by Jaymin Eve
“What the hell did you say to her?” Siret demanded, bearing down on Yael, who immediately decided to do a little bearing-down himself. Okay, now I understood why this was taking them so long to get. Men were stupid. Too much testosterone had fried their brains and they were completely useless to me.
Although, surprisingly, Yael halted the attack, managing to use his mouth instead of his fists. “I didn’t say anything. She just … decided this, all of sudden. We were having dinner, everything was fine—I mean, a few sols tried to start some shit, but I headed them off, and then I took her for a walk, because I knew you guys needed to cool off for a bit. Then she came out with this nonsense …” he cut a glare to Fake Willa. “I brought her straight here. Straight to you guys.”
This was getting weird. Too weird for me to stand back and watch. I marched up, tapping Aros’s back. He turned around, his golden eyes passing right over me as though he didn’t see me. His eyes narrowed, for a moment, and then he was facing Fake Willa again.
What. The. Hell.
I tried again, and this time he swung around with a scowl, his golden eyes darting all around the room as if he was trying to discern what had just happened. I jumped up and down in front of him, waving my hands. No reaction. I pulled up the hem of my clean-once-upon-a-time shirt, outright flashing him.
Nothing.
He couldn’t see me.
How was this possible? What else had Elowin done? Hold up … Emmy and Atti had been able to see me just fine, so had a few other dwellers I’d smashed into when I was running through the halls. Dwellers could see me! Maybe that was the key to this, I was only invisible to sols. There was no one else around to test my theory on, but for now it would have to suffice.
“Hey, Rome … Siret … Aros … any of you!” I started shouting their names, but none of them turned to me.
You are all dumbasses! I shouted as loud, mentally, as I could, and there was an immediate reaction.
Yael growled, wrapping his right hand around the back of Fake Willa’s neck. “What’s with the name calling, dweller?”
Okay, mental link still in place, but it wasn’t that much use to me. They just thought it was this imposter speaking. I needed to figure out why I was selectively invisible. What had that bitch-face done to me? I also should probably use the mental-link to let the Abcurses know that I was standing right behind them, but I kind of wanted to see what else Fake-Willa had to say for herself. Or myself.
She blinked her big, stupid eyes up at my Abcurses. “Guys, can you all just please back up? I’m feeling a little weirded out right now.” She had my teeth grinding as she tried to slip out from the middle of them. Before she could escape, though, Rome let out a grumble. It shook his huge chest, and possibly even the floor that we were standing on.
His hand wrapped around her throat, the other under her arm as he lifted her into the air. The movement was considerably more violent than when Yael had reached for her. Even I was surprised. Rome had never attacked me like that before.
He growled out five low words. “Who. The. Fuck. Are. You.”
His brothers started forward, as if to wrest Fake Willa from him, but he turned his head slightly, never taking his eyes from Fakey. “This is not our Willa,” he snapped. “Can’t you sense the difference? She reeks of Trickery’s energy.”
Siret laughed. It was a mean, rasping sound. “Not even close to my power, don’t ever get confused about that … but there is something there. Goddamn those asshole gods.” He closed in on Fake Willa, who was going a bit red in the face. I had a feeling she couldn’t actually breathe. “You’re good,” he sneered. “I’ll give you that. I wasn’t paying close enough attention, but now that Rome has pointed it out, I can see you didn’t quite get Willa right.”
Damn right she didn’t. Took you idiots long enough.
Five heads spun around, and I knew that they had heard me and this time they knew it wasn’t from the girl clutched in Rome’s heavy grip. A girl who was now clawing at his arm and gasping for air, both actions that were being largely ignored by the Abcurses.
“Willa?” Aros frowned, his eyes flickering around the room.
Siret stepped over to stand beside the golden sol, his back to Rome and fake Willa. “Where are you, Soldier?” He held one hand out. Aros did the same. Both of them standing there with a hand toward me.
I stepped up to them and placed my hands into their outstretched ones. Siret yanked me into him, his body wrapping around me pretty well considering he couldn’t see me at all. Aros made a small sound of annoyance, but didn’t fight as my hand was torn from his.
