Chapter 17

SEVENTEEN

For a moment, I could only stare in horror as my worlds collided.

How had Ari teleported right into the fifth floor office? And why, oh why, did she have to collide with Angelica, who already hated me?

“I’m s o sorry,” I said hastily, darting towards them with no thought other than getting Ari away from Angelica before she noticed anything odd.

Well, odder than the fact that she could teleport.

“She’s mine,” I added, then thought better of it and clarified. “I mean, not mine , but… yes.”

I sounded like a babbling idiot.

“She’s not my mom,” Ari announced calmly. “But we live with her.”

I had to figure out how to keep my blessedly oblivious six-year-old quiet before she blithely announced anything I couldn’t explain my way out of.

I crouched down in front of her. “Ari, how did you find me? Do Kes or Logan know where you are?”

She shook her head and grinned. “I got bored. Logan is napping, and Kiki is talking to a stranger.”

Another surge of fear hit me. Kes never talked to anyone.

“Why are you raising a sprite child?” Angelica interrupted suddenly. “You can’t possibly keep her safe. She should be with her own family.”

A million possible retorts rose to my lips, along with a million denials, but it was Ari who turned to look up at her with a frown.

“My parents are dead.” She said the words with a calm sort of finality that broke my heart. I hadn’t even been sure whether she knew what had happened to her parents. She’d always seemed so cheerful and energetic. “So are Logan’s. But Rainy loves us and feeds us. She keeps us safe, so she’s our family now.”

It hit me right in the heart.

We were family. No matter where we’d come from or how we got here.

“You’re right, Ari-bug.” I told her firmly. “We are a family. Which means we look out for each other, no matter what.”

She nodded emphatically. I heard a soft sound from Angelica as if she was about to interrupt, but I ignored it. This was too important.

“Can you tell me who Kes was talking to?”

Ari’s button nose wrinkled. “Fae,” she said, and I instantly felt that old spike of urgency and adrenaline that accompanied my fear of discovery.

But Draven had said our tormentors were dead…

“Did he have short hair? Scars on his face?” I sensed Callum’s scrutiny burning into the side of my head, but I kept my gaze on Ari.

“Yep!” She nodded and bounced up and down on her toes. “Kiki looked mad, but I think she was sad.”

Rath. He’d found us somehow.

I stood and whirled towards Callum. “I need to go. I have to make sure…”

“I’ll take you.” He didn’t even hesitate.

“But…”

“Raine.” Our eyes locked. “Let me do this.”

If I hadn’t been so frantic… If I hadn’t needed to be there now… I would have still said yes. Because he was the one person I trusted enough to let him see my fear.

“Thank you,” I murmured. “I’m sure it’s fine. But I need to know…”

I turned to Ari. “We have to go, Bug.”

Her chin lifted stubbornly. “I don’t want to. It’s boring there.”

She wasn’t wrong, but what else could I do? And yet, how could I keep her anywhere if she chose not to stay? My control over her was tenuous at best, and the harder I tried to contain her, the more frustrated she might become.

I was out of my depth and sinking fast, and had literally nowhere to turn.

“Leave her with me.”

I blinked uncomprehendingly at Angelica, and she stared back, looking almost defensive. It was a weirdly generous offer, but she was close to the last person on earth I would have asked to babysit.

“I can’t ask you to do that.”

“You didn’t ask,” she returned briskly. “I offered.”

It couldn’t possibly be safe. What if Ari told her more of our story than she was prepared to hear? And what if Angelica was actually our mole?

Callum seemed to hear me thinking. “Ari will be fine,” he assured me. “Angelica is very capable.”

Very organized, yes. Very good at her job. But I wasn’t sure her job had prepared her for a sprite child with a soul full of mischief and a heart full of caprice.

When I hesitated again, Angelica’s chin tilted up, and she looked me dead in the eye. “I will keep her safe,” she insisted fiercely, her eyes flashing with magic for the first time since I’d met her. “Gryphons do not harm children.”

I wouldn’t be able to help Kes if I was worried about Ari, and it was probably safer for her here than in a moving car. And if I were wrong?

Ari was more than capable of simply disappearing again.

“Okay,” I said helplessly. “Thank you. Ari, please stay in this building.”

She was just beginning to look mulish when I heard the sound of arguing from outside.

Kevin. Trying to stop someone. Asking for their security badge. The voices escalated, then the exterior doors flew open.

