Chapter - Six

Saturday morning sun shone through the windows as we gathered in the living room of Blanche and Talora's home. In just a few moments, the Crimson Siblings were to arrive. Blanche and Talora sat me down on the couch, both of them making a fuss over my makeup and hair. Felix was back to being obnoxious. He hadn't bothered replying when I asked him a question about the siblings, leaving Calum to answer instead. I tried not to feel down about Felix's behaviour, so I busied myself with looking good for the representatives. My nerves tingled at the thought of meeting with them.

‘So who's coming today?' I asked.

‘It should be four children of death,' Talora said. ‘We've met them before in our dealings with the council many moons ago. None of them will pose any threat to you; they will merely be inquisitive. And they are all very aged; they have seen many unusual things during their lifetime.'

Florence smiled at me, watching me wring my hands. ‘You'll be fine.'

I stole a glance at Felix who was slouched in an armchair. His eyes stared so hard that he could have burned a hole into the wall beside him. He still wasn't talking to me after the evening with Angel.

Calum noticed me looking at Felix and scowled at his brother.

‘I'm really scared,' I said and exhaled deeply.

Blanche reached out to take my hand. ‘Dear, they are not holding you responsible for any crime, and they would never harm you. You are merely a curious case to them. Hardly any youngbloods exist. Our kind don't produce such anomalies often, so when a halfling is born, the council aids in protecting them.'

‘Still haven't proved she's a youngblood; she could just be an odd human,' Felix said, fiddling with a necklace he wore.

‘Why are you in such a mood today?' Calum asked him.

‘No reason. Just ready for this to be done.' I flinched at Felix's words which were as sharp as cut glass.

‘I think I hear something,' Blanche whispered. She went to the window and peeked out behind the curtains. ‘Oh! They're here.'

Everyone straightened up in their seats, except for Felix. He merely rolled his head around and I tried to ignore the feeling of his eyes boring into my neck. Talora and Blanche strode to the door, arguing quietly. Calum ran a hand over his buzz cut and whispered something to Felix, but Felix ignored him. I waited in silence as I heard the front door crack open and voices stream through to the room. The distinct sounds of footsteps carried through the house and my heart raced. Blanche returned through the archway first, flourishing her hands around the space.

‘Please make yourself welcome,' she said with a smile.

The four siblings entered, looking as icy and regal as I'd expected. The men were tall and strode with self-importance into the room first. They were dressed in expensive tailored suits, breast pockets adorned with silk roses on snowy-white handkerchiefs. One man clicked across the floorboards in his shiny black shoes and sat directly across from me. A beautiful woman, her mouth stained a plum-wine colour and her eyes rimmed with copper shadow, followed him. She had starlight-blonde hair that was perfectly tapered down her back in elegant waves. She smiled at me briefly before sitting next to her partner.

The second woman had chocolate-brown curls and bright-green eyes, the colour so unearthly, I didn't know how to look into them. Her royal-blue dress softly brushed her ankles and at her wrists, bracelets jingled. Beside her was a slender man with a tense jaw, dark features and honey-coloured skin that glowed bizarrely. He dipped his head in greeting, preferring to stand rather than sit, and looked me up and down.

Florence plucked a tray of cups and saucers from the coffee table and offered them all tea. Her hands were a little jittery and the china rattled on the tray. All the siblings graciously thanked her before Florence darted out of the room. I kept my eyes on the siblings, wondering what I was to do in front of such unearthly beings.

‘This is the girl?' the woman with the curls asked, her green eyes alight.

‘Yes. This is Tabitha,' Talora replied, giving me a supportive smile.

‘She smells like a Fae,' the woman said. ‘How old is she?'

I coughed. ‘I'm nineteen, ma'am.'

The woman grinned at me. ‘Please, call me Alice.'

The man with darker skin placed his teacup down. ‘I am Lawrence and this is my associate, Sebastian.' The second man bowed his head to me out of respect. ‘Thank you for seeing us. You've been most patient. Hopefully your hosts have been good to you.'

The woman with starlight hair glanced between Felix and me. ‘He has not drunk from you since, has he?'

I quickly shook my head. ‘No, just the once.'

She nodded gently. ‘Ah yes, upon discovery that you could not be wiped, he then kidnapped you, as I am told. I am Clementine, by the way. And I am glad to know your hosts have behaved themselves since.'

