“They don’t dislike you.”
“No, but they’re not super comfortable with me. Still, Ellie was nice enough to offer me one of these cinnamon buns before she went off to work. I never realized how spoiled you are living with her.”
I grinned. “Yeah, she’s a pretty good cook.”
“Anyway, I did some digging, and we’re going to go on an adventure.”
“Sounds good. Adventure to where?”
“Kilokilo.”
My eyebrows raised slightly at that. “Kilokilo? But they denied me when I applied for a visitor’s permit. And goodness knows I’m sure they’ll deny you as soon as they see the name.”
“Well, that’s why we’re not going to go in via official channels. I’ve got a way in, but obviously we’re going to have to be subtle about it. After all, we’re going to be officially trespassing in one of the most highly guarded paranormal cities on the planet.”
I nodded.
“So you’re sure you want to do this?” Kyran asked.
“Absolutely. I need to know.”
“I just want you to know what we’re up against. No matter what, you cannot reveal yourself to anyone in Kilokilo. I don’t think I need to tell you how much trouble we’re going to be in if we get caught, and there’s nothing Lita will be able to do. I don’t even know what they would do to us if we were caught.”
“Ok,” I said, a lump forming in my throat. I knew Kyran was trying to warn me rather than scare me, but the more he spoke, the more nervous I got. Still, I knew we had to do this. I had to do this. “I can do it alone, if you don’t want to run the risk of me getting you into trouble,” I said.
“Are you joking?” Kyran said, raising his eyebrows slightly. “I’m absolutely not letting you do this alone. Not a chance. I’m warning you because this sort of dangerous stuff is something you don’t do every day, not because it’s something I don’t do every day.”
“Fine, point out the fact that you’re a cool crime-fighter who does his own thing,” I said, poking my tongue out at him. “I just wanted to give you a way out if you didn’t want to do this with me. After all, I always get the impression that you’re a bit of a lone wolf.”
“I am a lone wolf, but a wolf also protects his pack,” Kyran pointed out. “Now come on, grab some breakfast. We should get going sooner rather than later so it’s still dark out in Kilokilo when we get there.”
This was definitely happening.
“So how do we do this?” I asked after shoving a cinnamon bun down my gob and deciding that was good enough for breakfast. After all, eating wasn’t important when I was potentially going to visit the town where the coven I probably belonged to was based.
“We start off by going back to Seattle,” Kyran explained. “You may want to leave a note; this whole trip is going to take quite a bit of time.”
I nodded and did as he suggested, and the two of us left. We made our way to Eddie, the old oak tree that acted as one of the main portals in Western Woods. It was the portal I had come through by accident a few months earlier, and the dragon shifter who protected it, Drake, smiled at me as he saw me arrive.
“I hope you’re not going to get into too much trouble with this guy,” Drake said, motioning to Kyran. I was a little bit surprised; I was used to most people in Western Woods pretending that Kyran didn’t exist at best and being openly hostile to him at worst.
“Always,” Kyran said with a wink as the two of us walked straight into the oak tree and came out in the middle of downtown Seattle.
I blinked a few times as we found ourselves back in the human world. I think it was more force of habit than anything; Western Woods was not far from Seattle at all and the weather here was exactly the same as it had been back in the magical world. But it was still a bit strange to go from one world to another in just a split second.
“Alright,” I said. “We’re here. What’s the next step?”
“We take an Uber to SeaTac,” Kyran said, referencing the airport just south of the city. “We have to fly to Hawaii.”
“Fly? Like, on a plane?”
Kyran grinned at me. “Look at you, you’ve really turned into a real witch. Yes, we need to take a plane. The portal to get to Kilokilo that remains unguarded is in Hawaii, and it’s mainly used by residents of Kilokilo to travel between the paranormal world and the human world. The problem is, if we take portals to get to Hawaii and then travel inside the human world, it’s going to look far more suspicious than if we’d gone into the human world in Seattle and used human travel methods to get to Hawaii. This way takes longer, but it’s far less traceable and will keep us under the radar. Plus, we have much more plausible deniability if we get seen but not caught.”