I wasn’t at all prepared for Kes to come charging through the doorway, with Prince Rath right on her heels. She took one look at Ari and let out a gasp of relief, dropping to the floor as her knees gave way.

“Thank you,” she whispered to no one in particular. Her head lifted, and I watched as her eyes filled with tears. “Raine.” She was clearly still terrified, and even in my distracted state, I noted the fae prince hovering nearby with a grim expression, not touching her, but not moving far away, either.

“What happened?”

“It’s Logan.”

My lips went numb as I immediately began racing through the possibilities. “Is he okay?”

Kes’s face was ashen. “Raine, he’s disappeared, too.”

I shut my eyes. There was a strange ringing in my ears, and a hollow emptiness opening up in my chest while a hurricane of catastrophe buffeted me on all sides. It felt like everything was falling apart.

How had I ever thought that I could do this? Keep them all safe? Provide them with what they needed? Give them safety and a new life all on my own?

I had failed so badly. But there was no one else. No one else cared enough, so it was up to me. I had to fix it. Do better. Find Logan.

My eyes snapped open. At least he couldn’t have been gone for long.

Ari had said he was sleeping. So he’d either realized Ari had disappeared and gone to find her or…

I was past worrying about power or titles or consequences. I strode over to the prince of the fae, grabbed his collar, and yanked him towards me.

Or rather, I pulled, and he let me, wearing a slightly wary but tolerant expression.

“Did you have anything to do with Logan’s disappearance?” My voice sounded normal, but it felt all wrong. A current of magic hummed at the back of my mind, hovering in anticipation as it waited for an answer.

“No.” The scarred prince was eyeing me thoughtfully as he spoke. “I have never met Logan. My only intent was to speak with Kestryl.”

Kestryl? Was that her real name?

“And did you distract her in order to give someone else access to Logan?”

“I did not.”

The hum changed pitch. It was happy. Rath had told the truth.

How did I know?

His answers left a lot of possibilities, but at least I knew it wasn’t the fae.

“Raine.” Callum’s deep voice snared my whirling thoughts, slowed them to a churn, and tugged me to face him.

How did he do that? How did he make me feel safer with nothing more than his voice?

“What kind of magic does Logan have?”

I didn’t like the question. Didn’t like what it said that he’d already figured out we were all different. But it didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered except finding Logan.

“Earth,” I said tightly. “He has earth magic.”

“Then we need Faris.”

I hesitated. Last I’d seen Faris, he’d been suspecting me of murder. I wasn’t sure I wanted him involved with my little family.

“Faris doesn’t trust me,” I pointed out. “Why would he help me?”

“He doesn’t suspect you any longer,” Callum informed me. “And if Logan uses magic anywhere nearby, Faris will be able to find him.”

Well, that I hadn’t known.

When I nodded tightly, Callum took out his phone and made the call.

To my surprise, it didn’t require much persuasion. He said maybe a total of a dozen words before hanging up again.

“He’s en route.”

Which left the six of us staring awkwardly at one another while we waited.

“I think,” Rath said delicately, “that this is my cue to leave.” He paused. “Kes…”

“I’m not coming back,” she said quietly, refusing to turn and look at him. “I can’t. Please don’t try to change my mind.”

For a moment, he hovered, and I saw both pain and regret flit across his face.

“Very well.” He bowed his head briefly. “I am pleased to have been able to see you again. Please do not hesitate to reach out if you are ever in need.”

A few brief moments later, he was gone.

Kes’s eyes shut, and I saw tears glimmering on her cheeks, but I didn’t ask. Not yet. Not in front of so many strangers. Whatever conversation they’d had must have been deeply painful, and I would never force her to relive that unless she chose to.

I looked over at Angelica, and she responded by giving me a small nod before glancing down at Ari.

“I have snacks and a phone,” she stated loudly. “Up in my office, if anyone would like to come upstairs with me.”

Okay, so apparently she did know something about children. That was all it took for Ari to gaze at her adoringly and follow her up the stairs and out of sight without a single word of complaint.

That left me and Callum and Kes, but both Kes and I were too worried for niceties, while Callum’s instincts for nurturing behavior were probably not very strong.

I was suddenly reminded of my first official meeting with him and murmured under my breath, “I suspect this is the point where Kira might tell you that tea fixes everything.”

His eyes softened. “Does it?”

