.
I shook my head. “She’s not aware yet. At least not that I know of.”
“And you?” Rylan asked.
“From first sight.”
They muttered sympathetically, and we resumed the climb.
“Is the bond not agitated?” Vassago rubbed at his own chest with the question. “My ribs burned terribly.”
“It’s quite angry most of the time, but there’s nothing to be done about that.”
“I tried just about every remedy,” Rylan commiserated. “Nothing worked. I’m afraid you’re right.”
“It’s not that bad.” The words even tasted like a lie, so I knew they didn’t believe me, but they allowed me to pretend.
“Well, the best to the both of you. Hopefully things work out.” Magnus clapped me on the shoulder.
“Thank you.”
After what seemed like an endless number of stairs, we finally arrived at the observatory tower.
The roof was closed due to the cold weather, but the round marble dome was still a wonder.
A huge telescope was the focus of the room, but Rylan had added piles of cushions and several tables for keeping his massive star charts on.
He walked straight to one as we followed.
“We’re due an eclipse,” he said without preamble, sorting through his stack and setting out several charts, one next to the other. “Just a few short weeks from now.”
“Those happen rather frequently, do they not?” Magnus asked, poking at the massive charts.
“They do, but there’s a pattern to this one.”
“I’m not sure I understand.” Magnus crossed his arms and scanned the charts, clearly confused as to why that might be significant.
“Celestial alignments can act as doorways,” I supplied. “Or amplify existing ones.”
“Yes,” Rylan nodded, pointing to a section that matched up on every chart he’d set out.
“There is an eclipse right around the birth of each of our mates. And”—he flipped pages, revealing another set of charts with the same eclipse denotation—“around the disappearance of every missing person we’re searching for.
” He glanced at me. “Shall I assume Phin’s parents should be included in this? ”
I nodded. “Likely. They never returned after leaving her at the church in Vincara for her safety. I can ask Phin for specificity so it can be added to your charting. As well as for her birth.” I touched the parchment, fascinated as always by my brother’s talent.
“But there are no portals linked specifically to eclipses,” I said.
“None that I know of would just spontaneously awaken because of an event like that. They’d likely have to be manually opened back up. ”
“But?” Vassago prompted as I looked closer at the charts, hearing the hesitation in my voice.
“But there’ve been some odd things happening lately that I need to investigate further.
Decommissioned gates with activity. Coltor mentioned some odd surges in the ruins as well.
We’re monitoring as well as we can, but there’s not much there to look into.
Magnus, can you spare some soldiers? There are many to be evaluated, possibly watched from the other side for a while. ”
His brow furrowed. “I’ll pull as many as I can. Might take a little time to organize, though.”
I nodded. “They can go through Coltor, the doors in the glade. That may keep it a bit more covert if they’re somehow watching the main gates specifically.”
Magnus nodded. “I’ll talk to him once I know how many and when.
” He scratched the stubble on his chin, the rasp loud in the highly acoustic space.
“Brookes was the one responsible for arranging several of the disappearances, we know that for certain. He admitted as much. We suspect he had at least one unknown collaborator, someone who helped him to perform such an impossible task. Hugo and Auggie have already been dealt with. We’ve interrogated and searched what we can, but he was clever and covered his tracks very well.
They all created and exploited weaknesses within the council itself. ”
Magnus’s sister Rowan, Greta’s mother, was one of the missing.
Calla’s parents, who were a powerful witch and a stone kin, were counted among them.
Hailon’s too, a demoness and a warlock. Phin’s likely as well.
We knew for certain that Calla’s parents had been strictly forbidden from marrying by the witch and stone kin councils.
One could assume that Rowan had been similarly dissuaded from falling in love with Ris, who was now King of the Everwood in the fae realm.
Hailon’s parents had left her with her mother’s best friend and gone on the run, much like Phin had been left at the church.
A love affair between a high-ranking angel and an earth-bound demon seemed likely to have caused some trouble. The pattern was too strong to ignore.
“Ramsey has been following a trio of angels for years. They appeared in Vincara around when Seir and I visited, looking for Phin. She warned me that they are as skilled at using portals as hellhounds.”
“If that’s all true, we might be in for a bigger fight than we thought.” Rylan sighed. “And here I was just going to ask if it would be possible to find a suitable place for a poison garden in one of your unused gates. I didn’t think I’d have to be considering battle plans for angelic adversaries.”
“We can do both,” I suggested.
“Both it is.” Rylan grinned, his dark hair swaying forward as he moved to restack his charts.
“I’ll speak with Imogen,” Magnus said. “She’s been working on refining the Dark blades. If we’re dealing with angels, we’ll need more.”
Vassago and Rylan nodded their agreement, and I knew if Seir were there with us, he’d be first in line to take up his blades. I inhaled, finding I was at ease, even with such a threat looming.
I was reminded again of the simple truth I had a tendency to forget once I returned to the busy isolation of the crossroads. There was magic in sharing a burden, and these men, my brothers, never made sharing worry or a duty one of us carried seem like a burden at all.
“—at all! In fact, I’m glad. Since we were able to examine you in the moment, I can adjust the formula to be tailored to your needs.” Greta’s voice echoed down the hall as we returned to the main level from the observatory.
“To the dining room, if you please,” Grace said, catching us at the bottom of the stairs.
We’d had many things to discuss, and I was feeling slightly overwhelmed by all the new information dancing around in my head. My stomach, on the other hand, seemed to have been awakened by the very mention of the room where food was served.
D’Arcan’s dining hall was one of my favorite places in the school. The woodwork was all very intentionally and beautifully done, from the broad rafters to the animals carved onto the pillars. I hadn’t visited often, but this room had always felt like a place I wanted to be.
Phin seemed to think the same as she turned around, eyes wide as she took it all in. She moved from the pillar with an owl to the one with a bear and then to the wolf.
“Get everything you needed?” I asked softly.
She nodded. “So much. More than I intended.” Her eyes widened as she breathed the words, but her smile remained.
“Wonderful.”