I nodded as I thought about the words Kyran had just said. It made a lot of sense, after all. We didn’t want to get caught, and if we did, being able to claim that we had been in Seattle the entire time was a much better option than having paranormal proof that we had been in Hawaii.
Kyran had already taken care of tickets, which was good, especially since I didn’t have any human-world money left. It was strange to think that dollars had been so easily replaced by abras in my head in such a short period of time, but here we were. I felt alien and strange in the human world, and as we boarded the plane, I felt even more so. After all, why take a plane that was going to take five hours to get to Hawaii when I had the option of getting there instantly by taking a portal? Why sit in a giant metal box with hundreds of other people when I could just as easily grab a broom and enjoy the wind whipping through my hair as I rode to freedom wherever I wanted to go.
No, if there was anything that this adventure had already pointed out to me, it was that I was much more comfortable as a witch, and I had very quickly settled into the ways of my new life. Maybe that was normal. After all, I didn’t belong in the human world. I had been brought there as a baby, but I was a witch. Maybe it was natural that I would feel at home so quickly in the magical world.
Everything seemed so foreign now. Even sitting in the bookshop at the airport, scanning the bestsellers shelf and trying to find something that appealed to me to read during the flight, had felt strange. However, on my way back to the seats where Kyran and I had waited, I had stopped at Beecher’s Handmade Cheese and gotten a couple of take-away containers full of macaroni and cheese. After all, I might have been a witch, but I did still enjoy some of the stuff from the human world more than their magical equivalents, and I was fairly certain that even magic couldn’t make macaroni and cheese as well as Beecher’s. They were a Seattle staple.
I’d handed Kyran his container along with the fork as I made my way back to him. He looked a little bit different, and I realized that he had moved his hair over his ears to hide how pointy they were. That was the main giveaway that he wasn’t completely human.
Six hours later, we landed in Honolulu. I had finished my book, and I was definitely ready to get off the plane. I did appreciate that as soon as we got off the plane the weather changed from cold and overcast—standard Seattle weather in any month that wasn’t July or August—to warm and humid. The salty ocean air passed through the airport, which, to my surprise, wasn’t even fully enclosed.
“Welcome to Hawaii,” Kyran grinned. “Does it feel like home?”
“I hope so,” I replied.
Chapter 22
To be completely honest, it didn’t really feel like home. At least, not yet. Being in the human world still felt strange, and Kyran and I quickly left the airport and took an Uber to a leafy suburb of Honolulu.
The driver dropped us off at the address Kyran gave him, and after he drove off, Kyran led me to a path in the woods. The sun was just starting to come up, so it was still pretty dark, and I had to admit, it was exceedingly creepy in here. The seeds of palm trees rattled in the light breeze, and I was definitely not used to the tropical atmosphere here. I kept thinking that at any moment a snake was going to jump out of one of the trees to attack me.
Had I read somewhere at some point that Hawaii didn’t have snakes? Maybe. I couldn’t quite remember.
If so, it was definitely home. I was absolutely not a fan of snakes.
We followed the trail for at least twenty minutes before Kyran stopped in front of a huge tree, made his way behind it, and began following an even smaller pass through the forest.
“Are we almost there?” I asked. “I feel like we’re in the beginning of a horror movie and we’re going to die.”
Kyran laughed. “Don’t worry. I know exactly where to go. In fact, we are here.”
I took a couple more steps to reach where Kyran had stopped and looked at what he saw. It was a remnant of an old bunker, probably from World War II, with a bit of graffiti on it. One of the graffiti pieces was a witch’s hat, and so I suspected we were definitely in the right place.
“Step on this?” I asked, and Kyran nodded.
“That’s right. I’m going to go first. Wait thirty seconds after I go through before you follow. That way, if there’s something wrong, hopefully I can get back before you come through as well.”