“Not really,” I acknowledged. “But I think it gives people something to do with their head and their hands while their hearts are busy being afraid.”

That provoked a smile from my grim dragon boss. Ex-boss? Had he actually fired me for real?

“I would offer to make you tea,” he said, “but I’m out. Kira brought Hugh over last night to meet Ember, and they drank it all.”

Hugh… Oh, right. That was Kira’s gargoyle friend. “Who is Ember?”

A slight flush appeared on his cheeks. “The kitten,” he admitted.

He’d named it . That meant he was keeping it.

Visions assailed me of the huge, cranky dragon shifter cradling the tiny orange kitten, and my heart promptly tried to melt. I reminded it sternly that dragons were still off limits, no matter how many kittens they adopted.

Thankfully, before my heart could get too rebellious, a dark Range Rover pulled up at the curb and Faris jumped out wearing an expression like he was about to go to war. He stalked past Kevin, blasted through the door and bore down on our little group like a spring thunderstorm.

“So that’s what I’ve been feeling for the past two weeks,” he grumbled, brows furrowed over glimmering green eyes as he glanced between me and Kes. “Wish you’d have told me there was an adolescent earth elemental running around my city. Been driving me crazy trying to figure out who the rogue is.”

I faced him stubbornly as my anxiety began to rise along with my anger. It didn’t matter what was between us in the past—I was determined to keep everything under wraps as long as he would help us.

“I’m sorry.” I took a deep breath to steady myself. “I didn’t know it would matter. But if you can help me find him…” I would do or say whatever I had to.

“No, I’m sorry.”

My eyes flew wide.

Faris looked like he was glaring as he confronted me, beard bristling and arms crossed over his chest. “I shouldn’t have accused you without cause,” he rumbled. “I was angry, and I lashed out. Can you forgive me?”

I must have literally staggered with the force of my shock, because Callum grabbed my arm. Here was a second person in a position of power choosing to apologize when they were wrong.

Had I entered an alternate universe?

“I… yes. Of course. Forgiven.”

Faris nodded once, as if to say that would be the end of it. “Now tell me more about your missing kid.”

“Logan,” I told him, almost frantically. “He’s… maybe thirteen? About my height. Skinny, long arms and legs, medium brown hair that he won’t brush. He’s had a hard time controlling his magic, but I don’t know how to help him.”

“No way you would,” Faris grunted in reply. “But don’t worry. We’ll sort him out. Any idea where he might go?”

“He wouldn’t normally have left without asking or telling anyone,” I replied automatically, feeling a bit of panic as I realized how many of our secrets were being spilled for everyone to see. But his safety mattered more. “He’s almost scary responsible for his age, and he knows he has to stay inside to be safe.”

Faris shot me a glance that suggested he would be revisiting that statement later.

“You think someone took him?”

It was my worst fear. But I couldn’t imagine someone managing to kidnap him without him fighting back, and Kes would have felt that.

Unless…

“He might have tried to follow Ari,” I said hesitantly. “But she’s…”

“A sprite,” Callum finished the sentence for me. “He wouldn’t have known where to go.”

Faris raised an eyebrow at me and Kes. “You two have one sprite kid and one teenage elemental? How do you even sleep at night?” He shook his head. “Don’t worry, we’ll find him.”

Turning on his heel, he marched outside, and the rest of us followed in a line. But he didn’t go far—only to the nearest tree, where he crouched down and laid both hands flat on the dirt near the roots.

His eyes closed. His forehead knitted with concentration, but he made no sound for a minute, then two. At about the three-minute mark, his eyes popped open, and he grunted. Tilted his head up at me and let out a small chuckle.

“Your boy’s a smart one,” he said. “He’s waiting for you at The Portal.”

I spent half the walk across the street plotting all the ways I was going to make Logan regret his decisions, and the other half wondering if he would let me hug him out of sheer relief.

But who had found him first? What had they done with him? Would they put a harmless teenager in those awful steel-doored rooms downstairs?

No. They wouldn’t. And if they’d tried, he would have flipped. Too many bad memories of places like that.

I started looking around the moment the four of us marched through the front door, and didn’t see him immediately. But as it turned out, that was because he was sitting on the floor, with about a hundred pounds of wriggling dog slobbering happily all over him.

Apparently, Logan had passed the Waffles Test.

When he saw me, he tried to jump to his feet, but Waffles wasn’t having it, so they just ended up in a tangle of arms, legs, and fur. I could almost feel Faris relaxing as he watched them, as if he’d feared a far different scene.

