But maybe they were. Damn, he should have scanned them with his magic. It could have answered that question at least. Sarn rested his chin on his knees. He was fourteen or fifteen now and so damned tall; he’d bang his head on the ceiling if he stood up. But in many ways, he was still a lost child looking for a home, a family, or just someone to pull him out of trouble. Sarn wiped the back of his hand across his burning eyes.
“Then why were they staring at you?” Miren folded his arms over his chest, unwilling to let the subject drop.
Sarn rolled his eyes. “For the same reason everyone stares at me.” He gestured to his green-glowing eyes.
In a land where magic was illegal, he was a rarity and quite doomed if the wrong person ever saw him. What about the wrong creature? Did he need to worry about that too? Sarn dropped his head into his hands. He didn’t need this right now. He had enough problems.
Miren poked him until Sarn raised his head. “What?”
Miren inclined his head in Shade’s direction and gave their gray-clad benefactor a pointed look. “Why don’t you want you-know-who to know about Thing and his family?”
If Shade had heard Miren’s question, the enigma didn’t show it. But that could’ve meant anything. Shade was so damned secretive. All that rocking and muttering could’ve been a ruse. If it was, that would’ve explained the eyes boring into Sarn. There was just the three of them in here and that pile of glass shards and crystals Shade had brought. The glass pulled Sarn’s gaze back to it and held it. What are you?
The rocks, Sarn recognized. They were all lesser grades of lumir crystals. One touch, and he could make them glow. But who knew what would happen if he even grazed those darkly glittering shards. What were they?
“Sarn?” Miren tapped his arm to get his attention again. “You can tell me why.”
It took Sarn a second to remember what they’d been talking about. When he did, he shook his head. “Not now, you-know-who might be listening.” Sarn squeezed his brother’s hand on his arm. It was so much smaller than his own.
Magic crawled over Sarn’s fingers, giving them a green cast. Danger! it shrieked inside his mind. That was the only warning Sarn got before his magic reared up in a shining green wall between him and Shade, sealing them off from that pile of glass and crystals. But why?
Miren stared at the magic curving around them, encasing them in a sphere of green light and magic. “Why’d your magic do that? Are we in trouble?”
“Maybe.” Sarn pointed to a wickedly sharp shard as long as his finger. If he squinted, he could just see it through the magic surrounding him. “Shade? What are those shards?”
Shade glanced about until Sarn repeated his question. “Dark shards for a dark heart, too dark for you, yes, too dark for you. You are light, so bright…so innocent… so...” Shade trailed off as the gray-robed enigma rocked to and fro lost in thought again.
Shade had been growing more and more unstable over the months since they’d met. But now wasn’t the time to back off, not when his magic was screaming warnings at Sarn. This time, Shade might be mixed up in something bad.
“Shade?”
No answer.
Why is it dangerous? Sarn asked his magic since his friend wasn’t responding anymore.
Danger! it said.
Not helpful. Either his magic was unwilling to explain or unable to. Sarn rubbed his temples to stave off the headache he felt brewing behind his eyes.
“Shade? What does, ‘dark shards for a dark heart,’ mean?” Sarn leaned his head against the wall his magic was scaling in a wave of glowing green ants. Why were they deforming the rocks they crawled over? When he asked, all he got was the same answer.
Danger, said his magic, but it didn’t offer any explanation about that danger.
“Sarn?” Miren pointed at the stones extruding from the wall.
Sarn scowled at it. His magic had gotten out of control again. It had been doing that more often of late, but he didn’t know why.
Do no harm, Sarn reminded his magic. Hopefully, that command would keep it from doing anything harmful on purpose.
“Do something.” Miren glanced at the stone spar shoving in between them.
Sarn didn’t know how he’d conjured it in the first place, and it felt good to be held by something that didn’t want anything from him. But that spar unnerved his brother, so he told it to retract.
His magic grumbled about that, but it complied, and the stones melted back into the wall. Miren scooted over and wrapped his thin arms around Sarn’s waist. Feeling eyes on him again, Sarn glanced hopefully at his friend. Had Shade checked back into reality again?
