Chapter 33
Maeve bolted for Reeve, but with the slightest flick of his eyes, she froze. With just a look she understood.
Don’t look so eager, his eyes said.
Students walked around him without a glance. They couldn’t see him. She slowed her pace, and he walked deeper into the busy courtyard, disappearing around the corner.
She followed him.
He stood, arms casually at his side, staring up at a stone statue of King Primus.
This was not the friend of her father, not the man who she had seen wine and dine at her house over the summer.
This was a High Lord, with a wartime stance.
He wore black Senshi Warriors Armor, tight leather and steel with amethyst stamped embellishments.
The finest uniform a warrior could wear.
His tattoos across his neck were still visible, peeking out of the solid silver armor.
Across his back a long broad sword was strapped, another hung from his hip.
His brown hair was pulled halfway up. It rippled slightly off his shoulders in a breeze that drifted by.
“Qu’est-ce qui se passe vraiment?” She asked.
What is really going on?
Reeve glanced down at her, an eyebrow raising.
“Les américains ont décimé le Japon.” he answered in perfect French.
Maeve suspected he spoke many languages.
The Americans decimated Japan, he had said.
“Les immortels? Ou les Magiciens?”
The Immortals? Or the Magicals? She asked.
Reeve’s face tightened slightly. “The humans.”
“What?” Asked Maeve as her mouth fell open. “How many bombs did they drop?”
Reeve rolled his neck, and spoke so quietly Maeve had to strain to here him.
“Just one. So far. Thousands are dead. Not just humans.”
The heat drained from Maeve’s body. One single bomb had disrupted their magic and killed of thousands of people in an instant. That force was as great as their own magic, as powerful as the Supremes that made up their defenses, perhaps even Reeve himself, being “kissed by the Gods” as they said.
“Stop that,” said Reeve softly. “I see your thoughts brewing.”
“Don’t lie to me,” seethed Maeve.
“The situation is under control now,” he replied.
So political.
“What if there are more?”
“I’m sure there are more, but right now they’ve ceased fire.”
“Right now?”
Reeve didn’t answer her. She pressed him further.
“Ou est mon pere,” said Maeve, quietly.
Where is my father?
“Evaluer la situation,” he answered.
Evaluating the situation.
Maeve’s heart was kicking in her chest. “How did you get here? No one can portal-”
“There are other ways to travel, Miss Sinclair.”
Maeve frowned.
“I flew.”
Her lips parted, and her brows pulled together. “You flew?”
Reeve flashed his teeth. “You’ve never seen my full Aterna form. How could I forget?”
Maeve had wondered if the rumors about Reeve’s less than human shapeshifting were true. She brushed it off, understanding now.
“He sent you.”
Reeve nodded once. “It’s too dangerous for him to portal. They’re all being tracked. The Portals and the Fires are being compromised on purpose.”
“By who?”
“Wouldn’t that be nice to know.”
Maeve’s head kicked back. She ran her hands across her face. “Can you take me home to him?”
“No.”
“Why not?” She snapped.
“Because,” he sighed, “your little Magical body can’t handle the duress of the magic it would take.”
Maeve frowned. “You didn’t fly here.”
“No,” said Reeve. “I promise your father is working ceaselessly to get you home.”
“All this time, our eyes were on Germany. But they aren’t even responsible for this.”
“There is no one man or alliance or country responsible for this,” said Reeve. “I have been alive a long time. It takes the coming together of many great minds to do something so disastrous.”
“How did the Orator get here last night if he didn’t use a portal?”
Reeve’s face dropped. He didn’t know. The Orator had traveled here without her father’s knowledge.
Maeve began shaking her head. “This is all fucked, isn't it?”
Reeve was silent a moment.
She was right.
“You look like you haven’t slept at all,” he said.
“You pick that up from your godly wisdom?”
Reeve’s warrior front fell only for a moment when he looked at her like he might smile at her. Truly smile.
But the High Lord returned a blink later.
