by Emma Nicole
Seraphina frowned at Arthur, he’d called it magic and that was something hunters didn’t do. It was all Power this and Power that, magic was what monsters used. “I used it as a distraction early, for Kai and then later when the real fight began. One of others set a projectile of Power at us, it could have killed us.”
“What did you do later? Describe.”
“I sent out several waves of Power, like a wall to block them. Then they overpowered and outnumbered us and I threw my Power in the one who calls himself Nor and then another guy, I don’t remember his name.”
“Specify throwing your Power.”
“I forced it inside of them.”
“Do you understand the ramifications of that action?”
“If I forced my Power in to another Power user their body would treat it like a poison. It would try to eradicate the foreign Power but at the same time the Power could kill them depending on how incompatible.”
“And you did this twice,” Arthur said.
“Yes, but statistics say one in three to five hunters has Power. It was unlikely that my opponents would.”
“But one already made a projectile, you were aware at least one Lionheart had Power but you chose to do this anyway.”
Seraphina frowned. “Sir, Yates and the other guy I downed was beating up your daughter. If it wasn’t for me she’d probably be in a lot worse of a state.”
Arthur slammed his hand on the desk as his face twisted in to a snarl. “So you tried to kill a man for getting in to a fist fight.”
“I’ll finish my explanation. Three of the guys were on Kai, two holding his arms and the other punching him. Kai couldn’t defend himself. Two were fighting Daria, Yates and the Power user. Seth and Nor were fighting me.”
“You never mentioned Seth previously. What was he doing?”
Seraphina sighed, her anger flaring at the inane line of questions. She supposed he was interrupting to get a rise out of her. “If you keep interrupting me won’t that ruin this test?” Seraphina asked.
“What?”
“You keep interrupting to irritate me and surely that’s just misleading and going to ruin the test.”
Ignatius barked out a laugh as Arthur glared at Seraphina and then Ignatius.
“I think we’re done with questions,” Arthur hissed.
“Oh no, we’re not.” Ignatius said. “Seraphina, what is Kai to you?”
“I thought Arthur said these questions were inhumane,” Seraphina said. She balled her hands in to fists, she felt like she was being messed with.
“Answer the question.”
“He’s a friend. I’ve known him pretty much all my life.”
“Yes, but do you like him, romantically?”
“What? No! I’m thirteen.”
“I know of many people who would claim to have crushes when they’re thirteen.”
“Kai and I are friends,” Seraphina gritted out. “Good friends. We’ve been through hell together and why is it so wrong for me to protect him? You can’t think we’d be stupid enough to lure seven guys, older than us and that physically outclass us in to the dead of night. It’d be stupid, suicide!” She glared at Ignatius, her breaths coming in pants.
The seconds ticked by and her heartbeat began to slow. Kai was right, she really wasn’t as calm and careful as she used to be. She’d been doing so well too up until now.
Ignatius looked at Arthur. “Now, we’re done.”
“You clean up,” he said with disgust as he left the room.
Seraphina watched the door closed. Ignatius took the wires off her arms and then Seraphina slowly took them off her face and chest too. “So that machine can tell you if I lied?”
“To an extent,” he said. “A polygraph records the data the wire transmits and then I can infer from the results if you were lying.”
“Infer? Isn’t than not a certainty, like a guess?”
“No it’s a deduction of the data in front me and then by applying the knowledge of what I already know, I can see if you were lying.” He took the paper from the polygraph and laid them across the table. “You can look, it’s not like your results will change.”
Seraphina looked at the paper and the three zigzagging lines that covered it. “How do you know when I answered anything? These are just lines.”
“I have a good memory.”
“So my guiltiness is dependent on your memory of the situation.”
Ignatius didn’t say anything for a minute as his strange coloured eyes flickered over the results.
“Have you ever met a faerie?” Seraphina asked.
“I did not meet one in the way you are thinking. I’ve killed them, they have talked at me about killing our kind but I wouldn’t say we’ve had an intellectually stimulating talk.”