Calum chuckled. ‘Mostly behaved.'

‘So long as the youngblood has not been touched since, no blame is required. Makes it a little easier for us to do our job,' Clementine added.

‘Are you going to kill me?' I blurted out.

All four faces dropped in shock. ‘Why would we kill you?' Lawrence asked, searching my face with great intensity. ‘Has someone threatened your life?'

‘I just wondered,' I told him. ‘What happens to youngbloods? Nobody knows much about them and I'm still sort of worried that since they're rare that means they get murdered.'

Clementine pressed a hand to her cheek in surprise. ‘No dear, we wish not to harm you. That would be far too cruel.'

‘Nobody here will even pluck a hair from your head,' said Sebastian, his voice low and rough like a shot of whisky. ‘Youngbloods are protected under all our laws.'

Alice slid forward on her chair. ‘Tell us. Your mother, she is human?'

‘I'm pretty sure. She's never done anything unhuman, and when I was a kid and saw things, she called them delusions,' I said.

‘What did you see?' Clementine asked.

‘People, mostly. A woman with white hair and a man with these strange burning eyes.' The vision played on repeat in my mind as I spoke, flickering in and out of focus. ‘My mother took me to many doctors to see if the visions were hallucinations, and they put me on medications that made me numb, but nothing has ever stopped them happening.'

‘This mother sounds mortal,' Lawrence muttered, sipping more tea. ‘Only a human would react with terror. Would you have said you were adopted?'

I shook my head. ‘That's the crazy thing – we look alike. I've never doubted for a moment that I was her child until I found out I couldn't be.'

Clementine stood up and came to my side, her pale skin showing the blueish hue of her veins beneath. She pressed a hand to my chin and I shivered from the coolness of her body temperature. I let her tilt my head and study my face. When she brushed her thumb over my mouth, she suddenly pulled back, glancing back at the other siblings.

‘Can you sense it too?' she asked them all. ‘The presence? Sebastian?'

Sebastian nodded. ‘Yes. I felt it waver when we entered the room. It detected us and heightened in strength.'

‘What?' I asked, my voice a little pitchy. ‘What presence?'

‘A glamour,' Alice said, nodding. ‘Yes, I feel it too.'

Lawrence cocked his head. ‘And yet she is blissfully unaware of it.' He glanced at the others. ‘I will be right back. Excuse me.'

We watched him leave the room. Clementine turned back to me, pressing her thumb to my cheek. With a tiny sigh, she asked, ‘Do you know what a glamour is?'

‘No.'

‘It's like a blanket that protects you and fights off anything that might threaten you. Glamours are made by warlocks. It picked up on us when we came through the door and actually strengthened itself to keep you safe. It must have a sensor that signals it to increase its protection against any being that might expose you as more than human.'

Panic rose in my throat. ‘Why would someone put a spell on me but not tell me about it? Can you take the glamour off?'

‘We can, but it could hurt,' she explained. ‘It's tightly bound to your skin. And remember, it is to protect you. This glamour shields the human world from seeing any immortal traits in you. Faeries have animal traits as well as magic powers. And children of death have fangs, the ability to drink blood, and strength beyond belief. So, this glamour stops any of our kind's traits from showing. It makes you appear mortal.'

I felt flustered as I answered, ‘So, I could have some immortal traits?'

Alice shrugged. ‘We can't be sure. You might have canines or a faerie trait, or a bit of both, and sometimes even nothing. This is a highly powerful glamour and has probably been lingering in the essence of your skin for years. It is nestled very deeply in you and I doubt tugging it out would be easy. Exposing something like it could hurt quite badly.'

‘Demonic energies are never to be muddled with,' Lawrence said, scoffing a little. ‘But, if we could find the warlock who put it on her, they could safely remove it. It is their magic, after all.'

‘Do we know who that is?' Alice asked. ‘I can't think of any encounters in the last nineteen years where a warlock has been sent to glamour a youngblood. We didn't even know she existed.'

‘I can see her warlock mark,' Felix announced to the siblings.

Clementine faced him. ‘How?'

‘We sought out a warlock and––‘

‘You did what?' Sebastian sucked in a deep breath. ‘Felix, that is an incredibly dangerous adventure.'

‘We were fine,' Felix replied with a wave of his hand. ‘Angel gave me "the sight" and now I can see her warlock mark. It's an antler, behind her right knee.'