“Sleep. Eat,” he said. “You need your strength. Now, you’ve lingered by my side for too long. Walk back inside, Maeve,” said Reeve. “Trust no one here except your little Dread Descendant friend Malachite and your own blood. Walk back inside now.”
Maeve’s heart kicked. “What did you just say?”
Reeve glowered at her.
He knew.
How could be possibly know?
She stepped towards him, ready to argue.
He let out a soft growl and his teeth smashed together as he turned fully towards her.
“Inside the Castle. Now.”
The command was so stern, so passionate that her mouth snapped shut. His eyes burned with intense fire, demanding and fierce. A bit of that Immortal power whipped from him, tossing her hair behind her shoulders and buckling her knees slightly.
“I don’t obey you, remember?” She said challengingly. “I am not of the Immortal people. I am not a subject of Aterna.”
“Inside.”
“How do you know about Mal?” She said lowly.
“Sinclair,” he started, his voice laced with threat.
“No,” she shuttered. “How dare you come to me and say such a thing and then demand I walk away.”
“Do not feign as though you aren’t aware.”
“Of course I am aware,” she hissed. “I just don’t know how you are.”
“If I tell you, will you go inside?”
“Maybe.”
Two Magical Militia were making their way into the courtyard through the topiaries.
Reeve watched them with narrowed eyes as she spoke. “It screams from him. His Magic. Dread Magic is engraved in my memory.”
Maeve opened her mouth to speak, but Reeve spoke first.
“Leave me.”
Those Magical Militia were heading towards them.
She huffed and turned on her heel.
“Fucking brat,” he murmured.
Maeve swiveled on her heel. “Excuse me?”
Reeve stepped towards her. The mountains beneath them trembled. The sky darkened, and the temperature turned hot. Flaming hot.
But her blood ran cold. She glanced aside as the trees in the courtyard seems to yearn for escape. Loose fragments on stone rolled beneath their feet.
Her jaw fell slightly open and she looked up at him.
His voice was barely audible as he said, “turn the fuck around and go inside.”
And she obeyed with no argument to stay. She turned and left the courtyard. The sky lightened and the ground beneath her stilled. She looked back over her shoulder. The courtyard was calm and Reeve was nowhere to be seen.
“You’re pacing,” said Mal, not looking up from his book.
Maeve walked back and forth across a flat edge of roots and rock against Mirror Lake, her boots squishing lightly in the muddy earth. They shouldn’t be getting dirty, they cost too much money- her mother’s nagging voice echoed in her mind.
But she paced anyway, pressing her boots carelessly into the mud between the trees with each step.
Mal lowered his book and stared at her. “What’s eating you?”
Maeve continued back and forth, balancing on small roots as she contemplated.
“Reeve,” she said.
She had already told Mal everything Reeve told her.
“His knowledge of you,” she said.
“It only makes sense,” said Mal. “We felt him too.”
She watched as the water rippled as drops of dew fell from the tree canopy above. Mal straightened and set his book aside, frowning.
“Now, what are you thinking?” Asked Maeve.
“Reeve said there were other ways to travel here. He said your father sent him, but I don’t think that’s entirely true. I think he came without permission.”
Maeve had stopped pacing now, as she looked at him with a brave face. Her voice was barely above a whisper as she spoke. “Does that matter?”
“I think it does,” said Mal. “It means no one is trusting anyone else. Your father doesn’t trust Reeve, or vice versa. The Double O doesn’t trust either of them.”
“Reeve was eager to get away from those Magical Militia in the courtyard,” said Maeve. “But the students couldn’t see him.”
“Has Arman talked to you?” He asked.
Maeve shook her head. “I wonder if he even knows what is going on.”
A cold breeze shot across the lake, slamming into her and cutting through her sweater. She gripped her arms tightly and scowled at the wind.
Mal stood and slipped off his own long black coat, closing the gap between them.
“You don’t have to,” said Maeve, though she didn’t really mean it.
She happily inhaled his scent and warmth as he slid the coat around her.
