Chapter - Sixteen

On Felix's return, I promised my mother I would see her soon. We'd barely spent an afternoon with her and I already had to go, desperate to search for answers about my parents in the institute's library. Her arms trembled as she hugged me and kissed my cheek. The portal glimmered behind us in the living room.

‘Will you be back?' she asked, holding onto me just a little longer.

‘As soon as I can, I'll be back,' I said and I meant it. ‘I just have to know.'

‘I understand. Call me when you can.'

Felix pressed a hand to my lower back, the action making me tear up as I let go of my mother. ‘You ready?' he asked me.

‘Let's go,' I said.

‘You take care of my girl now, you hear me?' Angie said to him.

Felix nodded at my mother. ‘Of course, Angie. I won't leave her side.' He grabbed the bags and waited at the edge of the portal, letting us hug it out a final time.

My mother glanced inside the portal as I withdrew to Felix's side. ‘I'll never get over the whole portal thing,' she said, staring at the glowing room inside the circle. ‘It's absolutely marvellous.'

‘I'll take you through one someday,' I said, smiling at her.

She waved me goodbye, wiping away a stray tear. ‘I can't wait.' Her bottom lip wobbled. ‘I'll take care of your studies and friends, don't you worry.' She smiled. ‘I love you.'

‘Thank you, I love you more.'

And then I was stepping into the portal with Felix, my feet catching the drift as I swirled inside, before plunging down and dropping heavily back onto my feet. Felix grabbed my arm as I swayed in place. I nodded and slithered my hand out of his grasp before taking a look around. Zuzanna was standing ahead of us, her porcelain skin kissed by the warmth of the sun. She pushed her silvery-blonde hair from her face and, taking one look at my crumpled face, embraced me.

‘It's okay,' she told me, soothing me as she rubbed circles over my back.

‘I didn't think I was going to cry.' I half laughed, a small hiccup breaking the sound.

‘You have every right to cry,' she said as I drew back from her, wiping my eyes. Zuzanna's strong gaze held mine. ‘Let's get your mind off things. How about we go and see your rooms, hmm?'

‘That would be lovely.'

We went inside. Streaming sun poured through the glass windows, lighting our way as we followed Zuzanna down the institute's hallways.

Zuzanna explained, ‘This is the dormitory wing, where anyone who seeks refuge among the council comes to sleep and eat. Your rooms will have their own bathroom and small living area, as well as a separate bedroom. The kitchens serve food at all times, so no one is ever hungry.'

A few seconds later, Zuzanna stopped and pointed to a door for me and one for Felix right across the hall. Felix dropped off his bags outside his door, then, still carrying my things, he plonked them down outside my door for me. I slid inside the unlocked room. It was larger than I had anticipated from the outside, with a spacious queen bed, a television mounted on the wall opposite the bed, a bathroom and a living area. Everything in the room was dressed either in velvet blue or blush pink.

I turned back to Zuzanna to smile at her. ‘Thank you, it's wonderful.'

She bowed her head. ‘You're very welcome.'

‘Where's the library?' Felix asked Zuzanna.

‘We are in the west wing and the library is in the north wing. You will need to take the elevator down, walk for a bit, then catch the elevator up to the fourth floor.'

He licked his lips. ‘Can we go there now?'

Zuzanna shrugged her shoulders, her freckled skin glowing. ‘I don't see why not.'

‘Do you want to go there now?' Felix asked me.

‘Yes!'

‘We'll see you later,' Felix told Zuzanna.

She waved us away. ‘Go. Have fun!'

I waved back to her as we slipped down the corridor, my feet hurrying to keep up with Felix. We followed her instructions and arrived in a library so vast it made me gasp. It was decorated with lush, grey, carpeted floors and crimson curtains. Stacks of warlock magic books were nestled on bookshelves that included sections on curing depression in lycanthropes and feeding blood to a newborn child of death. The room had high ceilings with a stained-glass window roof and reinforced metal beams running across it. In the centre of the room was a statue of the first council members, their beautiful faces carved from marble like Greek gods. They were symbolic of the loyalty that existed between the folklore worlds, stressing the need to always maintain a bond between kinds.

Felix reached for my hand as we moved further down the main hall. Tables and chairs were nestled in among the paperbacks for readers' comfort. He gently tugged on my hand to get me to move while his eyes scanned the walls.

‘Why do you do that?'

