“Tony and Theresa split because of the war,” I said, though I let my voice drop a bit as I tipped my head toward Tony, who was talking quietly with his ex-wife and who looked for all the world like he was ready to fall to his knees then and there and beg Theresa to come back to him. “And your family hasn’t stopped trying to capture, torture, or kill you. The happiest family I’ve seen so far in the magical world has been Theresa’s family full of Halfsies and humans!”
Andrew frowned for a long moment before he slowly nodded. “You have an exceedingly poor set of families from which to make any kind of judgement.”
“Probably,” I agreed before I turned my attention back to Wendy. “But I think the point still stands. The family I’ve had my entire life? We didn’t turn on each other like this. Even the family I was born into—the human side—learned to suck it up and deal with the fact that I was born different. They still gave me a place to stay with them, even though they knew they could be killed for harboring a witch. That’s what it means to be family.”
“This isn’t a matter of accepting differences in family members,” Wendy said, shaking her head. “Don’t be so purposefully reductive. You’re ignoring the betrayal I was sent to correct.”
“What, falling in love?”
“You don’t—”
I cut her off before she could go any further. “Yeah, I do. I understand exactly what’s going on here. You’re both so caught up in this ridiculous notion that you have to be obedient before you can be loved. That’s not love. And it certainly isn’t loyalty.”
“As much as I’d love to stay and listen to Michelle completely wipe the floor with you,” Elaine said, the smile evident in her tone before I even looked her way to see it on her face, “we’re getting close. So if you could postpone the argument to a later time. . . .”
Wendy was openly fuming at me. “No, no, let the little princess say her piece.”
I definitely didn’t like that Wendy used my title to get under my skin, but I also knew she was baiting me. So, the best kind of revenge was not only not to rise to the bait but to wave my hand to create a cloth that wrapped around her mouth and prevented her from making a sound—even a muffled one.
“The actual princess asked us to be quiet. And since there are lives on the line, I think I’ll listen to her,” I told Wendy, who simply glared at me in response.
Elaine smirked and nodded. “Andrew, stay with her. Izzy, you too.” When Izzy looked surprised, Elaine explained, “I want someone that I know won’t hesitate to shoot her, but I think Theresa would be too trigger-happy for Andrew’s tastes. You fall somewhere in between Andrew and Theresa.”
“Oh, I’d definitely shoot her,” Theresa muttered.
Izzy nodded, knowing Elaine was right, and then gave Aaron’s arm a light squeeze before we could split up. “Shoot straight,” she told him.
“Actually,” I said slowly, “Aaron, you and Tara would be our best bet for getting everyone to safety. We should split up even more—some of us can fight off the Royalists while you two lead the civilians out.”
Theresa’s eyebrows shot up at that. “I need to stay close to my sister,” she said. “You saw—”
“Yeah, they’d like to get their hands on pretty much any one of us,” I pointed out. “But Tara said she’s living in the present, right?” I turned Tara’s way. “You said history was happening, so you saw no point living in the future.”
Tara nodded. “I have already seen some of this, but only in the grand scheme. I would like to see the individual choices that lead to the path already laid out.” She paused and blushed. “Besides, it is so rare for a Future Seeker to see prophesied events in person.”
Theresa frowned for a long time. She obviously didn’t like leaving her sister behind, but I knew from experience how hard it could be to argue with Tara when she seemed so peacefully reasonable. “But why pair her with Aaron?” Theresa asked at last.
“Because the rest of you need to fight,” Aaron said, sounding almost resigned to it. “I’m going into the fight mostly blind.”
I shook my head quickly. “That’s not what I was thinking,” I said.
“It’s okay, ‘Chell; you don’t need to baby my feelings,” Aaron said, though his tone was one I’d heard too often when he was hurt to ignore.
“Aaron, no,” I said in a sharper tone that finally got him to look up at me. “You’re the one, out of all of us here, that people trust easily and quickly. You’ve already made friends here, and we need trustworthy people to get the civilians out. There are kids in that group; they need a friendly face.”