Seraphina snorted. This guy made her feel stupid. The scientists had given her an education, she could read and write and she could even speak some fae now too but she couldn’t sound like Ignatius. He sounded like someone straight out of a top school, someone who carried around big heavy books and should probably be wearing glasses.
“This might be rude to say but your eyes remind me of the fae’s.”
Ignatius smiled grimly. “I suppose that would be considered rude to most. Has anyone told you you’re too observant?”
“No, I don’t usually tell people what I see.”
“What do you see?”
“Now, or in general?”
“Well, you were a normal human before you absorbed Faerie’s magic. Do you see things you didn’t see before?”
“Yes, like the Glamour on the castle.” She knew the answer she was supposed to say. Humans were likely to see magic and think it was a trick of the light and they wouldn’t be able to see through Glamours.
“I’ve seen you walk in to that Glamour without seeing it.”
Seraphina frowned. “Sometimes I see it and other times I don’t. You’ve seen me before?”
“You and Kai are considered the hot topic of the guild currently. You both also stand out in a crowd. So yes, I would. You know who I am and you hadn’t met me before today.”
“Hot topics,” Seraphina murmured. “Shall I go then, unless you need anything else?”
“Bored already?” He asked.
“I don’t understand the poly.”
“The polygraph measures three of your attributes and they will vary depending on how you feel. I compare these results to when you answered certain questions and I can tell if you are lying.”
“How so?”
Ignatius grabbed the end of the polygraph results and pointed at the lines that waved about much more dramatically. “Here. The results show your heart rate and breathing increased. The question bothered you. It indicates that you could be hiding something.”
“That’s when you asked me about Kai, I wasn’t lying.”
“I wouldn’t tell him anything. It’s not really my concern.” His eyes were on the paper, reading the stupid, pointless results.
Seraphina backed up a step towards the door. That test was ridiculous, the results showed that she was lying about her feelings for Kai but she hadn’t been. She knew herself better than anyone. If that test thought she’d lied about that what did it say about her actual lies? Arthur had tried to make her sound like a killer. Seraphina could hardly think straight. Should she get Kai and run from the hunters now, or should she put herself at the mercy of the hunters. She squeezed her eyes shut for a second as her mind flashed to the awful Queen of the Autumn Court and then the scientists. She still had no power over herself. She was still nothing. She couldn’t live like this. Maybe it would be safer out in the world and hopelessly pretending not be Gems.
“Seraphina?” Ignatius said. He’d turned to stare at her. He didn’t looked worried about her but there was an odd expression on his face. “What’s wrong?”
She didn’t want to discredit the test and tell him it was wrong. She didn’t know if it had caught her lies. “It’s nothing.”
He looked at her for too long, as if he could see through her. She was hopelessly outclassed, she realised. If Nor was some guy who could pack a punch but had little else going, this guy was probably both. The leather jacket concealed his muscles, but he was being fast-tracked as a legitimate hunter. He seemed to know far more about this world than she did.
“Then you can go.”
Seraphina turned and left without another word. Her eyes burned and she blinked back those stupid useless tears as her mind span around the plans she made and would likely never act on. Where would she run too and with what money? She was too absorbed in her thoughts she didn’t see the hunter standing by the side in the hallway.
He caught her shoulder, shoving her in to the far wall. Arthur towered over her. “I’m going to say this once, so listen. You will not talk to my daughter again. Do you understand me?”
“She talks to me, we’re friends.”
“Don’t talk to her,” he snarled. His breath leeched across her face. “Or I’ll kill you.” Then Arthur stormed off.
Seraphina watched him. He was a hunter, an adult and he wanted her dead. Age didn’t matter, she realised or race. Monsters came in all different varieties.
Ignatius walked out the room a moment later, the papers bundled under his arm. “Seraphina can I ask you something?”
She blinked at him. He must have seen the look of horror on her face but he’d just ignored it. He didn’t wait for her to reply as he pressed on.
