Arrival of the Traveler

by A.L. Tyler

  “Mrs. Corbett?”

  After the evening meeting that day, Lena went to collect her belongings from the room on the fourth floor. Griffin had told her there was a small guest room elsewhere on the floor that wasn’t being used, and though she hadn’t found it yet, she was determined not to spend another night in the same room with Mrs. Corbett and her son. It was too…unnerving. Lena had stayed awake at night, afraid that if she fell asleep Mrs. Corbett would forget who she was and she would awake to find the woman standing over her with a knife, or worse, having done something to Darius.

  “Mrs. Corbett?” Lena cautiously walked into the room. Mrs. Corbett was sitting on her bed, calmly reading a book. When she didn’t see Darius, she walked over to the crib; it was a little early to be putting him down…

  It was empty. “Mrs. Corbett, where’s your son?”

  She looked up from her book, confused. “How should I know?”

  Lena ran to the bathroom, but he wasn’t in there. She ran to the closet, checked under the bed, and checked everywhere else she could think to look as Mrs. Corbett watched her disdainfully. Finally, she spoke up.

  “Don’t you know where he is?” Mrs. Corbett asked calmly.

  “No, I don’t!” Lena said anxiously.

  She paused. “That’s good. I prefer it that way. Now, what are you looking for?”

  Lena stared at her for a moment, then ran back out into the hallway and across to the other side of the house, where she frantically pounded on Griffin’s bedroom door. He didn’t answer, and she tried to decide whether or not she should just go in.

  Griffin!

  What?!

  She pounded on the door again, and a minute later he answered the door in a bath robe. Apparently, he had been in the shower.

  “What?!” He snapped again.

  “Your…Darius is gone.” Lena said quickly. “I was just in your mom’s room and I can’t find him, and she’s gone crazy Griffin, it’s like she doesn’t even care! She’s gone totally—“

  Griffin looked annoyed; she was overreacting. “Okay, calm down. I took him. No one’s supposed to know where he is, because that’s the point.”

  Lena stopped. “What?”

  Griffin turned and walked back into his room. He left the door open like he expected her to follow him, but she wasn’t sure if it was appropriate. He gestured for her to follow him and she stepped inside and closed the door, knowing full well that she would get a load of paperwork if Howard ever found out. Griffin’s room was larger than hers, and she wasn’t sure why, but it evoked a slight sense of jealousy in her. It was done up with a dull red color palette, except the molding and curtains which were a deep bronze. Griffin walked back into the bathroom and closed the door. Lena sat down in a sitting area next to the windows and tried not to feel unnerved by the fact that she was hanging out in Griffin’s bedroom.

  I took him because she clearly wasn’t going to be able to take care of him much longer. He’s been placed with a family until he’s of age to take his place in the Council. Assuming, of course, that they agree to hold the position for him. The door opened, and Griffin came out again, dressed in his nightclothes. “Though it is nice to see you concerned for him. I distinctly remember you being entirely against their moving in here to begin with. Grown a little attached?”

  Lena sighed, lightly touching the velvet curtains. “Just…concerned. You checked out the family?”

  “He’ll be fine.” Griffin walked over and sat in the chair across from Lena. “Unless you want to keep him?”

  Lena looked out the window. Griffin’s room had a good view of the mountains, and it was a completely cloudless night. The stars and crescent moon were spectacular. She cast her eyes back at Griffin. “No. I’m glad he found a good family.”

  Griffin sat back in his chair and studied the view out the window. “Have you found your room yet?”

  “Of course.” Lena lied, standing up and starting toward the door; it was a little intimidating to be on Griffin’s turf. It gave him a psychological advantage that she didn’t want him to have.

  Griffin got up and started walking behind her. “I’ll show you where it is.”

  Lena turned around when she got to the door. Griffin was smirking; she hadn’t seen him do that in a while. “Good trip?”

  “Yeah. It was good…until the end.”