“If it comes to it,” he said, “I just so happen to know a way out of this realm.”
It began to sprinkle as they walked back up to the castle. The Magical Militia that surrounded the castle didn’t glance at them as they passed. They hurried through the courtyard as the rain began to fall harder, rounding the archway into the foyer of the Castle.
Maeve collided hard with something.
She stepped back and apologized to the Magical Militia soldier. She recognized him a moment later.
He was a Pureblood Magical in his late thirties.
He stared down at her with a cold expression. It was almost laced with contempt. He looked over at Mal. And then pushed between them.
She barely heard it, but the soldier muttered, “Blood traitor.”
They whipped around.
“What did you say?” Mal said without hesitation.
The soldier didn’t reply. He didn’t turn back towards them. Mal moved to step towards him, his face darkened in a scowl. Maeve grabbed his wrist quickly and blocked his path.
“Move,” said Mal so quietly she barely heard him. The pulse on his wrist accelerating rapidly.
He pushed against her. She placed her free hand on his chest.
“Look at me,” she said calmly.
Mal peeled his eyes from the soldier’s back and looked down at her. His jaw clenched tightly shut.
“Sometimes in war,” she whispered. “We keep our cards close. Up the sleeve even.”
Mal’s eyes slid down to her.
Mal swallowed. His eyes flicked back up to the soldier, who rounded the corner out of sight. “He shouldn’t have talked to you that way.”
“I imagine worse things are said about me, and will continue to be.”
Mal looked back down at her as she dropped her hands. “Not if they don’t have tongues.”
A smile began to blossom on Maeve’s lips. Mal’s jaw relaxed.
He had called her a blood traitor. Maeve continued to smile at Mal, but her insides twisted. That hadn’t just been an insult to her. It was also directed at Mal, whose Magical blood was considered less than her own.
“Rummy,” said Maeve, placing her cards down on the blanket between her and Abraxas.
“Damn it,” he muttered. “I hate playing this with you.”
Mal smirked slightly from behind his book.
After dinner, the Headmasters announced all students would be sleeping in the Great Hall, and not in their dorms. The hall was lined with sleeping bags and blankets of various court colors.
Maeve let out a forced breath. Mal’s eyes lifted from his book. A card game was not enough of a distraction.
Mal eyed her for a moment, his book still between his hands. “You could jump, you know.”
Maeve looked up at him. “Jump to who?” She asked quietly.
“Your father.”
“Yes,” said Maeve. “I know you’ve been keeping that thought to yourself for days now.”
Mal’s expression was unreadable. Annoyingly so. As it was much of the time she needed to decipher his emotions.
His book dipped into his lap. His long fingers gripping its cover.
“And I know exactly how you get there.”
Maeve ran her hands across her face, the feeling of Kietel’s grip on her throat tightening as she spoke, just like the last time she jumped. “How?”
But it was Abraxas who spoke.
“With Arman being here, your father will have a man named Timothee at his side. Roswyn’s father trains with him weekly.”
“Three jumps?” She said in disbelief. “You want me-” she stopped and sighed.
“The only thing in your way, Maeve, is you.”
Mal spoke with a soft encouragement, no disdain or condemnation in his voice. He said it as though it were simply unemotional facts.
“Like Roswyn is going to let me in his mind,” said Maeve.
“He’s already agreed,” said Abraxas.
She stared at Abraxas for a moment. Annoyed. They had already talked about this behind her back.
She shook her head and looked down at the cards between them. “You don’t know what that felt like last time.”
“No, I don’t,” Mal replied calmly. “But I felt you that night in the Headmaster’s office. I felt the pain and the fear when you returned. I feel the lingering effects of it more every day coming from you. You let something in your mind that night.”
Her eyes whipped to his.
“You opened a door,” he said.
“Yes I did,” she said. “And you know who stepped inside. I know who stepped inside. And you think the best thing to do is take him straight to my father? Who could be in the middle of discussing this war? Discussing their plan? Brilliant idea, the both of you.”