The Weight of a Wing (The Stolen Wings Book 1) (17 page)

BOOK: The Weight of a Wing (The Stolen Wings Book 1)
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Chapter Thirty-Four

 

The rooms had an eerie feel in the settling dusk. Shadows
followed their footsteps as they moved through the house. It was empty. Vale
stopped at the bottom of the large staircase with a rail made of old, sculpted
wood, and looked up. No sign of activity came from upstairs, either.

“We should have returned sooner,” Rafe said. “We might have
found a lead.”

“Uh-huh,” was all Vale said. He was not about to remind him
whose idea it had been to look for the Mermaid. They both knew why he had done
it.

“At least the wolves are gone.” Rafe stepped over a pool of
dried blood—the battle had taken place in the main hall—and he started up the
stairs.

Behind him, Vale arched an eyebrow. He would have expected
Rafe to welcome a fight, especially after recent events. Some slashing was
exactly what they needed to reinforce their morale and prove they couldn’t
easily be defeated.

Rafe looked back over his shoulder and grinned. “I bet
you’re glad the stench is gone.”

Vale couldn’t argue with that. Werewolves’ animalistic scent
had always offended his sensitive nose. They smelled like wet dogs most of the
time. He could think of worse—vampires smelled like death, like the walking
corpses they were—but why subject themselves to such unpleasantries when it
could be avoided? He appreciated that Gorem had bothered to somewhat clean up
after himself. The bodies were gone, but the blood remained.

On the upper floor, the corridor had a circular shape with
windows on one side, all of them opening to an interior yard. Unfortunately,
all the shutters were closed. Rafe opened one of them and looked outside.
Flowerpots, a table and chairs, and some toys lay on the ground. Nothing out of
ordinary.

“Hmm. Nice house,” Rafe said. “I wonder where the initial
owners are.”

His sarcastic tone implied he already knew the answer. They
were either out of town or buried somewhere on the grounds. Neither of them
offered to start digging. There was nothing left to do for the owners if they
were dead. Let the humans handle the problem.

Just like downstairs, they found the rooms empty with no
recent sign of habitation. They were alone in a sad, deserted place. There were
no answers here.

The small carpet in the middle of the main bedroom swirled
when Rafe turned swiftly on it. Other than that, he hid his frustration well.

“You weren’t expecting to find him here, were you?” Vale
calmly asked. Rafe might say a lot of things, but they had known each other
their whole lives, and he could tell the difference between what was important
and what wasn’t.

“No.”

Gorem had fled the scene the moment they had appeared,
leaving the Werewolves to fight in his place. They hadn’t even seen him. Such
lack of courage was a disgrace.

“I want to know why he did it,” Rafe said. “We were told
some of what he did, but we were never told why. Don’t you find that
intriguing?”

That was one way to put it. It was a damn conspiracy, but
Vale didn’t want to dwell on that thought. It wasn’t their job to solve the
Council’s problems. They were sent to protect or, in this case, bring people to
justice. “Do you think Alise knows?” He’d wondered about this lately.

Rafe looked away, avoiding Vale’s piercing gaze. “I don’t
know. She clearly hasn’t told us everything.”

“You think?”

The hint of irony in Vale’s voice had Rafe rolling his eyes.
“I’m not
that
naïve.”

“You healed her.” The words didn’t come out as an
accusation, but more like a statement.

Rafe shook his head. “Not fully. It’s just a temporary fix.”

“And it will get worse.” Vale nodded slowly. The pause felt
like drawing out the pain, but it was nothing compared to what the Fairy had to
be feeling, and what she would soon endure. Vale wasn’t heartless. He was
actually kind. He wanted to spare her the pain. “You’ve seen it happen before.
I still think you should have killed her.” Confronted with Rafe’s cold glare,
he held up his hands. “Hey, I’m not judging! At least yours is from the same
world…”

“When she’s not self-exiling herself…” A ghost of a smile
flew over Rafe’s face. “But that’s no good. She must hate me now. I could have
saved her and … I didn’t.” He let his shoulders drop. When he looked up, he had
a lost look in his eyes. “At least the agony will be short. A couple of weeks
and it will all be over, right?”

