Chapter 25: Miles - Penned - Change

Miles
Penned

“How could this have happened again?” Even though my arms covered my head, I could feel Brayden’s fury. It was easy to see him in my mind’s eye, shaking in his seat as he glared accusingly around the table. “This is the third time you’ve lost her! And now, she’s in trouble and we can’t help!”

“Technically,” Damen began, obviously affronted, “the first time this happened, Bryce was the one who let her get kidnapped from under his nose. He succumbed to the poison.”

“I succumbed to the poison?” Bryce’s tone was sarcastic—something that didn’t bode well for their newly reformed friendship. “I’d like to see you take on the amount of poison I have in my life and survive. But you wouldn’t, because you’ve spent your whole life being pampered and protected by others.”

“Oh, knock it off, both of you,” Finn chipped in. “Maybe she’s okay? Kiania hasn’t said anything.”

“But would she even tell you?” Julian, surprisingly, did not sound sarcastic for once. “She doesn’t like you.”

“She hasn’t said anything to me either,” Damen replied, and I could hear his wavering confidence in his voice. After all, the fact that Kiania was not only resisting his summoning—but also hasn’t popped up with frantic news of Bianca—was the only thing helping the onmyoji keep his head on straight.

We didn’t know for sure that something was wrong. Maybe Ada, Gloria, and Bianca all couldn’t answer their cell phones.

At the same time.

It could be completely innocent and this feeling was a fluke.

“That tells us nothing,” Julian retorted. “Because she definitely doesn’t like you. She’d keep it from you just to screw with your head.”

That was true also, and something that Damen was obviously trying to overlook. As was this, “She wouldn’t do this just to hurt Damen.” I lifted my head from the table, glancing around the room.

We were in Titus’s grand conference room, waiting for the dragon to finally respond to his messages, as we tried to formulate the next part of our plan. My sense of unease was steadily growing, because even if Titus might ignore a message from one of us, it would never be for something regarding Bianca.

Maria, too, would never let a correspondence go unanswered. Having an unread message would bother her.

And while there was Kiania—who would avoid talking to Damen, and Finn, if she could—something else was wrong with this picture…

“Kiania likes Bianca,” I pointed out. “If we’re looking for her, and it’s on her behalf, she would answer if she could.”

The doubtful expressions on Damen and Finn’s face were almost insulting.

“She does!” I argued, pressing my palms onto the table. How could they not consider how close Kiania and Mu were in past lives? Something might have happened to cause Kiania to avoid Mu, but I doubted that it was because they disliked each other. How could they not see it? Didn’t they also notice this, “Do you really think Kiania set out to hurt Bianca? As she proved, she could have seriously harmed her any time she wanted with their bond, but she didn’t. Also, she didn’t have any hesitation when fighting Mr. Dungworth on Bianca’s behalf when Finn summoned her.”

“Mr… Who?” Finn’s brows were furrowed in confusion.

“Mr. Dungworth!” Did he forget? “The ghost wolf shifter that liked to haunt the girl’s locker room. Bianca was attacked while I was at practice. Kiania showed up and ate him.”

Finn’s frown deepened, and my confidence faltered.

“You were there, right?” I asked the blonde onmyoji. “I figured you were stalking her…” My voice trailed off as Finn’s expression remained unmoved.

“No,” he replied. “I never summoned Kiania for any wolf shifter ghost.”

Bryce seemed just as confused as me, so I knew he’d felt it too.

She’d definitely been summoned by an onmyoji.

Which led to the question, “If you didn’t summon her, who did?” I looked to Damen, but he appeared to be as confused as Finn.

So it hadn’t occurred to him yet.

“Bianca?” I was almost certain—which led to another point in one of my theories.

Mu’s grand plan—I was beginning to gain greater insight as to what it might be.

Damen scowled as he touched his glasses. “Bianca can’t summon shikigami,” was his response.

Of course, he’d be in denial—Huo had always been the most possessive of his abilities and the secrets they held.

“No one cares how Kiania showed up.” But I could tell by his voice that he really, really did care. Damen’s jaw was stubbornly set as he glowered around the table. “We can’t wait for Titus anymore, but we also have no idea where they were going, and—not now Kasai.”

“Kasai?” Julian was standing, back to the wall, as he surveyed the room. “What does he want?”

“Don’t worry.” Damen shrugged him off. “Belial is up to something else shady in the underworld. But as usual, he’s harmless. I’ll get it under control once we figure out where Bianca is. Then we… what?”

“‘What’, what?” Julian asked, stepping forward. His caution was rippling through the room, causing my discomfort to grow.

Damen was running his fingers through his hair, agitation growing. “I’m not going to act as a translator. Just…” Then he whistled, summoning the shikigami into our realm.

As always, Damen’s call was answered almost instantaneously, and the white bird soared from the shadowy ceiling and landed directly in front of the onmyoji. “You’re not going to be able to contact the dragon,” he said. “He’s currently an unwilling part of Belial’s rebellion.”

“What are you talking about?” Damen leaned toward his familiar. My skin felt tight as my worry grew and the voices of unrest that always lingered at the back of my mind grew stronger.

Bianca was gone, and—even though I tried to downplay it for my own sanity—she was most definitely in a life-threatening situation. Meanwhile we hadn’t the faintest idea where to begin to search.

And Titus was now missing too.

If Belial was involved with this in any way…

“The rumor in the Underworld is that you’re slipping,” Kasai replied cautiously. “Belial’s been undermining you for a while. I’m not entirely confident in the details, but shikigami talk. There’s a gathering of onmyoji working together to imprison the dragon indefinitely.”

“Well, they’re going to fail.” Damen was glowering. “It would take a massive amount of energy to keep him contained even with Belial’s help. I’d only be able to do it on my best days.”