No, Shade was still staring into the middle distance, rocking along to his or her thoughts. If Shade wasn’t staring at him, then who was?
“Shade? Can you hear me?” Sarn tried to reach across the gap between them, but his hand bounced off the wall of magic in between them.
“The darkness has eyes, or maybe it lies? I forget.” Shade touched a gloved hand to the veil covering the lower half of their face.
“What darkness? What lies? Answer me, Shade. This isn’t the time for riddles.” And his friend was far too fond of them in Sarn’s opinion. Shade never gave a straight answer when the enigma could avoid it. Well, his friend couldn’t avoid it anymore. “Where did you go?”
“To the place of bars to do the bidding of the one with scars. Must pay the price, yes, the price. There’s always a price,” Shade said in a broken whisper. Through the veil covering his friend’s face, only Shade’s dark eyes were visible, and they were losing focus again. Damn it.
“What price?” Sarn asked, but it was too late. Shade had returned to rhyming nonsensical things again.
“Leave him be. He’s gone again.” Miren leaned into Sarn’s side.
“How do you know Shade is a he?” Because Sarn wasn’t so sure. He didn’t know much about Shade, and he regretted every chance he’d passed up to find out more about his androgynous friend.
Miren shrugged. “What do we do now?”
“I don’t know.” Sarn dropped his head into his hands again. They had nowhere else to go, not while the Orphan Master had designs on his magic. A thrice-damned promise bound Sarn to do whatever that psycho told him to do. Sarn shivered at the thought, and Miren hugged him. The Orphan Master couldn’t find him here, but there was danger here too, according to his magic.
“What do you think they wanted?” Miren asked. By ‘they’ he meant those owl-cat creatures. “Maybe they’re in trouble. If they are, maybe we could help them, and in return, maybe they’d help us.” Miren leaned forward, excited by the idea of playing rescuer for a group of mind-talking creatures, and even Sarn could see the attraction.
No doubt, his brother envisioned those creatures’ current troubles to be nothing like the harrowing ordeal of their last one. If that was Thing and his son who’d visited them earlier. But the idea had merit, even Sarn couldn’t deny that. Plus, Nulthir had a lot of knowledge about magic that Sarn lacked. They could make a formidable team.
Formidable enough to fix his current situation? Maybe. Sarn might just have found a way out of his predicament. Dare he hope Miren was right?
“Can you find them?” Miren looked at him with hope shining in his dark eyes for the first time since they’d entered this mountain stronghold.
“Maybe.” Sarn wasn’t sure. He’d never attempted anything like this before. In the past, he’d only used his magic to find his brother. “But it should work. Finding is finding, right?” That was something else Sarn wished he’d asked Nulthir before that troubled young man had disappeared without so much as a goodbye.
“Sure. It must be.” Satisfied he’d won this round, Miren smiled.
But Sarn didn’t. “How did they even find us? We ended up here because of a series of unfortunate events.” Sarn hugged his brother.
Miren waved to the magic surrounding them. “You have a lot of magic. If I can see some of it, they can too. They must have used th
at to track us down.” Miren skimmed his hand down the innermost shield.
Was it shrinking? It had dimmed, but why had it? Sarn fed it a constant stream of magic. He could see it flowing out of his hands into the shield. Could the eyes he felt boring into him see his magic too?
Sarn glanced around again. He couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. Had Thing felt it too? Was that why he’d flown away without so much as a hello? Oh Fate, had Thing recognized the watcher? Or worse, assumed they were in league with it? There was only one creature who could scare Thing off.
Sarn shot to his feet so fast, only his magic kept him from banging his head. Thank Fate, it shoved the ceiling up creating just enough headroom. “We have to go.” If his hunch was correct, and he desperately hoped it wasn't, they were in grave danger.
Chapter Three
When the light faded, Amal blinked a few times to clear her eyes of the dancing purple afterimages. “Is everyone alright? Thistle?”
“Yes, are you?” Her adopted daughter patted her shoulder.