Aaron watched me like he was trying to work out how to respond, but when he couldn’t see any sign in my expression that I was either exaggerating the truth for him or trying to be diplomatic, he finally broke into a smile at the corner of his mouth and nodded. “Alright. I can do that.”
Elaine gave me a quiet nod of approval once I looked her way again. “Anything else to add, Princess Michelle?” she asked. And to my honest surprise, I only saw the slightest hint of teasing in her gaze.
I felt that same discomfort that had taken hold of me when Izzy called me “general,” and I honestly didn’t know what to do with that. So I simply closed my mouth, shrugged, and shook my head in answer to Elaine’s question, steadfastly ignoring the fact that Aaron was a lot more obnoxious about his proud grin my way.
“Alright,” Elaine said, still smiling. “Then you’ll go with me, and Tony and Theresa will circle around the back.”
I raised an eyebrow at Elaine, and she met my gaze with a quiet kind of smirk. Neither of us could say anything in front of Tony and Theresa, but I couldn’t help but wonder if she and I were on the same page—trying to get the two of them back together. If we were, I wondered if Elaine would agree with me if I suggested that she grant Tony leave or even assign him to stay with Theresa. She could even argue that Tony needed to stay for tactical reasons, since Tara had clearly become a more active target of the Royalists thanks to our time there.
Not the time, I told myself.
No, but I like the way you think. I’ll hold onto that thought for you, Lila put in.
I laughed under my breath. I should have known my most romantic friend would put a bookmark in that thought.
Oh, am I the most romantic one here?
I know; that’s really saying something, isn’t it?
Considering the company we keep, it absolutely is, Lila said, her voice laced with laughter that I almost voiced myself.
Well, my fellow romantic, we have a village to save.
Right. I’ll get out of your way, Lila said.
And keep sitting on our plot for Tony and Theresa, I clarified, since I didn’t want Lila to feel like I was trying to get rid of her.
I thought that went without saying.
I smiled at that and then turned my attention back to Elaine. Thankfully, I didn’t think I’d missed any important information, since Theresa and Tony were both the focus of her directions, so I was sure I’d gotten away with one of my mental conversations without anyone noticing it or teasing me about it.
Small miracles.
At last, Elaine turned my way, smiled, and jerked her head to indicate she wanted me to join her. I matched her smile and caught up to her, and the two of us started our wordless approach, creeping up on the Royalists ahead. I stuck close behind Elaine, since she had the tracking spell that would show us where to go. But even I could hear the soldiers talking to one another—as well as the sound of a restless crowd of people talking in hushed voices—once we got closer to where the Royalists were holding Theresa’s family.
Finally, we reached the unnatural space in the forest that had obviously been forced clear of most of its vegetation in a perfect, flat circle. Once I saw that, I understood perfectly why the forest wanted us to get rid of these intruders. Theresa and her village had carved out their own place in the forest, yes, but their methods had been much gentler, with obvious care for the forest
around them. This was far more violent and careless.
Honestly, I didn’t understand it. I might have struggled to fully connect with the elements when I wasn’t entirely myself, but now that I felt them around me, I couldn’t fathom how any group of witches could treat them so callously. Especially when I knew the Royalists had to have at least some elemental witches in the group.
Then again, the Royalists had also used Izzy up and left her for dead, so I don’t know why I was expecting any kind of empathy from them.
And yet, I did. I knew there had to be more to the story of this war than evil Royalists and good Rendezvous agents. My brother was proof that not everyone stayed on one side for black and white reasons.
I had to think that there was decency left in both sides. Otherwise, how could Elaine hope to unite them?
That’s why we call you the Balance: you’re always looking for ways to be a bridge, Lila said.
I flushed. I’m just trying to help Elaine.
I didn’t say you weren’t.