‘What does this mean for a glamour?' I asked Alice.

She squinted at my leg. ‘It's the seal that keeps your glamour attached to you. And I am very unhappy that I cannot see it.'

Clementine retracted her hand from my cheek. My face tingled from the loss of contact. I let her look at the mark on my finger. She murmured beneath her breath, my human hearing unable to catch the words, but the other siblings appeared to hear.

Sebastian spoke to me. ‘Tell me of your father, Tabitha. What do you know of him?'

I blinked. ‘I used to ask about my father when I was a kid. There were never any photos in our home and I didn't have a big family growing up. It was really just my mother and me.'

‘She never said anything?'

I recalled our last conversation. It had ended in us screaming at each other. The awful memory made me bite down on my tongue before I answered them. ‘When I was little, she told me he hadn't been able to stay with us. As I got older she told me he had died before I was born. The only name I ever got out of her was Finnian.'

The room stilled as Clementine drank some tea, her cheeks becoming paler than the rest of her as she processed what I'd said.

Lawrence returned then and coaxed the other siblings to the side of the room where they formed a circle. A whispered conversation followed which I couldn't hear. Alone on the couch, my heart pounded and a buzz began to spread through my fingers. Felix, still sitting in the armchair, stood up and strode over. He took a seat beside me and our knees knocked as he grabbed my hand. I took in his wide palms and strong knuckles that were wrapped around my shaking hands.

‘What's wrong?' I asked him under my breath.

‘All I can hear is your heart,' he answered. His cool skin made goose bumps break out over my arms.

‘Sorry.'

He shrugged. ‘Don't be. It's a hard day.'

‘Will they remove the glamour off me?'

He swiped his tongue over his bottom lip. ‘Probably not. Most likely they'll try to find the warlock who put it on you to take it off safely. The Lotus Siblings could remove it, but they don't know its limitations and could unnecessarily harm you while doing so. Keeping you safe is important.'

We sat together, my shoulders shaking, waiting for the siblings to finish their discussion. Calum tried to preoccupy me with some awful jokes about how trolls weren't anything like the ones in story books. Florence returned to the room with tea made from herbs in the garden. She said it would ease my fear. Felix held onto my hand like he was holding me together. And in that moment, it really felt like he was.

When the siblings had mentioned the glamour, I could feel something slithering around like a serpent under my skin, as though it was winding tightly around my cells. It felt like a coat I hadn't known I was wearing. The glamour fluttered when I moved and shivered around me. Concern blossomed in my stomach at the thought of being spelled. But this glamour had protected me for my whole life. Surely it would not harm me.

The siblings broke apart. All of them found their respective places on the couch. Lawrence grimaced and said, ‘So I tried calling the council to ask if anyone had ordered a youngblood to be glamoured in the past nineteen years and nobody fessed up. Which means somebody is either lying or it was an undercover operation. We think someone who knew you, glamoured you. You have probably been glamoured since an infant, perhaps right after being delivered to your mother, so you seemed human.'

‘Do you have a lead on the warlock?' Felix asked when I didn't.

Alice shook her head. ‘No, but we will search for a warlock who uses an antler as their mark. The Lotus Siblings are also going to look into things. They are magically gifted, so they may be able to see through the glamour. Faeries have abilities to cast spells and can sometimes remove them, but they will have to meet Tabitha in three days to find out whether they can remove it or not.'

‘Three days?' I said.

Clementine looked crestfallen. ‘I'm sorry dear; they are preoccupied with some pressing matters. And they know the glamour will not hurt you; it will not do anything out of the ordinary. You will be safe.'

I sank back into the pillows. Felix dropped my hands to throw an arm around me, holding me close. He asked the siblings, ‘What do we do in the meantime?'

‘Just stay put,' Alice said. ‘Don't do anything to draw attention to her. She needs to be kept safe. We will search for her birth parents, but that may take some time.'

‘What can I do to help?' I asked.

Lawrence shook his head. ‘You are fine, just let us handle this. It is part of our specialty to find missing beings of our kind.'

‘The Lotus Siblings will come to see you; just wait for them to arrive,' Alice said.

They rose, as elegant as ever, and departed with a kind murmur of thanks to Blanche and Talora, leaving an icy breeze that frosted the windows.