Amal nodded and resumed her roll call. “Dale?”
“I think so,” her son said from somewhere to her right.
“Mixie?” Amal searched the spots dancing before her eyes for her daughter.
“Where’s Furball? Has anyone seen him?” A shadow, presumably Mixie, swarmed up something—a dresser maybe.
“He’s around here somewhere. Don’t fret.” Amal blinked at the rectangular furniture item her daughter was climbing but couldn’t bring it into focus just yet. Her eyes were still dazzled by the light even though it’d backed off to a less blinding level. Amal blinked some more to encourage her eyes to adjust. The room sharpened. She touched the chair the demon had broken in wonder. It was whole again.
“Look!” Thistle pointed at a red blanket floating three inches off the ground. The blue runes inked onto it glowed softly indicating the float spell was active on it again.
“But it unraveled…” Dale’s voice trailed off as he approached the hovering blanket in awe.
“Well, it’s not unraveled anymore.” Thistle patted the floating blanket like it was a pet.
“I can see that.” Dale shot his brother’s mate a glare, but Thistle shrugged, not at all bothered by his ire.
“But we rolled its threads into balls. Who wove it back together? Who put the spell back on it?” Yarn touched the blue runes inked on the sunset-red blanket.
So did Amal. Her adopted son was right. The runes looked exactly like she remembered them.
“All the damage is repaired. How’s that even possible?” Mixie ran her hand over the unblemished top of the dresser. Not a single claw mark remained.
“Even the door is fixed.” Dale swung it on its hinges. It didn’t even creak anymore.
“Who’s the woman in the hall?” Mixie pointed at her.
“What woman? Where?” Dale turned at her question and stared up at the dark-skinned woman in Guardsman blue leaning against the wall across from Nulthir’s flat.
“The name’s Iraine.” She gave them a two-fingered salute. “Would someone please tell me what just happened? Starting with how in hellfires I got here and ending with why I have this?” Iraine held up a silver leaf. It glowed softly against her gloved fingers.
“You’d better come inside.” Amal waved her in and out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of her wing. It was brown and cream again. That creeping darkness was gone. Amal flapped it experimentally and grinned as much as her beak would allow. She’d been healed too. Thank the Creator.
“Where’s Nulthir?” Thistle glanced around.
“He’s not with you?” Iraine pushed off the wall she’d been leaning against.
“Not unless he’s invisible. Isn’t he out there with you?” Dale craned his head around the door, but he didn’t poke his head out far enough to see much of the corridor beyond.
“Well, this is just great. The man I came to see isn’t even here. Now, what the hell am I supposed to do?” Iraine glanced at the leaf she held, but other than a silver light, it provided no answers.
“He must be around here somewhere.” Unless he’d gone out the window, but the barrier spell should have stopped him. Amal replayed the events of the last few minutes as she flew to the slit window. Fine lines of colored light still crisscrossed it.
“Is the spell still active?” Thistle landed on the deep sill beside her.
Amal shooed her away. “Don’t test it, not while you’re carrying my grandbaby.”
Thistle leaned past Amal, ignoring her. But there was nothing to see down there except rocks and grass very far below. “The spell’s still intact.”
“Of course, it is. He didn’t go out of the window.” Amal put an arm around her adopted daughter and turned her away from the magical lattice before Thistle could test its strength and fry the baby in her womb.
“But he’s not here either. So, where is he?” A puzzled frown turned the corners of Thistle’s beak down.
“That’s what I want to know.” Iraine stood on the balls of her feet ready to run at the slightest provocation.
Voices sounded in the corridor.
Amal glowered at her. “Come in if you’re staying. Go if you’re not. But shut that door before someone sees us.”
“If I stay, you’re not going to use your mind powers to mess with my head, right?” Iraine held up a hand to fend off such a thing.
With Thing off on a mysterious errand, there was no danger of that. He was the one who liked to mess with people's minds, but Amal kept that to herself in case they needed to edit the Guardswoman's memories later. Hopefully, that wouldn't be necessary.