“Why do you want to become a hunter, a Lionheart?” He asked.
“To…kill all the monsters,” Seraphina murmured and shook her head. “Revenge.”
“All of them?” He tilted his head to the side. “But you hate those who would consider you a monster, isn’t that hypocritical?”
“No. I understand them. But I like living.” Seraphina turned on her heel and ran towards the stairwell, she’d had enough of them all.
Chapter Five
Seraphina never liked leaving the guild grounds, she was too worried the fae would find her and drag her back to the Autumn Court. She picked pockets until she’d had enough change for a hot chocolate at a café a couple of streets away. The woman at the counter had looked at Seraphina in horror when she entered the shop.
“Your mother let you dye your hair that colour!”
Seraphina had walked away with her drink in hysterics. She fell in to one of the plush couches and exhaustion washed over. All she pretty much did the last couple of days was sleep, since she’d been banned from classes and training in general. She almost jumped out of her seat when Kai walked in to café and sank in to a chair opposite her.
“Didn’t we have thing where we can talk to each other without having to actually be in the same room?” Seraphina drawled.
“A telephone?” Kai grinned back at her and she couldn’t help but return it. “I wasn’t eavesdropping on your polygraph thing, I just was listening closely to all of it, Daria’s father is an ass.”
“He has every right.”
“To kill you? No.”
“I am a monster, Kai. We are monsters.”
“No.” Kai leaned over the table close enough to whisper, “We were created to fight them.”
“Even if I look over that, we’re fae-touched.”
“Are we? Did Faerie really change us?”
Seraphina couldn’t breathe for a minute as a kaleidoscope of awful memories span through her mind and she just felt tired, so very tired. She wanted all of it to be over, she realised but she didn’t even know what all was and where everything else began.
“Don’t think like that,” Kai murmured softly, and he pulled her off the chair and in to a hug. “We have each other. We always will.”
She hugged him back tightly. “I don’t know what to do, but I don’t want anybody to hurt you. I would kill them first.”
“Elaina,” he murmured. “You don’t mean that.”
“Why? You’ve done it.”
“To save our lives and I see them, those Gems that I killed to save you and maybe those scientists. I seem them. I saw so much with the Wild Hunt but I still see them.”
Seraphina’s lip wobbled and she could feel the hot tears streaking down her face. “I am fae-touched. My hair is blue and…my magic is different.”
“Is it?”
“I know it is but…or something is, I don’t know.” She shook her head and looked at the hot chocolate. “Let’s go back, being outside makes me nervous.”
“We’re likely to die as much out here as well as in there I think.”
“I like the one that trains me a bit before they kill me.”
Kai grabbed Seraphina’s discarded hot chocolate and downed it in a few swift gulps. “What? Hot chocolates are my life force.”
Seraphina snorted, nudging him in the side and he let out a hissing breath. “Sorry, thought you were all better. You are getting better, right?” He nodded. “So I was thinking, we should practice our powers. They don’t and can’t train us with all of it and we taught ourselves just fine before, why stop now? We need to step up somehow.”
“Where?” Kai murmured.
“Our rooms until with think of a better place. We’ll have to hunt down some disused rooms, maybe the basement of the castle or the church attic.”
“It’s too risky.”
“When did that stop us?” Seraphina smiled tightly. “We practiced magic behind a few trees and in an art cupboard.”
“And then we were almost killed for it. We lost our old lives for that.”
“We had a timer on that life anyway.”
“I suppose,” Kai murmured, his eyes drifting to the summer sky. “Elaina, one day I want to be able to be what we are. If we’re living in a house by ourselves that’s okay, but that’s all I want. Just to be ourselves.”
“We’ll make it. If the hunters don’t kill us we can move out when we’ve trained enough.”