I nodded, not voicing my worry about this plan: what if there was something wrong, and Kyran couldn’t get back?
Still, I forced that voice into the back of my head and steeled myself. I wanted to do this. I wanted to find out if I belonged in this coven, and the best way to do that was to visit the place.
Kyran stepped onto the old piece of concrete and immediately disappeared. He was gone. I began counting to thirty—the longest thirty seconds of my life. As soon as I reached it and Kyran hadn’t reappeared, I closed my eyes and stepped on the old piece of bunker after him.
When I opened my eyes once more, it was almost like I hadn’t moved at all. I was still in the middle of the tropical forest, surrounded by palms, ferns, and a trillion other plants that I didn’t recognize, and there still wasn’t a soul in sight.
“Tina, come over here,” I heard Kyran hiss, and I saw him behind a palm tree motioning for me to come over. I made my way over, and he put a finger to his lips. A moment later, I understood why as I heard the sounds of people coming toward us.
“I hate it when this stupid thing sends off false alarms early in the morning,” a voice belonging to a man said.
“Yeah, well, one of these days it won’t be a false alarm at all, and at least then we’ll have something to play with for a while,” another replied.
“Remember that time one of the humans made it through? That certainly was something,” the first person laughed. My eyes widened. Evidently, just by passing through the portal, we had triggered some kind of alarm. My mouth ran dry as I realized these two men were looking for us. Was our time here in Kilokilo going to be over before it even began?
The sound of the footsteps stopped a moment later, and I realized the men must’ve reached the portal.
“Nothing looks out of place, at least,” one wizard said.
“Nothing ever looks out of place,” the other muttered. “Look around, make sure there’s no one hiding anywhere, and then let’s get out of here. We got here straightaway, so whoever triggered this thing can’t have gotten far.”
My heart began to race in my chest as I realized the men were going to be looking for us, and we were standing behind a tree, completely visible.
The only option was using a spell, but I was going to have to do it as quietly as I possibly could. I pulled out my wand, but Kyran grabbed my wrist gently, and I looked up at him with question marks in my eyes. He shook his head slowly, obviously not wanting me to use my spell. I didn’t know why, but I trusted him.
Unfortunately, that meant we were completely visible as one of the wizards made his way toward us. I winced, getting ready to be seen, as Kyran softly wrapped his arms around me. To my surprise, the man walked right past us as if he didn’t notice us at all, and after about two more minutes of looking, he met his compatriot back at the portal.
“Nothing here, boss,” he said.
“Good,” the other wizard said. “We’ll go back and tell Reagan that the portal’s on the fritz again.”
The two men laughed, and once they were out of earshot, I finally dared breathe a sigh of relief.
“That was so close,” I said. “But how come they didn’t see us? I mean, that one guy walked right past us.”
“That was elf magic,” Kyran explained. “If we are hugely threatened, we can do things like make ourselves and anything we are touching invisible, and since it’s different to witch magic, it cannot be sensed by witches or wizards. Your spell, however, could have been overheard, or they may have had a ward set up to recognize any spells cast by witches or wizards near the portal. Those would have given us away immediately, but my magic did not.”
“Who knew being an elf had so many advantages?” I said, shaking my head somewhat incredulously.
“There’s a reason most of us have an overinflated ego and a huge superiority complex,” Kyran said with a grin, and I shoved him toward the path as the two of us followed where the other wizards had come from, making our way toward Kilokilo.
The path was actually a lot longer than I had expected, and it took us about twenty minutes before we finally reached the end of it and found ourselves on the outskirts of town.
Kilokilo looked exactly like what I imagined a small island village in Hawaii should look like. We came out of the trail right on the edge of town, with the ocean on our immediate right and the town on our left, built right along the sheltered bay. Small, wind-weathered wooden houses lined sandy streets, with brooms leaning up against all of the houses, completely unsecured. Along with the brooms were a few surfboards, and with the sun rising, I could just make out a couple of eager surfers getting in some early morning waves.