“I’m sorry,” Logan mumbled, his voice a little muffled. “But Ari disappeared, and I didn’t know where else to go. I still haven’t been able to find her.”

“We have Ari,” I reassured him, crouching down to pat Waffles’ head before taking his collar and pulling him off of poor Logan. “She’s fine. But how did you even find me here?”

His eyes widened as he scrambled to his feet and seemed to notice my companions for the first time. “I…uh…”

“It’s safe to talk in front of them,” I promised. “They know you’re an earth elemental.”

He swallowed and turned a little pale. “If I’m outside, I can follow you to work,” he muttered. “I can feel the direction of your footsteps.”

Well, that was an interesting development.

“That’s a very precise and powerful skill,” Faris noted, his green eyes sharp and assessing. “How did you learn to do that?”

Logan glowered at him and crossed his skinny arms stubbornly. “It’s none of your business.”

It was all I could do not to instinctively place myself between the two of them, but part of me understood it would do no good.

“You’re in my city.” Faris informed him sternly. “And I’ve felt the tremors you’ve caused while experimenting with your power. You might think they’re harmless, but even the smallest can create instability if you don’t know what you’re doing. And I’m a much older, much stronger earth elemental than you, so I’d say it is my business.”

I could see the fury building behind Logan’s brown eyes. All the pressure from holding back his power, hiding from the world, begging for answers while just trying to survive. “You have no idea what I think,” he snapped. “Or what I can do.”

He was only thirteen. Scared and confused, in possession of a power he had no idea how to control. I’d feared an explosion for months. Seen the pressure and the fatigue taking its toll. I only hoped I could talk him down before he completely lost his grip on the magic that threatened to tear him apart.

“Logan…”

“No, Raine.” His jaw was set. “You think I don’t see it, but I do. I see how hard you try to make everything okay. I see that you’re tired and you’re worried, but you don’t tell us because you don’t want to scare us.”

His eyes… I’d never seen them glow before. But suddenly they were hot, molten gold.

“But I’m old enough and strong enough to help. You don’t have to do everything by yourself. If you could just trust me…”

Somewhere beneath our feet, the ground began to rumble—a sound like boulders rolling unchecked down a hill. Logan’s head fell back, his teeth ground together, and the veins on his arms popped as his fists clenched so tightly his knuckles turned pale…

No. Not just pale. They were white , veined with gray.

His hands had turned to granite.

“Logan, don’t!” Kes cried, but he seemed beyond hearing.

And Faris? He was watching all this with his head tilted to the side. Not angry. Not judging. Just watching. Until the first tremor rattled the glasses behind the bar.

He took a single step. Laid one hand on the side of Logan’s head.

“ Stop .”

My kid crumpled like a dropped sock puppet. Just a heap of bony limbs—eyes closed, face pale. Faris caught him and lowered him to the floor.

I darted forward. “What did you…”

“He’s fine.” Faris reached out and smoothed the boy’s brown hair—an oddly tender gesture. “I only did to him the same as you did to Talia the other night. Yanked his earth sense away. He only passed out because he’s suffering from exhaustion and malnutrition.”

He shot me an indecipherable look. “I don’t know how you ended up with these two kids, and I won’t ask. But you need help. Logan needs help. He has his magic chained, so any time it gets loose, it’s a disaster waiting to happen. He needs to learn finesse. Control. Before he knocks down an entire city in the throes of puberty.”

I knew he was right. I’d known it for months. But how could I make this choice? How could I ask for help, knowing that it could expose us and make us fugitives once again?

I had no idea what would happen once the truth about our magic came to light, but I knew it would be ugly, and how could I ask the kids to face that? Being judged or reviled—or worse, locked up again—for a crime they didn’t commit?

“I know.” I couldn’t meet Faris’s assessing gaze. “But I can’t risk…”

“No risk.” He was immovable as a mountain. “I’m not going to judge your choices. Not going to dig into anyone’s background. The kid needs help, and I’m offering. If it helps, think of it as my apology.”

Logan began to cough and sat up. “What happened?”

“You tried to destroy a few city blocks,” Faris reminded him dryly. “But I told you, this is my city, and I’m not going to let you knock it down out of sheer ignorance. Besides, if you want to scare someone, earthquakes aren’t the way to do it.”

