Chapter 22

"It's reallydifficult to have a secret base of operations when you tell everyone and their fathers where the secret base is." Ace accompanies his accusation with a finger to Akile's chest when he leads us and the fathers back into the cherub's work area.

Akile grabs his brother's arm and jerks him into a tight hug. "They wouldn't let me leave their mansion until I agreed to bring them with! I was in Tag's private realm. No one enters or leaves without his permission."

This is new information to me. Listen, I know there was a little um, hiccup, in the first book with the time zone calculation because time zones are hard. So yeah, I never really followed through with the whole where-is-the-mansion located thing. Since I've never made a mistake in my life, it didn't occur to me to even ask.

So now we know, the fathers live in a private realm.

Hey, if you live in a private realm, why is the time zone different, and also, can you do what Grandma Bone did that made it so I could talk in her realm?

Everyone here reads my message, and then Tag raises his eyes to mine curiously. "What did she do?"

I shrug.

Magic.

Obviously.

Tag snorts. "Obviously. I will ask her what she did to enable you to ‘talk' and see if I can adjust the realm to allow for it."

Grandma Bone: If you're talking about me, 1. I protest anyone calling me Grandma Bone, and 2. It was a simple evocation spell combined with a translation spell that allowed Romily to project his thoughts into the language of any being capable of hearing and understanding within the realm.

Me: Does that mean that I heard English but you might've heard Elvish?

Grandma Bone: I do prefer to listen in my native language.

I look up to Tag with pleading eyes.

He's staring through me thoughtfully. "I think I understand how she did it. I will work on weaving that spell into the rules of the realm," he promises.

Clapping my approval, I jump to give the tall elf a kiss on the cheek in thanks. I love the idea of being able to "talk" to my family sometimes.

A small gaggle of tiny cherubs descend on our group then. With me are Sterling and Co., Bellamy and Fox, Fox's fathers and Akile, and Edovard and his evil polycule. As I'm counting everyone, Annette and Gwendolyn walk in together. Daddy presses her lips together when she sees all the cherubs and looks like she's seconds away from calling their parents. She doesn't like to see the cherubs without adult supervision.

"What the fuck is happening here?" she demands, indicating the cherubs that are now each taking one person by the hand.

"Interviews, Ms. Killian," Ace replies with an adorably innocent and disarming smile. "We're interviewing all of The Harbinger's people just in case one of you is the next Avatar of Neutrality."

Daddy peers at him skeptically. "I thought we believed that Darcy is the most qualified." As soon as the words exit her mouth, she smirks. "Where is he, anyway. Did anyone record his reaction when you told him about being the next neutral Avatar?"

I look at Akile, since he's the one in charge of this, but he looks at Ace, who looks at Bellamy, and Bellamy turns to me.

I get the impression no one has actually spoken to Darcy.

Who told Darcy that dinner last night was going to happen at the father's house, and now that I'm thinking about it, why wasn't he there?

The silence between us is disheartening.

I was abducted!

I was definitely not in charge of messaging Darcy.

Bellamy holds up his hands in protest. "It took us three days to track you down. I canceled dinner with Darcy, and it's completely reasonable that I didn't think of inviting him to the mansion. I was certainly not in charge of informing him that we think he's the next neutral Avatar. I value my friendship with him, and that would strain our relationship."

Oooh yeah, Darcy isn't going to be happy if he is the next Avatar of Neutrality. He's not the social responsibility type.

"We may not need to tell him at all," Grandma Bone points out. "The universal force is perfectly capable of finding its Avatar across multiple realms and universes. It doesn't necessarily need proximity. The only people who need to be close are the ones doing the awakening."

Jethro shakes his head. "No, you're wrong. I need to be there. Sterling needs to be there with me. Bellamy needs to be there. The magic is insistent on those. I don't have any feelings about Darcy being there, but my instincts know that some of us who aren't doing the awakening need to be there." He stops and looks around the group, then points to Akile. "You and Ace. Your presence may not be strictly necessary, but you wouldn't be unwelcome, and…" he trails off, looking around. Shaking his head. "There's someone missing, but I get the feeling that they're also not necessary, just absent. Maybe it"s Darcy." He says Darcy's name with a familiar sort of disgust and grudging respect. He clearly knows our wayward tracker.

Annette cocks her head at Jethro, narrowing her eyes skeptically. "You think that magic is talking to you?"

Jethro reacts by mirroring her expression. "No. The magic uses my own instincts to communicate."

Santanos steps into the conversation, holding the hand of a little cherub who's about knee height on him. "That is similar to how magic communicates with me. I wouldn't call it instincts for me, though. Usually it's my first thought that is the correct course for me."

Annette glances between the two of them thoughtfully. "I don't think the magic has ever communicated with me."

"How do you know what the right thing to do is?" Edovard asks; he's holding two cherubs in his arms and has two more on his shoulders.

I lift my phone and snap a photo of the adorableness of my pupper being the cherubs' current jungle gym.

Annette smiles at Edovard with affectionate love. "I have always had a strong sense of right and wrong. I always choose what will do the most good or the most immediate good. Sometimes those two things are not the same and I make a judgment call on that."