‘Do what?' he asked gruffly.

‘Hold my hand.'

Felix kept walking, avoiding my eyes. ‘It's to keep you safe.'

‘What danger are we in?' I looked around the room. Most of the people were engrossed in their own books. ‘I don't see any threat.'

He side-eyed me. ‘Do you want me to let go?' he asked quietly.

I paused. ‘No.'

Felix's smile was wicked. ‘Then you like it.'

He drew me to a table, letting go of my hand. I watched him pluck a few books from the shelves and squint at the titles. A few he put back but some he dropped on the table, the thunderous noise startling the room of readers. A few heads turned wearing fierce glares as I mouthed, ‘Sorry'.

‘Haven't you ever been in a library?' I asked him.

‘Not since I was in university,' he told me as he concentrated on his task.

‘Well you have to be quiet.'

‘Duh.'

‘But you just––‘

‘They'll handle it,' he said, clearing his throat and changing the subject. ‘They have a whole section on halflings here. We'll find more here than anywhere else.'

I grabbed a pink-bound book with gold lettering. Felix had already begun to turn the pages of a paperback about talismans and beacons. We discovered that perhaps the colour of my hair protected me as well as serving as a beacon. Now that my glamour was gone, surely I needed some kind of protection. Weirder things have happened.

I began researching beacons, wondering how my hair could be used to signal my location to my mother or both parents. My hair was illuminated even though I was inside a building, and it was tied up into a bun and tucked beneath a cap I'd borrowed from Felix. He looked up at me periodically as we searched and asked if I had found anything. We spent hours pouring over books, my eyes fluttering closed on a number of instances. The books stacked higher as we discarded some and pulled out more, fishing for whatever information we could find. My eyes were beginning to close again when Felix jolted from his seat and shoved a book beneath my nose.

‘What?' I asked him, sounding crankier than I was.

‘Look here,' he said, pointing to a paragraph on the page. ‘Invincibility.'

‘What?' I repeated, looking down at the book. He jabbed his finger over the word and took the book back to read it aloud.

‘"In Greek mythology, there is the legend of Nisus, who had a single lock of purple hair which granted him and his city invincibility. It had magical power and granted him life".'

I snatched the book from him. ‘So it made him unable to be killed?'

‘Yes. And made his city well protected.'

Could that be what mine is?' I asked in earnest. ‘Protection?'

‘I'm not sure yet. It's just a theory,' Felix said. ‘Maybe your birth parents were protecting you in case the glamour was removed and you were left undefended. Maybe it means poachers can't track you or something.'

‘What about the name my mother said my birth mother called me? Could that be a clue about why I am protected?'

Felix's eyes gleamed at my suggestion and he raced off again to search for more books. I found the name, Deitra in a Greek baby name book. When Felix returned, I showed him the contents. ‘The name means goddess-like,' I explained. He scanned the page. ‘Why would she call me a goddess?'

‘I'm not sure. Unless she's referring to you as a goddess because of your heritage?' His eyes lit up and he snatched a book from the table, paging through it quickly. When he found the page he was looking for, he shoved it under my nose. ‘"Deitra. Meaning goddess. Coming from the Greek name Deianira which translates to man-destroyer'." He gave me a sharp look before continuing to read. ‘"Deianira was associated with combat and was known for her practices in the art of war and driving of a chariot".'

My thoughts raced before I asked, ‘What does that have to do with the nickname?'

Felix sighed. ‘Tabs, it means your mother was calling you a goddess in your own right. Perhaps that's something to do with her being more than a youngblood. You only need one parent to be split between human and a mythical being. Volker said you're more than just a normal youngblood. Maybe you get something more from your mother.'

‘And my father?' I demanded. ‘We have nothing about him.'

‘In time we will,' he reassured me. ‘One step at a time.'

The thought was comforting. And I knew we'd find something to go off soon.

???

‘Just try it.'

‘No.' I wrinkled my nose but my mouth watered at the smell of the blood.

Felix rolled his eyes, exasperated. ‘You know you want to,' he said, wiggling the blood bag in front of my nose.

We sat cross legged on the rug in my small living room at the institute. Felix had knocked earlier, saying he had supplies from Alice and Clementine, who were worried I hadn't eaten since my bloodlust. He'd then ushered himself inside without being invited and had dropped five blood bags onto the coffee table. After an afternoon in the library, I was woozy and tired, and he suggested blood would help me regain my strength.