I saw the thoughts warring behind Logan’s eyes. On the one hand, he really wanted to refuse to talk to the man who’d just knocked him out. On the other… he was now very curious.

“How would you do it?”

Tension bled from my shoulders. Somehow, Faris had reeled in my stubborn, cautious teenager—with curiosity.

“Turn the ground against them. Yank it out from under them. Make it move, make it soft, then hard. You want them feeling like they can’t trust the earth beneath their feet. Messes with their heads. Makes them angry, and angry people do stupid things.”

Logan scowled a little as he rose to his feet, but I could tell he got the point. “I can do that a little,” he said. “But only with dirt. I haven’t figured out how to do it with rocks or concrete.”

“You want me to show you?” Faris regarded him steadily.

“What’s the catch?”

That was what happened when life kicked you in the teeth one too many times. You began to believe it always would.

“You agree to let me teach you,” Faris replied, not budging an inch. “You show up. You listen. You work hard. And I get to decide when you’re safe enough on your own.”

Logan thought about it. I could see how badly he wanted it.

But he turned to me before he answered. “Is this… okay?”

It was the same question I’d been asking myself for days now. The same question that haunted us both, and might someday haunt Ari too when she was old enough to understand.

Was it okay to pretend that this magic was truly our own? Were we right to embrace what fate had handed us?

I guess I’d been keeping them all safe for long enough that Logan thought I would know. That I would have all the answers.

Sadly, I didn’t, and one look at Kes confirmed that she didn’t either.

“It’s up to you.” I tried to sound calm and encouraging. “But I don’t think Faris will hurt you. He might even be able to help you.”

“What if we have to leave?”

The months of running and hiding had taken their toll. It was now branded on his mind that we might need to leave at a moment’s notice. And we still might. But no one here needed to know that.

“We’ll discuss that if it happens,” I told him.

He turned back to Faris. Squared his narrow shoulders and lifted his chin. “Okay. I want you to teach me.”

The giant elemental gave him an approving nod. “Then come with me,” he said. “First lesson starts now.”

Logan looked at me once more, and I nodded. “Go ahead. I’ll make sure you get home later, after class is over.”

One of his rare smiles bloomed right before he reached out and hugged me.

Hard.

“Thanks, Raine.”

Shock froze me in place as he let go and jogged off after Faris. My silent, nearly immobile, entirely unemotional teen had hugged me, and now he was running .

“Don’t worry,” Callum’s voice came from right behind my shoulder. “It’s normal.”

“Are you sure?” I was suddenly blinking back tears. “I’ve never had a teenager before. Teenage boys are like a foreign species. I just know that I worry, but I have no idea how to help.”

“I have two younger brothers,” the dragon reminded me. “He’s going to be fine. Faris might come off as a bit of a grumpy, hard-nosed curmudgeon, but he’s got the biggest, squishiest heart of anyone I ever met.”

Faris? Squishy?

I remembered the Waffles test and decided he was probably telling the truth.

So now what?

The hits had come so hard and fast that I almost couldn’t believe we were still safe. Still standing. That there weren’t any more immediate crises for me to solve, except making sure that Kes and Ari made it home safely.

And on the work front?

I took stock of my responsibilities and realized I wasn’t entirely sure what came next. Was I fired? Was I not fired? As far as I knew, I would be attending the reception this evening, but the afternoon was empty, and the next two days of deliberation and voting were limited to delegates only. No bodyguards, no assistants, no… dates. I would be standing by on one of the upper floors of the building, waiting to intervene in case of catastrophe.

Basically, I was the magical version of Kevin, but without the mustache.

“So… am I actually fired?” I asked my boss tentatively, and heard a quick gasp from Kes.

“Do you want to be?” Callum’s question was earnest and a little vulnerable, so I had no choice but to be honest.

“No.” Weirdly, I no longer cared what anyone believed about our relationship. I wanted to be there. Wanted to keep my promises and see this through. “But what exactly will my job entail for the rest of the day?”

Callum sighed, ran a hand through his hair, and regarded me grimly. “I’m sorry to say, it’s likely to be boring at times and downright torturous at others.”

“You want me to hang out in the office with Angelica?”

His lips twitched. “She’s not actually as terrible as she seems. Just very concerned with details and appearances. Makes her great at her job, even if she can be a bit… tense.”

“Just give me the bad news.”

“I’m afraid it’s very bad indeed,” he said mournfully. “You’re going to have to go shopping.”