I shook my head, deciding for the moment to ignore Lila in favor of sticking close to Elaine as we circled around the group of captive humans, Halfsies, and witches. Elaine and I could both see which of Theresa’s friends and family the Royalists considered to be the biggest threats, because a few—like Santo—had been bound and gagged and had a closer guard than the others, who were all simply bound.
I glanced toward Elaine, who had a twinkle in her eye, and nodded as she adjusted her stance. “Ready to be a distraction?” Elaine whispered to me.
“I’m pretty sure it’s in our blood,” I whispered back. “Our family is made for drama. I mean, you just heard the diatribe I went on, right?”
Elaine laughed quietly at that—and then, apparently to prove me right, she broke the silence of our approach and burst forward in a flurry of motion. The ground beneath her trembled, opening up pockets that the captive villagers fell into so that they were out of reach of the Royalists. Tara and Aaron would meet them underground and get them moving, while we kept the fight aboveground.
Not all of the villagers could be so easily separated from their captors—and that was where Theresa and Tony came in. Any guards that were too close to Theresa and Tara’s loved ones found themselves in Theresa and Tony’s crosshairs—and the ones that had an actual grip on people found out quickly why trying to use human shields was a terrible life decision.
Or Halfsie shields. Or witch shields. Or whatever the terminology was with the different species.
Whatever the case, they definitely learned their lesson when Tony and Theresa came running in, absolutely destroying anyone in their paths.
I’d never gotten to see Tony actually let loose before. He had always been a flying instructor to me, and in the few battles we’d fought together, he had played more of a supporting role than an active one. But now, in defense of Theresa’s family, he took the speed he loved to use to make me sick when he’d been assigned to teach me how to fly and used it as a weapon, throwing spells and objects too fast for anyone to track.
When we’d fought the Royalists before, he had been unfocused, desperate in his attempt to get to Theresa. Now, he was a lot more elegant—and a lot more like I expected Tony to be in a fight.
Meanwhile, Theresa used the forest around her like an extension of herself. She’d had time to really get to know it, so it rushed toward her like an embrace, more than happy to answer her call and sow destruction against the people that had dared to intrude on its land.
Basically, Elaine and I could probably have let those two go to town on their own and sat back and watched. But with both of us joining in the fight?
Yeah, the Royalists never had a chance.
Chapter 16: This Is What Families Are Supposed to Do
Once we had more or less taken care of the unwanted guests, our team joined the rest of the villagers under the earth, working quickly to get everyone untied and to calm down any of the younger kids that were, understandably, pretty freaked out over the whole thing.
I saw that one little girl in particular—who had to be maybe three years old physically, though I couldn’t be sure of her actual age—was completely attached to Tara, her arms and legs wrapped around her and her face buried in Tara’s neck. It was such a sweet scene that I couldn’t help but smile, especially when I heard, among all the sniffles and mumbles, the little girl calling her “Aunt Tara.”
I missed that.
All of the kids in my family grew up calling me “Aunt Michelle” until they were old enough to realize that, physically, I wasn’t very old at all. (But to a little kid, even a skinny tween looks like an adult.) Then, when they grew up and looked older than me, they switched to simply calling me by my first name.
I still remembered being “Aunt Michelle,” and I missed it deeply and desperately.
“Aunt Michelle, I scraped my knee,” I could remember Stevie saying. He was one of my “nephews,” and an adorable three-year-old.
Stevie was one of the sweetest kids in the world. He was the kind of boy who would give you his blanket if he thought you were too sad, and he had a knack for remembering favorite colors. And Stevie had positively attached to me from the day he was born—not that I was complaining at all. He had a tender heart, and being around him was like a breath of fresh air.
So when he had tripped while he was trying to keep up with his big brothers, I was the one he went to, his eyes watery and his hands covering the offending scrape.
“Want me to take a look at it?” I asked, already pulling Stevie over so I could give him a hug, even if he didn’t want me to poke around his boo-boo.