A warm breeze brushed against my face as I looked over the town, and Kyran squeezed my hand.
“What do you think is the most important thing to do?” he asked. I thought about it for a minute, then settled on an answer.
“I need to get a spell from here,” I replied. “I need to know the words to a certain spell of the coven of Titan. That way, when we get back to Western Woods I can test it out and know for sure if this is my coven or not.”
Kyran nodded. “Alright, so the best way to do that is going to be to go into town. There should be a coven headquarters, right?”
“I would think so, but this isn’t exactly a subject I know a lot about,” I replied sheepishly. “Maybe we could even just go to the beach? I bet when those surfers get out of the water they’ll use a spell for something, whether it’s to wash off their surfboards or make sure the sand doesn’t get stuck to their feet.”
“Good thinking,” Kyran said. “How are we going to do that without being seen, though?”
This time it was my turn to grin. “Invisibility spell.”
“And you know how to cast them now?” Kyran asked, and I nodded.
“Certainly do. I’ve done one on myself before.”
“Sounds like as good a plan as any. If we get separated, let’s meet back here in two hours, okay?”
I nodded. “Got it.” I pulled out my wand and pointed it at Kyran. Jupiter with your power so mythical, turn this elf in front of me invisible.”
Kyran immediately disappeared, and I grinned as I always did when I successfully managed to pull off a spell.
“This is cool,” Kyran said. “When we turn ourselves invisible, it’s only to others; we can still see ourselves. I can’t see myself now, but I know I exist.”
“My turn,” I said, repeating the spell, but this time pointing the wand at myself. A second later, sure enough, I looked down and couldn’t see my legs—or any other part of me—anymore.
“Alright,” I said. “Time to go explore the weird coven I might have come from.”
Chapter 23
Kyran and I ended up walking hand-in-hand toward the beach so as not to separate ourselves too much.
“That one guy’s pretty good,” I said, pointi
ng at one of the surfers for a split second before I realized there was no way Kyran could see who I was pointing at.
“He is,” Kyran’s voice agreed next to me. Obviously, he knew exactly who I meant. “I’ve never actually seen anybody surfing in real life before.”
“Really?” I asked, turning to face him.
“Really,” Kyran confirmed. “Keep in mind, surfing as a recreational sport has only been a thing for less than a couple hundred years, which to an elf is virtually nothing. And while I do travel, I don’t tend to spend a lot of time in a lot of the surfing hotspots. So I know what it is, but I’ve never really seen it in person. It’s quite impressive.”
“It is,” I agreed. “I’ve actually never seen any in person either. Seattle isn’t exactly known for its surfing, and we never travelled when I was a kid.”
Just then, one of the surfers came in and made his way toward a small pile of clothes that had been left by the shore. I tugged at Kyran’s arm and motioned toward the guy, but again forgot that Kyran wouldn’t be able to see.
“That guy,” I whispered, and the two of us began to make our way toward him. I winced as I looked down, realizing that even though we were invisible, with every step, Kyran and I were leaving footsteps in the sand. I stopped, wondering what we should do.
“Footsteps,” I whispered to Kyran, who immediately stopped.
“Ok, we’re going to have to go into town instead,” he whispered. “Come on, let’s get onto the dry sand, where it’ll be less visible.”
Our initial plan foiled, we made our way up the sand to what was obviously the main street in town. I had to admit, from all the talk about how secretive the coven of Titan was, I had kind of expected it to be something like the magical equivalent of North Korea or something. But it was a surprisingly normal-looking place. There was a café, with tables and chairs in the open air giving a beautiful patio vibe. From a bakery, the most amazing smell of fresh bread wafted toward my nostrils. A hole-in-the-wall shack advertised specials on fish and chips and shrimp, and next to that was a magical gelato company, advertising not only their delicious tropical fruit flavors but the magical additions one could top their frozen with—ground unicorn hair for good luck, a special coconut-based syrup to avoid sunburn, and more.
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