by Lan Chan
“You better tell him to cool it with the displeasure,” Kai said. “Because the next time he makes that face, I’m going to break it.”
I swatted him away. “He’s adjusting. It takes some people a little more time.”
He laced his fingers through mine as everybody started going through the portal. I suddenly found myself flanked on all sides. Sophie and Max detached from each other to stand on either side of me. Astrid dropped back.
“I can see you guys, you know,” I said.
Kai grabbed me and stepped through the portal. We landed just outside a ballroom in Seraphina. How many bloody ballrooms did they have? This one was located somewhere different to the one that they had used to hold the Council induction ceremony. I didn’t recognise the layout.
The Mwansas were over by the buffet tables with human males. Nanna and Basil were with them. Durin called out to Kai as soon as we walked in the door.
“I’ll catch up with you later,” he said before he disappeared through the crowd.
Sophie took my arm. “Human League,” she said, indicating the men chatting to her parents. Her spine straightened. Max placed his hand on the small of her back.
“You guys are the liaisons,” I said. “Have at it.”
Sophie clamped her hand down on my forearm. “You wish you’re getting out of this,” she said. “They don’t give a rat’s behind about us. They want to speak to you.”
I had the sudden urge to pee. “I’m going to the bathroom. Be right back.”
“I can come with you,” Sophie said. I made a not-so-subtle head gesture in Max’s direction.
“I’m fine. I can pee without getting in trouble.”
That turned out to be the biggest lie ever. The bathrooms here were fancier than some hotel penthouses. I pushed open the door and walked in on Chanelle and Brigid having an all-out bitch glaring contest. An aura of contained magic clung to the air. It crackled across my skin. Both of them turned towards me. If looks could cut you, I’d be sushi. No thanks.
I promptly exited the building. The bathroom block – yes, a whole block – was connected to the main ballroom through a rectangular courtyard landscaped to look like a Japanese garden. The click of heels on the winding stone path told me somebody was following. It was bad that I hope it was Brigid. Never in a million years would I have guessed that she would be the lesser of two evils.
“Alessia,” Chanelle said.
I kept going without a word.
The flutter of magic whipped around me. A portal opened just three feet shy of the pathway directly in front of me. I almost twisted my ankle coming to a dead stop. A flock of ravens were perched on the railing of the walkway. Their black eyes appeared to be scanning me. Harbingers of bad omens indeed. Was there a worse omen than this?
I gritted my teeth as my own magic swirled inside of me. “Close the damn portal,” I hissed. I still hadn’t forgotten that my disastrous portal experience had been partly her doing.
She raised her palms and the portal snapped shut. A wall of pale green angelfire cut me off from the exit. “I’m not going to even ask you what your problem is,” I said. “But I’m giving you one chance to drop the magic before I drop you.”
Her cheek puckered like she was biting the inside of it. “Please just listen,” she said.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Can you even hear yourself through your own self-importance?
“I am important,” she said. My eyes couldn’t physically roll back far enough in my head. “I know you don’t care about our customs, but this isn’t about that. It’s about continuing Raphael’s bloodline. I can’t reason with Kai, but if you care about him, then you’ll give me a second and listen!”
I turned to her fully and did a lopsided curtsey. Yeah, I had bitch tendencies too. “Oh well since you’ve been so nice to me since the moment we met, why wouldn’t I want to do you a favour?”
She studied me with feigned concern in her eyes. Like she knew something I didn’t. I was so over all these supernaturals right now. “I understand why you would be drawn to him,” she said. A sad smile tugged at her lips. “And why he thinks he loves you. You’re the same, the both of you. That’s why you’ll end up breaking.”
I wanted to laugh, but I was too busy trying to keep a lid on the chaotic churning of the magic inside of me. Something about the lick of green fire behind me seemed unnatural. I wasn’t reacting well to it. When that happened, I tended to go haywire.
“When Lucifer comes for you, will you go to him?”
“You’re delusional,” I spat.
“No,” she said, taking a step closer. “I’m the only one thinking dispassionately. Kai might not care about me the way he does about you, but that will be his downfall. Because based on what I’ve seen, if Lucifer comes, you would willingly join him.”
I opened my mouth to contradict her, but she raised her hand to cut me off. “Perhaps not because you want to, but because he’ll make you. He’ll threaten everything you care about. And when he does, Kai will lose you the same way he lost his family. Do you think he can survive that a second time? Maybe it won’t happen today. Maybe it won’t happen at all. Perhaps the prophecy isn’t true. But you know yourself well enough to know that when there is danger, you can’t sit still. And he’ll never know peace as long as you’re out there in danger. He might want you, Alessia. But he needs me. He just doesn’t know it yet.”
I blinked at her as I scrambled to discredit everything she said. “I’m sure you’ll do your best to convince him,” I said. “You might convince yourself that you’re doing this out of the goodness of your heart, but if you really believe what you’re saying then you’d release him from the blood vow and let this so-called inevitability take its course.”
“You know we cannot. He’s too stubborn to back down. Even if he realises his mistake a decade from now, he’ll remain loyal out of a sense of obligation. Is that what you want? For him to be with you because he refuses to admit he was wrong?”