As I sank into Siret, everything inside of me sighed. It was a literal sigh of relief from finally being back with the Abcurses. Closing my eyes, I let myself go limp; it had been a long sun-cycle. Very long. My body was done. Siret supported my weight with ease, and I knew he was gearing to pick me up when Coen stepped out from behind his twin and said in my direction, “What happened to you, dweller?” His flat, heavy words and the look on his face were crazy-scary. It was that death-look again, the one he’d given me in the arena. Only this one was about a million times worse.
Elowin. Kidnapped and locked me down in this magical stone room. I couldn’t reach any of you mentally. Managed to break out by smashing the lock on the door. It was weakened by all the spells.
The room virtually rumbled then, and turning from Siret, I realised why. Rome had dropped fake Willa right on her fake ass before slamming his fist against a nearby pillar. The room shook, dust sprinkling down from above.
Heavy footsteps sounded and I spun my head back the other way to see Emmy and Atti sprinting into the room.
“Willa! Stop running off on me!” She was shouting as she skidded to a halt right in front of me. “Swear to the gods every time I turn my back on you, you’re disappearing. I will chain you down.”
Yael was in her face before she could say another word, and even though she didn’t step back, wariness still crossed her features.
“What?” she muttered, her eyes flicking across to Atti’s for half a click. She might not have even noticed that she did it, but I noticed. I had a feeling Atti didn’t think she was uptight anymore.
Yael drew her attention with his words. “You can see Willa?”
Emmy turned her gaze back to me. “What is he talking about, Will?”
Wiggling my way free from the absolutely blissful comfort of Siret, I faced my best friend. “I’m apparently invisible to sols. They can’t see or hear me. Our mental connection is okay, though, so they know that’s a fake Willa there.” I pointed to the ground where the imposter was still sprawled.
Granted, she was trying to crawl away, but Rome planted one foot on her back, making sure that she wasn’t going to actually get anywhere.
Emmy’s face went red, which was always a bad sign. If the red had just been on her cheeks, I wouldn’t have worried, but it was everywhere. Her forehead, her chin, her neck, and even the backs of her hands. She was about to explode. Two steps around the Abcurses and she had kicked off Rome’s foot and hauled up Fake Willa by the neck of her fake shirt.
“Who the hell are you?” she snarled. “What did they do to Willa? Why is she invisible to sols?”
Fakey started to sob. Not just normal sobbing, but huge, open-mouthed, ugly-crying sobs. Holy father of the gods. That was a terrible look for me. I had to remember to never cry like that.
There was even snot. Running down my … her … its face. Wipe your damn face you stupid idiot!
Siret’s chuckles washed over me, the effect of his laugh actually calming my anger.
“We should have known straight away that this wasn’t you.” Aros wasn’t even bothering to mask his sarcasm as his eyes travelled over Fakey, right from her snivelling face to her feet.
Yael nodded, his voice surprising me, since he had been mostly quiet since I burst into the room. “Nothing crazy happened the whole time she was with us … that really should have been our first indicati
on.”
Emmy started shaking Fakey then, and I had to reach out and halt my friend before she rattled Fakey’s brains too much to get any useful information. “Can you see me, Fake Willa?” I asked. There was no response. No recognition of the fact that I had spoken at all.
“She’s a sol,” I said to Emmy. “Probably one gifted in illusion, or disguise. Maybe trickery? Siret can do this sort of thing. Is it possible for her to have a gift like his?”
“Oh yeah, a definite possibility,” Atti jumped in, his voice sounding from behind our little group. “Those are all pretty rare gifts, but I can still think of two or three who are in Blesswood right now with some variation of Trickery. A few more in the community. I’ve only heard about them, though, I don’t actually know them myself.”
