Chapter Twenty-Three Kion
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kion
“You lot have the stamina of slugs!” roars Kion that afternoon, pacing the length of the field where his players grunt and heave in his prescribed ten-dozen push-ups, their stymphs watching in sadistic amusement—especially Cronus.
Each Winged is marked with a Decontagion glyph, and Kion has yet to nullify his own.
He’s hoping it’s enough to ensure he’s not a vector.
He’s already finished his push-ups, but the others? Lagging. Badly.
So maybe it’s irrational—
Okay, yeah. It’s definitely irrational holding practice while cursed, but an indeed irrational part of Kion is convinced that if they train enough, they can break through the dark magic.
Not everybody is so convinced. But it was also Magis Elder’s idea.
The geancánach sits in the stands, watching the team with narrowed violet eyes.
“I require a closer examination of the nature of the curse,” he’d explained, stiffly, to Kion as he’d puffed on his pipe.
“Watching a practice match may allow me to determine whether the curse is of the simplistic Unlucky nature—like a Broken Mirror or a Black Cat Crossing Curse—or perhaps sits upon the regressive-degeneration spectrum of curses, which are considerably more advanced and can only be done by the very powerful. It’s a fine line between the two groups,” he’d added, with an air of intelligent superiority as cloying as Knox’s body-spray.
“Only the most senior, and adept, members of the CCB may note the difference.”
Right. Whatever leads Elder has, he refuses to say. Kion has the feeling that he has absolute jack-shit when it comes to the team’s curse, and is too proud—and prickly—to admit it.
Besides, these past days have been the longest Kion has gone without playing carriwitchet since he was eleven.
Cursed or no, he needs to be in the skies.
It’s visceral, this hunger. Almost bestial.
On the ground, he feels cramped, restrained, held down by his broken mind and the memories that rattle around in it like marbles in a glass jar.
In the air, with Cato, he feels light. Free of the Waywardly Home and the abuse from within its walls.
Free of the belief that he’s worth less than one of the crumpled soda cans behind the bleachers where Elder sits with a handful of DMC agents, who are watching the stymphs warily for any signs of the Sleeping Death.
Edward is also there, because of course he is.
And of course he’s watching Taissa with literal heart-eyes.
This irritates Kion.
“KNOX!” he shouts now as he glimpses the lad flop dramatically onto his back with his arms splayed.
Giving Kion a scathing glare, Knox rolls back onto his stomach, ignoring Adriel’s snickers.
“Look at me like that again, and I’ll have you running lines,” he snaps out, irritation scraping against his throat.
Oh, he’s in a bad fucking mood today. Their return to the Nexitory this morning was anything—literally anything—but pleasant.
For one, there was the raging lecture from Bill and Niamh.
The elf still isn’t over their abrupt departure from the Wily Witch shoot and has since rescheduled the interview portion of the feature to take place today: with a huge pay cut for both Kion and Taissa thanks to their “egregious behavior.”
Egregious behavior?
Egregious indeed.
Imagine if she knew what he did last night.
How, in the dark parking lot, he’d slammed his invisible fist into Frasier’s ugly face and relished the resounding crunch.
It was a stroke of luck that the bastard was outside the Nexitory, probably coming back from a pub, with alcohol on his breath. Saved him the trouble of breaking in.
Which he had been completely prepared to do. He’d spent a full half hour on his phone browsing CrystalBall for the advanced Unlocking glyph óríon had used. Kion’s memory, when it comes to glyphs not related to carriwitchet, is pretty shit. He never paid much attention in school.
Kion tells himself it’s just because Frasier fucked with his player; that as one coach to another, he has every right to punch in his swarmy, smug face. But there’s a part of him that knows it might be more than that.
Still. Sitting down and acting all lovey-dovey with Taissa for an interview is the last thing he wants to do. That’s not all that’s pissing him off today, though.
And maybe part of his bad mood has to do with how for two years he thought the worst of Taissa. Never even questioned it.
Maybe, just maybe, he’s disgusted with himself.
He glances toward Taissa, where she’s huffing next to Mahina, a few strands of curly hair obscuring her eyes as she lowers herself up and down.
At least there’s this: She’s come a long way from where she was just a couple weeks ago.
The extra drills have helped. She’s stronger.
Faster, too, as Kion shouts for his players to run the field, joining them in the loop.