Stevie nodded quietly and slowly moved his hands so I could see that he really had bashed up his knee pretty badly. It was bleeding and had bits of dirt and rocks in it, which I knew would not be fun to clean up.
I bit my lip and then reached out to ruffle Stevie’s hair. “You got yourself a pretty serious battle scar there, didn’t you?” I asked him, making sure to make my eyes as wide and awestruck as I could get them to look. “You must have been playing hard!”
Stevie nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“Well, we need to wash out all the gunk and stuff that got in your battle scar,” I warned him. “It might hurt a little bit, but if you’re brave like I know you are, we can make sure that you get a cool scar instead of getting all gross and puffy.” To illustrate my point, I puffed out my cheeks and made an exaggerated exploding motion with my hands.
Stevie giggled. “You’re silly, Aunt Michelle.”
“It must be because I hang out with silly people like you,” I shot back, tapping the end of Stevie’s nose with the tip of my finger.
He giggled again. “No, I’m not silly! I’m brave! You said!”
“That’s right; I did say that, didn’t I?” When that got another giggle and a nod out of Stevie, I smiled and picked him up. “Come on, buddy; let’s get you cleaned up.”
Now, in the present, watching Tara with her family, I couldn’t help but feel jealous. I missed the family I’d left behind. Every time I thought of my family and the obstacles standing in the way of a reunion, I hated my father twice over. Not only had he taken away my very memories of being loved and wanted and surrounded by good people but he had also taken away my ability to go back to that warmth. Even after the war was over, I would be different. They would be different.
I shook my head and forced myself not to go down that particular rabbit hole. I couldn’t afford to do that, not until after the war was over and my father couldn’t hurt them anymore.
“You alright?”
I turned around to see that Aaron had finished untying a group of people and was making his way over to me. His head was tipped to the side with the sort of expression I used to see all the time when he would realize I’d given him the lion’s share of whatever supplies we stole while we were still on the run together.
Aaron had never needed magic to be able to see right through me.
I cons
idered trying to play it off, but Aaron and I had always been honest with one another, so I let my shoulders drop and quietly shook my head. “I miss my family,” I admitted. “I had an amazing one before my dad got involved.”
“Yeah, you looked like you weren’t doing well,” he said. “I don’t know that it would make you feel any better, but, hey, what the heck; I’ll offer anyway. I’d love to go with you when you track them down. They must be pretty amazing, and I think I’d like to meet them.”
I smiled at that and leaned over to wrap Aaron up in a hug. “You’re the best friend anyone could ever ask for. You know that, right?”
Aaron gave me a tight hug right back, and when he stepped back, he was grinning. “Hey, that’s what sidekicks are for, right? Help the hero in the middle of self-doubt and crises and stuff like that?”
“I think you’re more than a sidekick, Aaron,” I said, shaking my head at him.
“Nah, I know I’m the backup,” Aaron said. “I’m fine with it, actually. Izzy’s great to partner with, and honestly, ‘Chell, I’m just glad you’re doing better. That’s what matters to me, okay?”
See, when he said stuff like that, I was reminded of why I had fallen for him in the first place. I was trying to keep my distance—not just for Izzy’s sake but for my own—but he was so sweet and so sincere that I couldn’t keep from at the very least throwing my arms around him for a much tighter, longer hug. “You really are amazing, Aaron,” I whispered. “You know that, right?”
“Hey, I gotta keep up with everyone else, don’t I?”
I laughed. “No, you’ve got it backwards. We all have to up our game to keep up with you.”
“Sure you didn’t get hit in the head while you were doing all that hero work, ‘Chell?” he teased.
I shoved him in the shoulder, and he grinned at me before we went back to what we had been assigned to do. Aaron, wearing his usual warm and inviting smile, went back to getting the civilians out of harm’s way, and I caught up to Elaine and Theresa.
Sister Seeker Page 17