Well, great. He’d have to make himself so much more useful if he really thought he was going to get it on with my best friend. I was standing right beside Emmy, close enough to touch fake me, and it was so weird staring into my own face from this angle. I was seeing things that I had never noticed before. A little birth mark right above my right eyebrow, and the weird silvery strands littered throughout my hair. My eyelashes were dark and stuck together from all the dampness, my nose was red from bawling like a baby, and there was colour high in my cheeks. This is so wrong.
I focused on the task, trying to ignore our identical faces. “Ask her what Elowin did to me.” I nudged Emmy. “Why am I invisible and what the hell was she supposed to be doing? How long was she going to pretend to be me?”
Emmy jumped in immediately, shooting off those questions one after another. Fake Willa’s face crumbled. For a moment, it looked like the ugly cry was about to come back, but then she let out a dramatic sigh and all tears evaporated. Actually, the entire frantic expression evaporated, leaving only boredom and impatience. Whoa. That was scary. It was almost like she just couldn’t play the part any longer.
Her voice was even different when she spoke, more toneless. “I’m actually glad you caught me out. The thought of continuing to pretend to be that stupid dweller for one more click was actually painful.”
My fist shot out and I punched her right in the nose. The crunch of cartilage and the spurt of blood was immediate and satisfying. And what did you know, my face was much more attractive when bleeding, rather than crying.
I watched her clutching at her face, trying to stem the flow of blood. I sighed, looking heavenward for a moment. I should probably apologise. It was unfair to surprise-punch people.
“Sorry I hit you. I thought you were going to keep talking, and I panicked.”
Of course, she didn’t reply, because she couldn’t even hear me. The Abcurses, however, were losing it as though they had heard me. All five of them were choking on laughter. Well, except for Rome, who only cracked a smile, but that was close enough for him.
“There’s our little dweller.” Yael grinned, looking satisfied at the fact that I’d punched my own image in the face, which was a little bit weird, but I wasn’t going to dwell on it.
Meanwhile, Fake Willa was darting her head around frantically, trying to figure out what had just hit her.
“Answer my damn questions,” Emmy said again, drawing her gaze.
She sneered, droplets of red flinging from her face as she shook her head. “You’re all going to pay for this. This was supposed to be an easy job! Distract the Abcurses with some simple seduction—clumsy-like, dweller-style—and then when I got the signal, I would cause an argument, act like my heart was breaking and then quietly slip away. It would have seemed as if the stupid dweller ran away.”
I’m sorry … did she just say seduce my sols? My hand moved before I could think about it, and this time, my punch landed on her right cheek, snapping her head to the side.
“Holy hell that was satisfying!” I jumped up and down a little on my feet, totally ready to have another go. I could do it. I could take her. Especially while I was invisible and she couldn’t punch me back. Actually, that was probably the only time I could take her.
One of the guys reached out then and hauled me back, fitting my spine to their chest. Somehow, they all knew where I was now, like they were tuned into me. I tilted my head up, looking at them upside-down. It was Aros. Our eyes met and I froze.
You can see me?
He laughed. “Now that we know this is some sort of Trickery, we just look with more than our eyes. Our gifts are multi-functional.”
Naturally. Ugh. Annoying, multi-talented sols.
“Why is Willa invisible?” Emmy started in on Fakey again, and this time the imposter didn’t hesitate to answer. I think she was afraid that I’d hit her from nowhere again.
“There should be something on her,” Fakey snapped, stepping back from everyone and brushing off her clothing as her mirage rippled, transforming right in front of us. “Something which is rendering her invisible to any gifted being. That was the easiest way to ensure that no one of importance saw her kidnapping.”
I should have started looking for the device as soon as she mentioned it, but I was too busy staring at her. At Fakey, who had looked like me a moment ago, but now looked completely different. She was standing taller, her body thinner—almost painfully thin, though she managed to make it look graceful, somehow. Her hair was a silky black curtain around her face, her features delicate, but tight, as though she didn’t smile very often.
The longer I stared at her, the more ‘herself’ she seemed to become, until I was taking an involuntary step away from her. Her light-blue eyes skipped right over me, the icy shade of colour making my skin crawl. I was thankful that she wasn’t quite as adept as the Abcurses at seeing through my invisibility, because I really didn’t want her to become the kick-ass female in the room. I wanted all of my backbone from a moment ago to come flooding back into me, but it seemed to have skipped away as soon as the sol in front of me had manifested.