He waited for Vale’s confirmation, although neither of them
believed that. It might be over for Alise, but not for Rafe. He would go on
living with the pain, another layer added to the ones he already carried, and
the burden would sometimes be too much. He let out a breath.

It happened to all of them eventually, so Vale didn’t bother
to reply. His silence alone showed his support, which Rafe had anyway.

“Okay. Let’s go,” Rafe said, running a hand through his
hair. “We’re done here.”

Vale agreed with a nod.

Chapter Thirty-Five

 

The cleaning had gone well. Alise was pleased with the
result. Her room looked much larger in the absence of all the stuff she had
thrown out. Amazing how many useless things one could collect in a few short
years. She wasn’t going to miss any of them.

A few burned herbs had refreshed the air, removing the scent
of bleach. The apartment was as clean as it could be without having major
amounts of magic involved. There wasn’t much to do about the rest of the
building, other than burning more herbs for the atmosphere. Cassie claimed the
administrator threatened to have the corridors repainted in the fall, so maybe
that wasn’t such a bad idea. Of course, the summer heat would amplify the faint
scent left by the monster’s passing, which could make painting top-priority.

Alise didn’t care much. She had a feeling she wasn’t going
to be around that long, and the monster residue was not a threat to Cassie or
the other humans. She laid her head back on the lounge chair and gazed at the
stars. They were different here from the ones she was used to seeing on the
other side, and it made her miss them. It had to be because of the booze. Or
the poison. Who cared? She was going crazy anyway.

“Are you in pain?” Cassie asked from the lounge chair next
to hers. An empty box of pizza lay on the small table between them.

 “What?” Alise turned her head towards her friend. “No. No
pain…”

“It’s just that… You keep touching your side.”

“Oh, that…” Alise’s hand automatically went to her right
side. She shrugged. “It doesn’t hurt.” If she really cared to elaborate, which
she didn’t, she would say it was just cold.

Cassie watched her pensively, obviously trying to figure out
whether Alise was lying. Deciding she wasn’t, she reached for her drink–one
more than usual, but she didn’t have anywhere to go in the morning. It was
officially vacation. No exams or classes until fall. “Will they be able to cure
it?” she asked quietly.

The lounge chair screeched when Alise rolled on her side to
face her. “There’s balance in the universe. There has to be a cure …
somewhere…” Her voice trailed off. Somewhere. She’d never heard of a cure, but
she didn’t usually socialize with Mermaids. Mermaids meant large amounts of
water most of the time, and she didn’t like water.

“Well, that’s good then. I’m sure Rafe and Vale will help
you find it.” Cassie nodded, satisfied.

“That’s not their job,” Alise said. “Their orders are to
bring me back. That’s all.”

Cassie chuckled and pulled her legs up. “Excuse me, but I
don’t see Rafe taking orders from anyone.”

“They’re Guardians. They’re supposed to follow orders.” It
was ingrained into them.

“And they also have to protect the innocent,” Cassie said.
“Which means they have to help you!”

Alise wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She wanted this
whole thing to be over. At the same time, she wasn’t indifferent to the
outcome. It was her life at stake, and despite all the running and hiding, she
wasn’t ready to throw in the towel yet. Too bad she had figured that out when
she couldn’t do much about it.

Leaning over the armrest of her chair, Cassie watched her
intently.

“What?” Alise murmured.

 

Chapter Thirty-Six

 

“Did you hear that?” Rafe froze at the top of the landing
and cocked his head.

Two steps down, Vale turned to look at him. “I don’t hear
anything.”

Rafe swayed in place. Their senses were sharp so why
couldn’t Vale hear it? Rafe took a step to the left, one to the right, and bent
his knees a little. He put on a satisfied grin. “That’s because you’re lower
than me. I can hear it here…” He leaned to the left. “But not here…” He leaned
to the right. He pointed at the inside wall. “It must be coming from there. The
yard?” He arched an eyebrow.

They had found nothing in the yard that could have made that
noise. Hairs prickled on the back of Rafe’s neck while he trailed back to the
window. He recognized the source of the distant hum accompanied by static. He
unlocked the shutters, hoping he was wrong. The abrasive scent of the red
geraniums that decorated the windowsill outside stung his nose.

With Vale breathing down his neck, they both stared at the
wide vortex of purple light that floated about three meters above the ground.