“I don’t see how it’s any different to him being with you because he’s compelled to by a contract.”
“Please, Alessia.”
I’d heard enough and gave her my back.
“You will never win,” she snapped as she let go of the wall of fire. The ice was back in her voice. She couldn’t convince me with her warped logic so now we were back to threats. “You’re just a human.”
That’s right, and this tiny human had had enough of this bullshit. I walked away without looking back.
31
The problem with insidious lies is that even though your logical brain tells you they aren’t true, they still manage to burrow in and leave poisonous seeds. With my emotions still on edge, I walked a little farther around the back of the ballroom. I sat down on a bench amongst the climbing roses. A raven dropped down from the sky. It hopped along the ground in front of me. It was pretty small as far as ravens went.
I opened my hands and laid my palms up to the sky. “Sorry,” I said. “I don’t have any food on me.” It turned its head to the side and peered at me as though it could see into my soul.
A second bird swooped down beside it. I didn’t even know Seraphina cultivated a raven population. Swans I could see, but ravens? It didn’t really seem their style. I could hear music and chatter coming from the ballroom. The ravens opened their beaks and squawked.
“Tell me about it,” I said. “If I never have to attend a ball again, it’ll be too soon.”
I wondered if I could get away with sitting out here all night. The ravens hopped along the ground pecking at errant weeds. The first one flew up onto the edge of the pot to my right. It rooted around in the topsoil for something to eat. When it saw me watching, it stared at me and squawked again. I reached out my hand tentatively.
To my surprise, the raven allowed me to draw my finger down its shiny tail feather without flying away. They must be enchanted birds. I sat there raven petting and staring off into space. I would not let any of wh
at Chanelle said settle in my subconscious. So what if Kai and I really had nothing in common? Yeah, he did kind of fly off the handle if I put myself in danger. I didn’t see how that would be any different to me having a relationship with Max or one of the shifters. So what if Chanelle was right and if Lucifer threatened my friends and family, I would willingly go with him to keep them safe. That didn’t mean any of it was actually going to happen. I sat there clenching my jaw and trying to dispel the logic behind the prophecy.
I wasn’t good at regulating my own thought patterns. Tonight, it kept replaying Kai and Max’s deaths over and over again.
If I could get away with it, I would have sat out here all night. But I knew Sophie was probably getting worried.
I heard voices coming from around the corner. The music had died down just a little bit so that I could make out words. “...how did she get here?” someone was saying.
“Just remove her and be done with it!”
“We can’t make a scene while the humans are present!”
Frowning, I came around the corner to find a group of guards trying to wrestle a hunched-over woman in a threadbare brown cloak away from the doorway. A bitter scent filled the air. My nose twitched.
“Come away,” one of the guards said to her. The difficulty was that she wasn’t frail. Her arms and legs were thick and robust. I thought for a second she might be a dwarf. But then she turned her head in my direction. The hood of her cloak slipped to reveal a face halfway between human and reptile. I swallowed the shock but refused to look away. I bet that’s what she was expecting. One of the guards snagged her arm. She rooted herself to the floor. Unless they were willing to use force, she wouldn’t budge.
“For heaven’s sake!” I heard a sonorous voice say. “Who let her out of the clinic?”
I turned towards the sound of that melodious voice. My gaze landed on a woman who would be Chanelle in a different light. The cut of her dress and the air of authority clinging to her denoted age. If it wasn’t for that, I would think she was Chanelle’s older sister.
“She’s not moving,” a guard said.
“Then move her!”
“Raphael’s orders are not to hurt any of them.”
“Raphael isn’t here! And you wouldn’t be hurting her. But she’s not fit to be seen. Never mind this stink that she’s dragging through the place.” Chanelle’s mother gave me a death stare on the way past. “Just like some people.”
Every muscle in my body wanted to scream. I was so tired of being treated like crap because I was human. Kai had said if someone pissed me off, I was welcome to punch them. Slugging Chanelle’s mother at a fancy party probably wasn’t what he had in mind.
Instead, I stepped up to where the guards were manhandling the old woman. I used the tiniest bit of magic to rip them away.
I almost doubled over at the strength of the stink that clung around her. My eyes watered. I began to breathe through my mouth.
“Hey,” I said. “I guess we know when we’re not welcome.” I looked up to find Chanelle’s mother pinching her nostrils shut.
“Are you hungry?” I asked the old woman. The thought of food made me want to gag at the moment. I could feel the stench sliding down my throat.
The old woman spoke in a harsh rasp.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m really terrible at other languages. You wouldn’t by any chance know any Angelical?” It was a joke. I was half kneeling to be at eye-level with her. That was a feat considering how short I was. It was no wonder the guards couldn’t move her. That was a low centre of gravity. Somebody gasped behind me.
The music inside had died. I didn’t notice that there were so many people watching me until I turned around and all I saw was wide eyes.
The old woman began to shake. I clung tightly to her, scared that she was having some kind of fit.
“Blue!” Kai said. He approached me from the crowd, his eye twitching at the stench.
“Can you do something?” I asked, my voice frantic. “I think she’s unwell.”