  “I bet. You make any new…friends…in jail?” She jabbed.

  Griffin put his hand on the door, stopping Lena from opening it. “It seems you made some while I was gone.”

  Lena’s eyebrows raised. “Those are old friends.”

  “More than friends, if you ask me.”

  “No one asked you.” Lena crossed her arms and raised her chin a little. Griffin’s expression soured slightly. “You’re wrong. And you didn’t have to go all spastic last night, because I had it under control.”

  “Rollin is trouble. I’ve already spoken to some of the other families about him. And you didn’t have it under control; he was the one who caused all the trouble after my father died. He’s the reason we had to disband the whole household.”

  Lena stared at him for a moment. There wasn’t any hint of a lie in his eyes—he had known Rollin far before that night in the kitchen. Lena hated to acknowledge the fact that he might know more about it than she did; she still didn’t agree with what he had done, especially given the fact that Lena felt Rollin had made several valid points. She had found herself unable to stop thinking about how passionate he had been.

  “Devin is just a friend. That’s all.” She shook her head.

  Griffin tilted his head slightly. His expression was still very serious. “That’s not what he thinks.”

  “Oh…whatever. Sure, Griffin.”

  Griffin opened the door and gestured her out into the hall. He walked her down a hallway to the left, made a sharp turn, and Lena found herself at a dead end. Griffin opened a door to what was little more than a large closet, but there was a bed.

  “It’s not much. I think Master Daray used to keep his personal attendant in here, but it should do, since you’re obsessed with helping the less worthy. It goes without saying that you’re not sleeping here until tomorrow night, after you’ve run the idea by Howard, I take it?”

  Lena nodded. “That would be correct. Thanks, Griffin.”

  “You’re welcome. I’m sure my mother won’t object to sharing her bathroom, either.”

  Lena wasn’t entirely sure he was right, but she had seemed significantly calmer without Darius around. “Okay. Thanks.”

  But Griffin continued to stand there.

  “What?”

  Griffin was suddenly too serious, but he was smiling a little. “We’re going to set some ground rules now that Council is back in session. Are you going to get jealous again if I try to live my life the way I want to?”

  Lena studied him. She wasn’t sure if he was teasing her or not. Without saying it, they both knew he was talking about the incident involving Bianca Channing the previous year. “I wasn’t jealous of her.”

  Griffin almost laughed. “Sure you weren’t. But if you’re going to date…those types, then I think I should be allowed to explore my own options.”

  “We’re not dating.” Lena narrowed her eyes.

  Griffin furrowed his brow. “Then you want me to wait…”

  “Yes. No! I meant no. I mean, that’s not what I said, I was just asserting the fact we’re not dating. He and I. Or you and I. None of the three of us are dating. Just friends, now and always. Clear?” Lena felt her face go red. She had said something that she knew Griffin would interpret as a Freudian slip, if he had caught it.

  Griffin gave her a sidelong glance. “No.”

  Lena nodded curtly. “Then date whoever you want to. I don’t care.”

  She did care, but not the way she expected to. Probably not the way he expected, either. After a great deal of introspection, she had decided she cared merely because she liked the attention; not because she liked
him that way. It was because there was so little to do around Waldgrave, and Griffin provided entertainment, and if he started being interested in anyone else, her distraction of having him around to entertain her was done for. For this reason she had a vested interest in his remaining single—not for any other reason.

  Griffin took a deep breath, let it out, and nodded. “Well. Goodnight then.”

  He turned and started back down the hallway. Lena watched him go, then walked into her new room; it dawned on her that she had left her overnight supplies in Mrs. Corbett’s room. She grabbed the pillowcase off the foot of the bed and tied it around the outside door handle to be sure she could find the room again, retrieved her things, and came back. She made up the bed, read for an hour, and then fell asleep.

