Chapter 4
Winnie cut off what she’d been saying when everyone else spoke at the same time, wincing at the pained expression on Jahla’s face.
After a few moments of them progressively getting louder, using what she liked to refer to as her teacher or mom voice, she shouted, “Enough!”
And what do you know, the voice worked as well on adults as it did children. Winnie smiled when the others shut up and looked at her. “So, we all realize something else is going on that we are not being told. And maybe right now we don’t need to be. However, there are things we do need to know.”
Percy scoffed. “I feel we need to know all of it, considering—”
“Percy,” Fleur admonished. “Let Winnie finish.”
The man rolled his eyes, but kept quiet.
“As I was saying…there are things we do need to know. First, is Ollie safe, specifically, is he safe around Noble? Or should we be grabbing our bats and hog-tying the man?”
“Hog-tying? Really?” Eashaa drawled with disgust.
“I grew up in Texas, so sue me.”
The dark-brown-haired woman blinked, before laughing. “Right, I forgot. Your lack of an accent always throws me off.”
“Do you want me to have one?” Truth be told, Winnie had worked hard at getting rid of her accent years ago, but she could still have one if she wanted to. She, of course, did not.
Hanna cut in before Eashaa had a chance to respond. “We are getting off topic.”
“Right, so…what is the answer, Jay?”
Jahla sighed. “Ollie is safe with Noble. I think the man would rather hurt himself than hurt Ollie, even if I personally do not trust him.”
“Yeah, I’m guessing we probably should ignore that last part, as I’m pretty sure you don’t even fully trust us,” Aurora mused with a smirk.
The woman sputtered at the accusation. “T-that’s not—” She winced and averted her gaze. “—necessarily true…”
Percy laughed. “Wow, that was said with such conviction.”
Yeah, Jahla for sure had trust issues. But who didn’t? Or at least, who didn’t have issues? Winnie sure as shit did. She had changed her whole ass name to distance herself from said issues. At least, the issues who were physically a danger to her.
Winnie cleared her throat. “Right, now for the other two questions I have. Is there a good reason why we shouldn’t know the full truth? And do we have any reason to think that the library is now unsafe?”
“So, yes, there is a good reason, and honestly, knowing may put you in more danger than not. But you aren’t in any direct danger, and the library is about as safe as any other place is around here. For you, at least.”
“What do you mean by ‘for you’? Who is it no longer safe for?” Fleur asked sharply.
Jahla wrinkled her nose. “I mean, I wouldn’t say it isn’t safe for them…just different.”
“Them being who?” Winnie pressed.
“Ollie.”
It did seem to all come back to Ollie…
Percy scoffed. “Let me guess, whatever went on has to do with Ollie. And one of the reasons, or likely the main reason, you can’t tell us the truth is because it involves Ollie in some major way.”
Jahla shrugged. “Pretty much. I’m just going to say now, before you all start blurting things out again. I can’t tell you. The only one who really has the right to is Ollie. And I don’t think he will be willing to tell you, for the same reasons it’s better that you don’t know.
“I can say that it has nothing to do with him not trusting you, and more to do with his own personal safety. The best way I can explain this is to compare it to the secrets we keep to ourselves that are better left unsaid. I'm sure we all have secrets that we’d rather others not know. I know I do.”
Winnie did… Though she was pretty sure it was only Jahla who assumed everyone she met had some deep, dark secret they were hiding. She knew for sure that not everyone did. Some, yes, but not all. But then, Jahla had always been a bit paranoid.
“Then…I guess we can let it go, for now?” Winnie said, after a moment of silence, where likely everyone was thinking over what the woman had just said.
“Fine, we can let it go,” Percy drawled, before adding, with a far too smug smirk, “But I will not be helping convince Elias to do the same.”
Winnie laughed with the others when Jahla groaned, “Fuck.”
Red grimaced at the looks aimed his way.
The problem was that the questions they had were ones he didn’t have any answers to.
There was a spell to transport yourself through smoke, but…
not that easily, and not without there already being fire, and thus smoke, present.
Not to mention, the spell was usually set up between one witch and another through fireplaces.
It didn’t help that after the death of his previous witches, with each new bond created and broken, he’d lost an unidentifiable amount of information that he’d learned alongside those in the past. Red had lost and relearned things countless times, even if he didn’t realize he’d known and forgotten it.