What I hadn’t noticed while I was speaking to him was that she wasn’t just shaking. A shroud of something laced with darkness had blossomed around her. Kai yanked me away as the hunched figure of the woman shook with amusement.
Magic snapped and cracked. It bulged and warped until it engulfed her completely.
“What’s happening?” I asked, trying to reach out for her. Kai held me steady, his green eyes locked on the swarming mass of magic.
The guards all stepped back.
“Good grief,” I heard Yolanda say. The ball of darkness exploded into a supernova of light. I turned my head to stop my corneas from being damaged. When the light faded, I heard the sound of female laughter. The old woman had disappeared. In her place were two red-headed women in long black dresses.
“That was not amusing,” Chanelle’s mother snapped. “You’re not invited to this gathering.”
“Oh, put a sock in it,” the redhead on the left said. “Can you even reach whatever is stuck up your behind anymore, Meryl?”
A raven landed on her shoulder. “She has a sense of humour,” the redhead said to Kai. “We approve.” She winked at him and flounced into the room with her partner in crime.
Meryl chased them inside. I could hear her snapping at them to get out of the party. Sophie and Max approached us. I still wasn’t quite sure what the hell had happened. I looked at my hands as though they might hold the answer.
“What?” I said to the general vicinity.
“Sorceresses,” Kai said. He laced his fingers through mine. Even though his angelfire never flared, I felt my inside warming. It helped to settle the jitters.
“Not a good sign,” Max said.
“You mother is a sorceress,” Sophie reminded him.
“My mother isn’t from Ravenhall.”
I didn’t know what that meant, but I thought it meant they were nuts. Inside the ballroom they appeared to be walking around trying to get themselves in trouble. “Isn’t anyone going to do something about it?” Sophie asked.
Jonah looked like he was attempting to do just that. And failing miserably judging by the obscene gesture they threw his way.
“What can they do?” Kai said. “Outside of the Council, Ravenhall is one the strongest faction. We should have thought to invite them in the first place.”
“You can see why they didn’t, though, right?” Max said. He shuddered. I didn’t know what I was seeing.
“You’re not scared of them, are you?”
He bared his teeth at me in a vicious snarl. Kai pulled me into his chest. “Don’t show her your teeth just because she’s right,” Kai said. “Too many scary bedtime stories.”
Max shoved him in the shoulder. “Don’t tell me they don’t creep you out! Who knows what the hell goes on in the fens.” He made a face like it was the most disgusting thing in the world. “Did you even smell that stench?”
“I like them,” I said. They were drawing quite a lot of attention which meant they were taking the heat off me.
“You would,” Max said. Sophie shushed him.
“We better go and see if Mama needs help,” Sophie said. She looked between Kai and me. “You’d better come with us and meet Declan, Lex. Try not to mention anything about Angelical.”
“Oh,” I said. “You heard that, huh?”
“Yes, we did,” Kai said. “As did most of the room.”
I pinched my lips together and played the docile guest. It wasn’t fooling anyone. Sophie and Max walked me over to where the two men of the Human League stood beside Nora. Basil and Nanna were making polite conversation with the other man, but my attention fixed on Declan Summers. I recognised him from the video message he sent. There was something shrewd behind his dark eyes. It had me suddenly alert.
“Ah,” Nora said. “Here she is now.”
Her smile was tight-lipped. “Lex,” she said, “I’d like to you meet Declan. The leader of the Human League.”
Decla
n held out his hand. I wanted to stow mine away behind me, but I plastered a smile to my lips and forced myself to return the shake. Max towered over Declan, but for some reason, my mind kept telling me to run.
“So you’re the girl who holds our fate in her hands,” he said. He still hadn’t let go of mine. Turning it over, he peered at it like he’d never seen hands before. “For some reason I pictured you bigger.”
The snappy comeback on my tongue died at the look of sheer disapproval on Nora’s face. I stowed the snark for another occasion. The muscles in my jaw twitched.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I said. “If I had a dollar for everyone who thinks I should be bigger, I’d be the richest person here.”
He smiled at me. It seemed genuine enough. “This is my colleague Sam Rothchild.”
The other man disengaged from Nanna and Basil to offer me his hand also. I shook it with barely perceptible distaste. Why didn’t they keep hand sanitiser at these things? Oh, right. Supernaturals didn’t get germs.
“Tell me something,” Sam said. “The rumour amongst the League is that you’re Lucifer’s creation. We heard Gaia suggested suicide rather than fulfilling the apocalyptic prophecy. Is there any truth to that?”
And people said I didn’t have any tact. Behind me, the air began to vibrate with Max’s disapproval. I made a gesture behind my back for Sophie to take him away. If he was the top of the Dimension Integration class, the supernaturals were in serious trouble.
They slipped away easily. She’d been right. Declan and Sam ignored everyone else.
I looked to Nora for some kind of instruction. She was stumped. I mean, what kind of answer would be acceptable when someone asked you why you didn’t commit suicide for the good of humanity? In the end, I decided lying probably wasn’t the best way to start this relationship.
“Yes, it is true,” I said.
They glanced at each other. I had a feeling they too expected me to lie.
“You didn’t grow up knowing about this world, did you?” Declan asked.