A pop and a flash announced Furball’s arrival. But he’d misjudged the distance, as usual. For a moment after he appeared, the startled kit floated almost beak-to-nose with a surprised Iraine, then he squeaked in surprise and plummeted.
“Whoa there, little guy. Maybe you should try walking first.” Iraine threw her hands out, and Furball landed on them none the worse for wear, the lucky kit. He nuzzled her hands while Iraine looked for somewhere to set him down. At least she’d finally entered the room.
Dale caught Amal’s eye, and she nodded. He shut the door quietly and none too soon. Out in the corridor, voices rose and fell as the pedestrians passed by none the wiser about the illegal magical creatures inside.
“Furball, you promised you wouldn’t teleport anymore.” Amal shook her index finger at her misbehaving grandkit. The instant she got Nulthir back, she’d ask him to put a spell on Furball to stop all this teleporting nonsense until the kit was old enough to teleport responsibly.
“Neep?” Furball hunched his little shoulders. At least he was aware of his transgressions. That was progress of a sort.
“Give him to me. I’ll keep him out of trouble.” Mixie dove off the dresser and extended her wings.
Furball shook his head. He didn’t want to go to his irate mother, but he didn’t have a choice. He’d gotten into enough trouble for one day, and they still didn’t know what had happened to Nulthir, Thing, or Crispin. Amal had a bad feeling about them, but she put that out of mind.
Mixie plucked Furball out of Iraine’s hands then circled back to the dresser where the tri-fold mirror stood. She landed in front of it and checked the glass, but the reveal all spell showed only her and Furball’s reflections, nothing else. Mixie's shoulders dropped in relief.
“Well? You still haven’t answered my question.” Iraine crouched and held out the silver leaf to Amal.
Its glow drew their attention to it, even the fussing Furball who wasn’t enjoying the dressing down his mom was giving him mind-to-mind, so he couldn’t pretend ignorance later. But he deserved it, so Amal had no sympathy for him.
Can I see it? Furball asked as his mother trailed off and stared at the leaf. Its glow had momentarily ensnared Mixie and hijacked the lecture Furball richly deserved for scaring them all half to death.
No, we don’t reward misbehaving kits. Amal turned
and was blinded by a bright flash as Furball disobeyed her again. The kit appeared right in front of her beak and proceeded to fall. Amal glowered at him, but she threw out her arms to catch him, so he didn’t get hurt.
Thank you, Furball sent as he reached for the leaf overflowing Iraine’s hands. Before his tiny black hand made contact, Furball vanished in a hiss of displaced air.
“Furball!” Mixie screamed.
“I swear. the next time he appears, I’m putting a leash on him.” Yarn covered his eyes and shook his head. It was about time Furball’s father put his foot down. He was far too laid back.
But Mixie had chosen him, so Amal kept her beak shut about that. Not everyone wanted to match wits with their mate. Some creatures wanted a boring life, not Amal though. She liked the constant tug-of-war she had with Thing. It kept life interesting.
“Where the hell did Furball teleport off to now?” Amal touched the leaf, hoping for an answer because no one else had one, and light filled her thoughts.
“Amal,” a voice whispered as the room disappeared in a blaze of white.
A Queen stood in the heart of that light, and her eyes shone with silver fire. “Amal.” She held out a strong, calloused hand to her. “Shadows rise and shadows fall; some fight, and some are enthralled. I can’t be everywhere, but my eyes see everything. Be my eyes, my watcher in the dark. Call me when hope runs thin, and I will eradicate the dark within. Be my eyes, my wings, my claws, Amal.”
“With pleasure, my Queen!” Amal suppressed a giddy laugh. Let Thing chew on that for a while. Oh, he’d be livid he’d missed this when he finally returned from his errand, but that served him right for not being here when she needed him. He could try a saint’s patience. What the hell was so important anyway?
With that ornery old owl, it could be anything. He loved to shove his beak into other people’s business, but this was ridiculous even for him. He’d never gone so long without checking in. What if he couldn’t? Amal tried to push that worrying thought away, but it nagged at her as the world whited out again.
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