It was very possible that at one time he’d have known the answer, but this was not one of those times.
More than that, he was still reeling over the fact that Ollie had somehow formed a connection, an affinity with both The Endless Death and The Living Flame, which shouldn’t be possible, yet…
Red cleared his throat as the two men continued to stare.
“I felt your grimoire going to you. I was sure it would take you away…but then something felt very wrong. It’s hard to describe completely, but…
your mind, I can feel it the majority of the time, less thoughts and more the flavors of your emotions.
” Though he could read minds when he wanted to, it was probably best that Ollie not know that…
“At that time, I felt something drastically shift and take hold of your mind, and then I looked back and you appeared. Can you tell me what happened, what you felt the moment your book appeared?”
Ollie’s brow pulled. “I—” His witch’s gaze got this distant look to it, even as unshed tears made his eyes glossy. “—my phone was broken—AH, it’s still in that closet, I think.”
“I’ll grab it for you later, Ollie,” Noble murmured.
“Thank you… Um…as I was saying, my phone wouldn’t turn on and I was feeling useless…
helpless…but then I felt this burning anger and hatred inside me.
It was almost like it was…calling to me.
The emotions, that is. They didn’t feel like they were mine, yet they also did.
I don’t know, they felt so strong that they scared me. ”
His heart started to race at the implications of Ollie’s words, as he rasped, “It felt like they were calling to you?”
“Y-yes, does that mean something? I m-mean, I managed to push it back, if that counts for something, but then…my book came…”
Red looked to Noble. When he met the witch hunter’s concerned gaze, he found his eyes full of knowing, yet also confusion, both of which probably showed in his own expression.
Flicking his gaze back to Ollie, he pressed on, “What happened then?”
His witch swallowed hard, wincing slightly as he did. “I-it told me you would die, so I…stopped fighting. Though I guess it would be more accurate to say, when the feelings came rushing back, I welcomed them with open arms.”
Red took a deep breath in, slowly letting it out as he tried to calm his nerves before responding. “I see.”
Ollie huffed, “What does that even mean?”
“It means I need to think about it.”
Which meant the cat probably knew something, but wasn’t ready to tell him. Great, more things being kept from me, Ollie thought with an inner sigh.
“Well, can you please tell me what it means when you do figure it out?” he drawled stiffly, not bothering to hide his irritation, but his sass was likely hampered by how rough his voice sounded and the yawn that forced its way out after his last word.
Red wiggled from his hold, jumping off the bed. “I will. Get some rest.”
He frowned as he watched his cat leave, before looking at Noble, and hesitantly latching onto the edge of his shirt, fearing the man was about to leave him too. “Stay...please,” he softly begged.
Ollie honestly felt safer in the man’s arms, and he wasn’t sure he could fall asleep without him.
Noble smiled and kicked his shoes off before getting on the bed, tugging Ollie back with him and into his arms. “I need to grab some things from my house, but I’ll stay until you fall asleep, and I promise to be here when you wake up.”
As his heavy eyes closed, he nodded, softly rasping, “Thank you,” as he snuggled closer.
Noble took one last look at Ollie before carefully closing the bedroom door and heading down the hall to the spiral staircase.
He found Red sitting on the round ornate kitchen table, staring out the window.
With the chandelier turned off, the dark stone walls, wooden floors, exposed wooden ceiling beams, and weathered green cabinetry were all cast in shadows.
The only source of light was coming from the medium-sized gothic window above the sink, which had a rounded top and was sectioned off below into three panels.
He paused there at the entrance, watching quietly, before asking, “Do you…” Even though he trailed off and didn’t finish the thought, Noble was sure the familiar would know what he was asking.
Red sighed. “The only theory I have, I don’t like.”
“Since it’s probably the same one I have, I can't say there is much to like about it.”
And unfortunately, the only theory he had that made sense to him, was that the entity, The Living Flame, had been present.
“The question is…fucking why?!” Red hissed. “And how?! With Ollie’s affinity to The Endless Death, it shouldn’t be possible!”
Noble frowned. “You didn’t already know?”
“Didn’t know what?!”
His frown deepened when he thought back to what exactly they’d told Jahla and Red about that serial killer incident, and he realized they hadn’t exactly shared all the details.