  “And you play cards with them? Lena, please tell me you win…”

  A week later, the Council had worn itself out fighting and a vote had been taken to take a day off. Lena was using her spare time to talk to Hesper and play with Maren, who was much louder than she ever remembered Darius being, but was still filling the gap of familiarity that she missed since his departure. Maren was still so little, but Hesper was trying to get her to participate in what she called “turtle time”—laying her on her belly so she would learn to hold her head up.

  “Well, yeah. It’s fun really. You should play with us sometime.” Lena knew that Hesper would reject the offer; she didn’t seem like the poker-playing type.

  “I don’t play cards. It’s too easy…You don’t think it’s easy? Can’t you tell what everyone else has?” Hesper looked concerned.

  “No…” Lena replied, feeling stupid.

  “Well…That’s the reason most Silenti don’t play each other. You might as well be playing with exposed cards. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s how some of the families got started financially—playing humans. They wouldn’t have a chance.”

  Maren’s big, quizzical eyes explored the room. They eventually landed on a bottle half sticking out of her diaper bag and she whined until Hesper got it for her and flipped her over on her back so she could drink it.

  Hesper changed the subject. “So how are the meetings going, then?”

  Lena sighed. She hated going to Council; it made her depressed. The idea that Griffin could have been bringing the portal back had inspired enough votes to garner Council time to decide on the reinstatement of current travel policy or on the instatement of a new policy.

  Under the new policy, members of the Daray house, and descendants of it, would not be allowed to leave the property at all unless if extreme extenuating circumstances demanded it—and even then, if somebody had to be rushed to the hospital the request would have to meet with emergency Council approval first. There would be no guests outside of yearly Council meetings, either. Lena was fairly sure the new measures wouldn’t pass, but all the same it was going to be a closer vote than she preferred. It was getting ridiculous; she was never going to leave Waldgrave again.

  On top of it all, Howard had vetoed her plan to sleep in the small room on the fourth floor because he was afraid other Council members wouldn’t like the idea. Lena was bunking in Ava’s room on the second floor until Council was out, and she really wasn’t happy about it.

  Hesper gave her a sympathetic look. “Surely it can’t be that bad. I mean, your biggest deal two years ago was being sure you didn’t marry Griffin, right? And you managed to make it happen. You can do this too, and a few years from now you’ll think you were stupid to worry about this.”

  The way they argued in that room, Lena doubted it. People were too stuck in their own ideas, and no one was willing to budge for the sake compromise. Too much was at stake on all sides. She looked down at Maren, so blissfully unaware of the world she was growing up in, and how imperfect people had made it.

  “It’s all because of that stupid portal, Hesper. It probably doesn’t even exist, and people are all up in arms about it anyway.”

  “Hey now, that happened because of the normal side of your blood, remember? A lot of the New Faith believers never took any of the stories seriously until your mom found it and your other grandfather confirmed it—he was an expert, after all. I do agree it’s sad that Griffin’s caused such a panic, though. Can you imagine if he actually had brought the portal back here? People would really be freaking out then.” She laughed.

  Lena stretched out on the carpet next to Maren. What if he had brought the portal back, and the Council had intercepted it? Daray would have been furious, Griffin would probably suffer some sort of house arrest punishment, the New Faith believers would seize control of it in the ultimate checkmate…and there wouldn’t be any reason to hold the Daray family hostage anymore. If the portal were under lock and key, Lena wouldn’t have to be.

  She sat bolt upright, as if she were a puppet on an invisible string. Hesper stopped laughing. “What is it?”

  “I found a way to make them trust me.” Lena smiled. “I’m going to find it. I’m going to find it and bring it back.”

  Deception of the Magician, Waldgrave Part 2 is available now!

  *****

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  A.L. Tyler lives in Colorado, with her husband, two cats, and three turtles. When she isn’t writing or creating art, she’s probably hiding in the garden.

  To find Addisyn, or more of her books, start by going to her blog: https://addisynltyler.blogspot.com/.