She was terrifying-looking. There was no other way to describe it.
I finally shook off the weird sensation that her icy eyes had given me, pulling away from Aros and running my hands quickly over my body in an attempt to find that device. I didn’t want to just stand there, cowering and invisible. I could at least fake that I was brave and kick-ass. It was better than nothing.
I searched my shirt and my shorts, before bending down to search my shoes. I could feel nothing out of the ordinary on me. Aros pulled me back again, and then his hands were skimming over my shoulders and down my sides. I shivered, trying not to focus too much on how his hands felt. With Aros, every single touch was purposeful. There was an energy behind it, begging me to lean into him, to press my body back into his fingers. Just as his hands reached the curve at the base of my spine, I was yanked away by Yael.
“Come on, Seduction,” a deep voice grated, right above my head. “You know this isn’t a job for you.”
Aros’s golden gaze went a little black around the edges as he stared his brother down, but he didn’t fight back. “It’s the perfect job for me, but I understand what you’re saying,” was all he said in response, folding his arms over his wide chest. So reasonable was that response that … now I was worried I had some fake Abcurse brothers to go along with the Fake Willa.
Coen must have noticed my expression, or heard my thought. He gave me a lazy smirk. “Rau won’t mess with us so easily again.” Some of that smirk vanished with his next words. “Especially since we almost lost you right out from under us because we were too busy fighting. We have survived the insane politics of these worlds because we stick together. Chaos knows that. We won’t let him win.”
Since when did sols care about the particular politics of the gods?
I stared at their faces, waiting for a response to my thoughts. Conveniently, they pretended that they hadn’t heard that one. Yael, who had been running his hands along my clothes, stood up and took the length of my hair into his hands. As his touch shifted through the strands, a very small device fell out. It was like a tiny, jewelled bug. I f
rowned, swooping down to pluck it from the floor. It looked so real. And then it moved.
Emmy squealed and jumped back, but I was able to pretend that I was unfazed, because Emmy’s reaction had shocked me out of my own. All that really amounted to was the fact that Emmy reacted to shit quicker than me, but I grinned at her anyway. Like I was superior, because I didn’t scream like a girl. As I turned my eyes back to the beetle, Rome stepped forward and swiped it off my palm.
“No!” I quickly followed his massive hand, grabbing at his fingers and prying them open again to rescue the jewel-coloured little thing. “That’s mine. You can’t crush it.”
“It’s not yours,” he corrected, and I could tell that he was trying not to roll his eyes. “It’s Elowin’s. And she was using it to play with us, so I will crush it.”
I managed to regain custody of the beetle, and Siret was at my side in an instant, holding his hand out to me. I gave him a narrow-eyed glare, but he only met my suspicion with a smirk that said trust me. Technically, Siret was the least trustworthy Abcurse, but he was usually on my side if it would annoy one of his brothers, so I handed over the beetle and he slipped it into his pocket.
“Isn’t it going to suffocate in there?” I asked, as Rome folded his massive arms over his chest and set himself to switching his glare between me and Siret, clearly unimpressed.
“It didn’t suffocate in this mess,” Siret returned, his hand winding around the wild curls that tumbled over my shoulders, tugging on the strands. It forced me to fall forward a step, and I gripped his shirt to stop myself from smacking into him.
“You guys?” Emmy spoke up, her voice dry—sarcastic almost. “She’s walking away.”
I turned toward Emmy, who was pointing at Fakey … who really was walking away. She was heading for the door, her shoulders pinned back, her head held up high, her gait almost leisurely. She arched a dark, winged brow at Emmy as she passed, delivering her a look that was full of vile promise. Atti moved behind Emmy, and I thought that he was just trying to get out of Fakey’s way, but then I saw his hand on Emmy’s shoulder, his fingers clamping down possessively. Protectively.