Edovard smiles back. "Yes, I can see that now."

"Since the magic seems to be instructing Jethro," Ace begins, redirecting the conversation, "who is going to Arktis? I want a list, and then everyone else is getting interviewed. I will not be going if I'm not needed."

"I'm going," Akile announces immediately.

Jethro lists off the people he thinks should be there: Santanos, Annette, Gwendolyn, and Bellamy, Sterling, and then he hesitantly points to Edovard. "I think you would be helpful, but not necessary," he tells my pupper.

Edovard starts helping the cherubs down. "I like being helpful."

Fox and I are going. We are not letting our sons and my bestie go wake up a universal force without us.

Ace nods, making notes on a tablet, and smiles when he looks up. "Ok, everyone going can follow Akile to the portal room. The rest of you will get to answer interview questions with the friends. We're compiling data at this point, so your cooperation will be helpful as we move forward into the next stage."

With that, we all break into our respective groups. I slip my arm through Akile's at the lead and arch an expectant eyebrow at my bestie. He stayed with my in-laws last night, and I want to know if anything happened. We have time for tea before we change the world.

Akile, being a very smart bestie, rolls his eyes at me. "I went to bed by myself last night and I woke up alone."

I narrow my eyes to communicate that that doesn"t mean nothing happened. It just didn't happen in the bed he slept in.

He chuckles and bats my hand. He glances over his shoulder before leaning close to my ear. "Ok, Dakota is a total Daddy, and between him and Bear I will be walking crooked for a week. Tag is the sluttiest slut to ever slut; I definitely learned a bunch of new tricks from him, and Amos… I don't even have words. He's got a little bit of incubaccha in him at least. He kept us going for hours until we were literally too exhausted to stay awake. They showered me with water and praise and then escorted me to my own bed."

I stare at my bestie in awe of him. I am so fucking happy for you.

Akile and I share a wide grin. "It was a magnificent night," he sighs, dreamily. "All my dreams came true."

I huff a laugh. You're going to have to find bigger dreams now, but I can't imagine what's bigger than an orgy with four of the sexiest men on the planet.

He laughs with me, kisses my temple, and releases my arm so he can open and hold the door to the portal room while the rest of our group follows me inside.

I'm learning that the cherubs never go halfway with things, so while the portal room is empty except for a couple of portals, the walls are filled with colorful drawings that the cherubs did themselves. They put up sheets of paper and filled the room with their art. Some pieces are incredibly lifelike, while others look like refrigerator art done by kindergarteners. Every inch of color delights the hell out of me.

After we're all in, Akile takes us through the portal to the ice cave under Arktis, and soon we're all standing around the exposed prison covered in glowing worms.

"Now for the hard part," Akile says, waving a hand at the prison. "We have no idea what you should do."

Gwendolyn steps forward. "If the Avatars don't mind, I'd like to take the lead," she says.

Santanos and Annette agree, and Gwendolyn swipes away some of the worms, pressing her hand against the prison. She stands there like that for several quiet minutes, then she steps back. "I don't think we can break the ward without the full force of the third Avatar, but we can reach through it."

Santanos touches the prison, shaking his head. "How do you propose we get through that?" he asks curiously.

"We treat it like a maze and weave our way to the other side," she explains.

Annette's wavy red hair bounces side to side as she shakes her head. "That ward isn't going to allow neutral magic through it. It's specifically designed to keep it inside. Santanos and I can easily pass through the ward the way you're describing, but bringing neutral magic back out isn't going to be possible."

Gwendolyn holds out her hands to the Avatars. "If you two work together to create a bypass, I can get through and bring the magic out. Make a tunnel, like a straw, and I'll go through with my magic and hopefully awaken the neutral force and lead it back out through the tunnel you two make."

After a beat, Santanos nods. "Ok, I see it. We can do that."

Annette nods her agreement, and the two Avatars take Gwendolyn's hands.

What follows is two hours of those three not moving a muscle.

I snap a picture about five minutes in and send it to the group chat. Then I remember that no one has told Darcy what's happening, so I send him the picture too with the caption, "Incoming!"

Darcy doesn't respond, but if he's on a job, he wouldn't necessarily get back to me right away.

The image of him doing some random tracking job and then suddenly finding himself invested with the universal force of neutrality gives me a little bit of schadenfreude. He is going to hate being the Avatar of Neutrality at first, but he's old enough to get over it and learn to take some responsibility.

At about the two hour mark, Edovard shuffles toward Santanos with a frown. We were all quiet at first, but after half an hour, Sterling was bored, so he turned to Jethro and started making out like the rest of us didn't exist. Akile decided to entertain Edovard with some magic tricks—not real magic; he started sleight of handing a quarter—and the rest of us have been conversing over text.

Edovard places a tentative hand on Santanos' shoulder. Santanos doesn't move, but Edovard blows out a sigh of relief, and then moves behind Gwendolyn and puts his other hand on Annette's shoulder. Gwendolyn moves slightly, straightening her back, and Edovard visibly relaxes, joining the avatars in whatever they're doing.

I guess it's time to hurry up and wait some more. Yay. I'm so glad I decided I needed to be here for this.