‘I don't want to,' I said, trying to stand my ground. Fear clutched at my heart.

Felix huffed, pouting slightly at me. My fight crumbled slightly. ‘Tabs …'

‘Don't you dare,' I said, shooting daggers at him with my eyes.

He looked at me through his dark eyelashes, properly pouting this time. ‘I was just trying to help.'

And just like that, my resolve dispersed. I was pathetic; one sad puppy-dog look and I melted on the spot. How I hated the effect he had on me. All he had to do was pout and I wanted to be his.

My hands shook as I held them out and Felix dropped the blood bag into my awaiting hands. His eyes were like moonlight as I opened the bag and stuck the straw he'd brought into the top. Placing it in my mouth, I swallowed my first mouthful of blood.

It was like breathing. My head spun as I gulped down the cold liquid a little faster. Felix's starry eyes never strayed from my face, his silver irises expanding as he punctured his own blood bag with a straw. We drank with only the sound of our hushed murmurs of pleasure filling the room. The smell of blood made my nostrils flare. I licked my lips clean as I drained the bag in a few minutes, waiting for the shame to roll over me as I placed it back on the coffee table.

But it never came. Felix looked at me in admiration, like I was a masterpiece. His lips were smudged with a trace of blood and he wiped his mouth, then, catching me staring, gave a wet laugh.

‘How do you feel?' he whispered, as if he didn't dare break the silence.

I nodded, still bewitched by his silver irises. ‘Better.' I paused. ‘Sorry, I was just scared. I don't want to be who I was in Amara.'

Felix ran his tongue over his canines. ‘I won't let that happen.'

I waited a moment. ‘Can I ask you something?'

‘Sure.'

‘Did you like being human?'

A strange expression crossed his features. Regret? ‘I loved it.'

‘You never talk of it.'

He glanced away. ‘Because I'll never be human again, so there's no point dwelling on the past. I don't like to think of what I would be if I hadn't been turned.'

‘You've never talked about who turned you,' I said.

Felix bit his lip. ‘It's deeply personal to speak of one's creator. We hardly ever ask.'

‘Sorry,' I said. ‘I shouldn't have said anything.'

‘No.' He grabbed for my hand when I started to move away. ‘Don't. I don't mind telling you.'

My muscles were jelly from his touch.

Felix continued. ‘Before I was turned, I had my whole life planned out. I was going to graduate in law in a few months and start a legal practice with my father. He and I were negotiating on who would run the business and we couldn't agree, so we hired this woman.'

He looked haunted by the memory. I kept quiet, intertwining our fingers, feeling the cool nip of his ring-clad fingers next to mine.

‘Her name was Indra. She wasn't much older than me and we grew close.' He met my gaze for a fraction of a second. ‘One evening, I invited her to dinner and we ended up in this alleyway, kissing. The next thing I knew she was sinking her teeth into my neck, drinking from me. And afterwards, she fed me her blood, which meant I had child of death blood running in my veins. So when she snapped my neck, I became one.'

‘She killed you?' I asked, raising my eyebrows.

‘It's how you are turned into a child of death. Indra said I could be more than what I was – that by dying, I would lead an extraordinary life, which is why she turned me. And then I freaked out because I didn't know what was happening to me. So I starved until I lost control, went into bloodlust, and killed someone, and then I realised what I was.' He fell silent for a moment. ‘You know the rest.'

‘I'm so sorry, Felix.'

He didn't move, frozen like a statue. ‘It was a long time ago.' Felix gripped my hand tighter. He reached with his free hand for another blood bag, dropping the subject. ‘Another?'

He seemed ready to move on from the personal talk. I nodded, swiping my tongue over my bottom lip, feeling my canines reveal themselves. ‘Please.'

‘Getting the hang of it?' he asked, handing me another bag. I barely had the straw in before I was gulping down mouthfuls of blood. ‘Try and slow down, it helps you feel fuller.'

I drew the blood bag away from my mouth. ‘Thank you.' Felix lifted a brow. ‘For helping me.'

He half smiled. ‘It's what friends do.'

‘Friends, huh?' My grin widened as I saw his cheeks tinge slightly pink.

‘Shut up.'

I shut my mouth, loving the blush spreading over his face. I had made Felix visibly bothered for the first time. And I loved it.