Not the fastest—that goes to Knox and óríon, tied neck and neck—but she’s not the slowest, either. Kion falls into pace with her.
“Newbie,” he greets, watching how her loose curls bounce with her every movement.
“Numpty,” she replies, glancing sideways at him.
Is he overanalyzing it, or is her voice warmer than it usually is when she speaks to him? Not a pitying warmth like he might have expected after telling her about the orphanage, but a wry warmth. Like a I don’t despise you as much as I used to kind of warmth.
Whatever it is, he doesn’t hate it. Not really.
“How’s your fist feeling?” Taissa slyly asks, jerking him out of his bizarre musings.
Didn’t even need a Panacea. He doesn’t say that, though.
Instead, he glances at James, running up ahead.
“I meant to tell you earlier.” Before he’d been so blinded by rage that he’d stalked out of her house at two a.m. to punch a bloke in his face.
“Ridgeshaw saw someone messing around in your room while we were gone. I want you putting a Protection glyph up first thing today. Level Three, if you know it.” He bets she does.
“Who was in my room?” Taissa’s eyes narrow.
“He didn’t see. Magis Elder is looking into it.
” Apparently. Kion hasn’t been updated as to what this “looking into it” has unveiled.
Probably nothing. Between the curse, the sickness, and Taissa’s intruder, he’s feeling fucking restless.
“Do a Protection glyph. Don’t forget.” Truth be told, he doesn’t want her staying in those rooms at all.
But it’s not like they have any spares. A Protection glyph should suffice.
“Protection glyph. Yes.” Taissa nods, looking momentarily troubled, before giving him a wry grin. But the worry doesn’t fade from her eyes, even as she croons, “Thanks, pookie.”
Kion glances toward Elder and the DMC agents.
With the continued presence of the shrewd-eyed magis around the Nexitory, Niamh and Bill have been urging Taissa and Kion to act like—in Niamh’s words—the madly-in-love couple the club’s finances need them to be.
He’s an investigator, after all, and the publicist is a little too worried that, for some reason, instead of investigating the curse, Elder will investigate their fake relationship, and then unveil it very dramatically to the press.
Personally, Kion doesn’t think that Rowan Elder gives a flying toad’s arse whether or not he and Taissa choose to snog in their free time.
For some reason, that doesn’t stop him from saying, “You’re welcome, sweetheart.”
Does she blush? It’s probably just the exertion from running, but the sight of her flushed cheeks suddenly makes it hard to think straight.
Before he can stop himself, Kion claps her on the shoulder—why the fuck does he have the undeniable urge to touch her, all of a sudden?—before quickening his pace and catching up with James.
“Mate,” he greets, trying to think past the strange fog in his head.
James’s answering smile is tight. He’s breathing harder than Kion would have expected.
Wheezing a bit, actually. One of his hands is splayed against his side.
It seems like he would speak, if he weren’t so winded.
Kion frowns, placing a hand on James’s arm and slowing to a jog, pulling him back.
Taissa passes them, and James watches her go with an indiscernible expression.
Next to Knox and óríon—who run the fastest because the bizarre feud between them drives them to race—James is his best runner.
Long and lanky, James usually has the best form, and great times.
“What’s going on with you?” Kion asks, scrutinizing him.
The lines on his face are more pronounced, and in the sun, there are a few gray strands of his hair that catch his eyes.
Stress, maybe? There’s not a single person on this team who’s at their best right now.
Or is he ill again? Sudden concern pinches his chest. James takes that lacker medication for the elf-shot Fading Fever daily, ensuring it remains dormant or at bay, but what if the immunosuppressant stopped working?
“If you need to take a break,” Kion adds carefully, “take it, yeah? Catch your breath. Sit for a few moments. Drink some water.” His friend bristles, shoulders stiffening.
After what James Ridgeshaw III did to him out of disgust toward his illness, James Ridgeshaw IV’s attitude toward being ill is defensive at best.
“I’m not feeling poorly, Kion,” James says flatly. “I’m simply tired. I stayed up too late. At Rules, you see.”
Kion’s brows lift at mention of their favored club. He hasn’t known James to go without him, and feels a pinch of guilt for not ringing James about Banallan sooner. “Yeah?”
His friend shrugs, still breathing hard, but leans back into a jog. Kion easily falls in place beside him. “You know how I get…”