“That’s almost five years away…”
She felt Kai’s worry coming off him in waves. It’s not soon enough. Those were the words he’d left unsaid but because of their bond she heard them. They weren’t wishful words, they were a statement of fact. Seraphina and Kai weren’t going to live until they were eighty or more like normal humans, not even thirty years old. Gems expired around twenty-five and could show symptoms even earlier. She didn’t know what to say to him so she just walked back to the guild shoulder to shoulder.
Chapter Six
Another week past and they were allowed back in to classes and training. By that point the gossip had circled and no one really cared about their return. Seraphina hadn’t even heard back about her test or if anyone took the blame. They’d been wronged but it seemed like no one was going to act on that or condemn them for the dagger. Maybe it was a mercy but at the same time it wouldn’t dissuade those guys from trying something else. It was basic psychology, she couldn’t say human because the fae had also used similar tactics.
By the time class was over Seraphina was smiling at the routine that was falling back in to place. Her legs ached from the kicks they’d practiced and from the rest of their drills. She shoved her hands in to the pockets of her shorts as she waited for Kai to finish talking to their instructor. Apparently he was punching too low or something and this was distressing the instructor greatly.
“Hey, Seraphina,” Daria said leaned against the wall beside her. “At least we skipped the game, right? Something good came out of this.”
Seraphina grimaced. She remembered Arthur’s threat all too well and she liked living and if that man targeted Kai too… it was unthinkable. Seraphina trained her gaze on a part of the stone wall just above the instructor’s head.
“Seraphina? Hello?” Daria’s voice rose with impatience. “Look I wasn’t in on what Yates did, I had no clue he was leading us in to a trap. You can’t blame me.”
Seraphina didn’t look away from the stone. What could she say to Daria to get her to leave her alone? She really d
idn’t know much about the girl, nothing that would constitute dirty under handed secrets that drove the fae in to family feuds.
Daria shook Seraphina’s arm and Seraphina levelled her with a glare. “Leave me alone, Daria. I don’t want anything to do with you.”
“You do blame me! Seraphina,” her voice fell in to a whisper, “I lied for you.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t ask you too. Look, Kai and I realised that we’re never going to be able stop those guys normally so we’re going to try something else. It’s better if you stay out of it, away from us.”
“You’re protecting me? Seraphina, I’ve trained way longer than you. I don’t need your protection.”
I’m protecting my own ass. “Daria.” Seraphina said slowly, measuring the cool tone of her voice just like she had with the polygraph. “I’m telling you this because I trust you and I need you to realise you can’t be seen with me. Kai and I are going to stop Nor and Yates and all of them, we’re going to do something awful. So don’t get involved.”
Daria’s grip tightened. “Maybe I want to be.”
Seraphina ripped her arm away just in time as Kai came over. “Everything okay?” He asked.
“We have plans, remember?” Seraphina said to him with a too tight smile.
Kai’s eyes widened briefly at the mention of their magic training plans, it was a secret between them and he hadn’t expected her to say a word about it near anyone else. He’d reacted just the way she’d needed him to. He had the look of someone with a guilty secret.
They both walked away from Daria and out of the training room.
What are you playing at? Kai asked.
Getting Daria off my back and therefore not getting murdered by her angry father.
Will life ever be boring? Kai sighed and Seraphina nudged him in the arm.
I don’t think I could do boring.
Maybe that lake did bewitch you.
She elbowed him harder.
They trained their magic in either of their rooms. Kai whisked objects around the rooms at mach speed, lamps, pillows and even the wardrobe. Although Seraphina banned him from moving the larger pieces of furniture after nearly being brained by the drawers that had slid out of it. Kai was an Elemental, he was born with the ability to manipulate wind. He said it was one of the easiest things to do and Seraphina realised it with the speed he picked things up. His general magic skills like lock picking were lacking but it may have been down to the fact he could rely on the wind to help him and he spent half his time Glamouring his ears. Seraphina could feel the headaches the constant Glamours brought on. She didn’t know what to do besides buying cheap painkillers from pharmacies in London. But they were surviving and just like in their old lives they found glimmers of good.