“Wonderful. A vortex undetectable in daylight,” Rafe said.
“I wonder where it leads.”

He made no move to climb on the windowsill, but Vale’s hand
still rested on his shoulder. “I wouldn’t recommend that.”

While tempting, Rafe wouldn’t risk going in there. A certain
dark-haired Fairy with an existential crisis kept him on this side. He shook
his head.
Besides, how did people manage to get there? By jumping?
Easy
to do for Guardians, but not for anyone else. “Would it even let us pass?” He
eyed the vortex.

Vale picked a small rock from a flowerpot and tossed it into
the void. It flew straight into it where it exploded under the attack of
several lightning strikes from the sides. The vortex twisted and turned like an
animal inside a cage, quietly roaring.

“You think that’s what would happen to our weapons and
clothes, too?” Rafe deadpanned.

 

* * *

 

“What?” Alise repeated.

Cassie’s intense look faltered, and she sighed. “Do you
think they’re all right? They’ve been gone ever since returning to town and
that was several hours ago.”

She sounded worried.
Perhaps she should be
.
Personally, she had ambivalent feelings on the matter. Once you ended up as
food for Mermaids, it was hard to get over that. Rafe could have prevented it
from happening. He
should
have prevented it. Alise didn’t know why he hadn’t,
and he hadn’t bothered to explain. Maybe he didn’t care enough. She had thought
he did, at least a little bit. There had been subtle and less than subtle
hints, like that kiss, but when time had come for him to rise to the occasion,
he had failed. Guardians never failed. They died, but they didn’t fail. She had
been wrong, but she couldn’t blame it on the poison yet.

Alise disliked the attachment Cassie was forming with the
Guardians. However, she didn’t want to worry her. “They’re trained for these kinds
of things. I would be surprised if they died that easily.”

“But what if they’ve been captured? You saw what they did to
Vale … just because they could.” The corners of Cassie’s mouth dropped.

Alise winced. What the Wizard had done to Vale was nothing
compared to what Gorem had done to her. “Gorem takes no prisoners,” she
muttered. The Guardians were no use to him. They only got in the way.

Cassie bit her lip and watched her from underneath lowered
lashes. “Would you know it if something bad happened to them?”

Would she?
“Not directly.” She thought about the
magic sigil and reconsidered. She could still feel it, a slow burn that made
its presence known whenever she consciously thought about it, balanced out by
the coldness of the poison that flared from her side. She glanced down. A gray
smudged vine peeked from underneath the leg of her shorts on her right thigh.
She pulled on the hem to cover it. The poison was spreading, corrupting the
magic paths. Soon, she wasn’t going to be able to wear shorts anymore. “Why do
you care?”

“Because they saved us,” Cassie said. “They didn’t have to,
but they did. And I think…” She hesitated, and her voice lowered to a whisper,
“I think they want to save you, too.”

Alise fought the temptation to argue with part of that
statement because it was useless. Cassie was good at reading people, so there
was no point in trying to convince her otherwise. She took a sip from her drink
then put the glass down on the table and lay back in her chair. For several
moments, she stared at the sky. She smiled when the first wing brushed against
her skin.

Next to her, Cassie gasped.

There were hundreds of butterflies in all possible colors
swarming around them, softly batting their wings. Cassie stared, blinking
rapidly, and leaned back as if wanting to disappear into her chair. Alise waved
a hand, directing them. The butterflies flew up high in the sky and turned
north, leaving a scintillating trail below the clouds.

“What—what was that?” Cassie’s eyes were wide.

“If they’re still around, they’ll find them.” It intrigued
her to see the butterflies follow the same direction as the sparks for the
location spell a couple of nights ago.
Why would they return to that
deserted place?

“I thought you said you can’t do magic anymore,” Cassie
said.

“It comes and goes.” Alise shrugged. It was totally
unreliable at this point, but she could still do some if she concentrated hard
enough. Aside from that, while the absence of magic was slowly killing her, its
presence was speeding up the poison’s infestation process, leaving her torn
between the two options that were no options at all.

Cassie shook her head and shuddered. “I hate butterflies.”

What an odd little girl
.

BOOK: The Weight of a Wing (The Stolen Wings Book 1)
12.22Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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