Then Kasai spoke the words that shot ice through my heart. “Not if they have an almost infinite energy source.”

The shikigami didn’t need to elaborate, the answer was already clear. Wood nurtured Fire, as fae helped onmyoji grow stronger by enhancing their powers. And, no insult to Bryce’s strength as Er Bashou, but it was highly unlikely that any other fae could provide the power necessary to pull off such a feat.

But Bianca could.

So we knew what was happening to Bianca, but still no idea where to find them. This also explained Julian’s pressing need to get to her. For Bianca—if this was truly what was happening—the presence of the necromancer now was, quite literally, a matter of life and death.

“Can you find out where they are?” Damen’s skin had paled, and he glanced to Finn. The blonde, in comparison, was turning a remarkable shade of red. He was staring at his clenched fists as they shook against the table. “And also, why is Kiania not answering us?”

For a shikigami to ignore a summon from its master was a serious infringement of their contract.

“She refuses to leave,” Kasai smoothly replied. “She’s staying with Mu until they need her, and not even we can be two places at once. I’ll see what else I can learn.” Then the shikigami took to the air, fading out of sight even before he’d left the room.

“So…” Brayden began once the shikigami disappeared, eyeing Damen’s necklace. “Are you going to use that thing or what?”

The following silence was profound, and as Bryce crossed his arms, a smug, almost evil, grin on his lips.

“What?” Damen asked, not appearing innocent at all as he gripped at the charm. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, please.” Brayden rolled his eyes. “It’s my job to know these things. Do you honestly believe that I’m not aware of any and all portals in the area?”

“Just how much have you studied?” Damen snapped, another strike against his sanity. “Because if I use this, there’s no going back. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Damen’s low warning rolled off the fae without a care, and he shrugged. “It’ll open up a portal to the Underworld, blah blah blah. But think about it this way, you can just pop in there, track down Bianca that way, and then come back out.”

Damen’s dark look didn’t bode well, and my pulse soared in alarm as I realized he'd already been considering doing that very thing. Even Finn was glancing to his brother, eagerness etched heavily into his expression.

This didn’t bode well. As much as the urgent need to find Bianca called to me, even though it might possibly save her life.

This wouldn’t be what she wanted. It’d happened once already, and the results had been a devastating chaos that affected a number of generations. They’d promised it wouldn’t happen again. It couldn’t.

It was why the charm was created to begin with.

“He can’t do that.” I leaned forward on the table, capturing the fae brother’s attention. “It’s not just a portal that can be open and closed, like what you two use.”

Brayden’s forehead furrowed. “But the books say—”

“‘The books’ say a lot—but also don’t tell you everything either,” I cut in. Putting information out into the world in obvious locations was more harmful than anything—this was why I wrote, besides for the fun of it—so there’d be an accurate record somewhere.

Hidden in plain sight.

“That is the only way he can get back to the Underworld. But the problem is, after Damen opens that portal, there’s no way to close it again,” I told them. “It’s a two-way street too. As he’d be able to go to the Underworld at will, so will anything be able to leave—if they can make it past him.”

Bryce and Brayden paled, looking to the onmyoji.

“Why in the world are you carrying that around on your neck?” Bryce’s question was almost accusing.

Damen’s expression closed off—and I knew from experience that he was beginning to feel defensive. I didn’t blame him, or Bryce. It was a serious thing to be carrying around—logically speaking, the charm should be locked away.

But we understood. I glanced at Julian to see that he, too, was ready to intervene.

He wore it because it was the closest he could be to being home. And when he was upset, holding it was a reminder of his cause.

Necromancers, witches, and shifters resided in this realm—we always had. Fae could, generally, freely travel from their world to this one without much risk.

But onmyoji…

No one had visited the Underworld for centuries. It took an enormous amount of power to do so, even though some had grown close and most felt that longing—the sense of never belonging.

They were creatures of the Underworld, working within a universal connection that none of us could understand. However, it wasn’t without risk, because when working between worlds, ours was easily targeted.

The easiest solution had been to minimize the use of this particular portal. Besides, most entrances had been closed to contracted individuals only—or those who had the strength to do it.

And after the last time that onmyoji had wreaked havoc, Huo had chosen to stay here permanently. To be with us… and to protect this world and to lead as an example.

No one, outside of us, truly understood just how much he’d given up.

The only way he would ever use that necklace was when he had truly and completely lost all hope.

“Never mind.” Julian jumped to the onmyoji’s defense. After all, no matter how bad things got, he had also sworn to prevent that portal from opening.

Unless there was no other choice, we could not use that portal for Bianca. We’d had this fight too many times, and in every lifetime, that’d been Mu’s constant.

But…

My stomach twisted as a sense of foreboding pulled at me.

Bianca wasn’t the same either. She and I had also been over this in detail, and I completely understood where she was coming from. She’d suffered a lot in this life, and there were aspects of her—other than the obvious—which were different too.

Would she want—and expect—Damen to go down this route? Had she finally reached the point where she was ready to give up on humanity?

We’d never even thought to discuss it yet.

What was the right decision? Because I could see it in his eyes. He’d do it too, and wouldn’t feel guilty at all. The only thing holding him back was the promise they’d made to each other.

“Let’s wait a little while longer,” I said finally. The uncomfortable tightness in my chest grew stronger, and goose bumps broke out over my arms. I rubbed at my skin, glancing nervously toward Julian and Damen. “It’s stopped… whatever it is. Right?”

At least, I thought so.

Julian clutched at his shirt and reluctantly nodded. We were both torn between the undeniable urge to do whatever it took, but also wanting to make sure that eventually this would be a safe world for her. Once that portal opened, chances of that happening slimmed dramatically.

As long as she was alive, there was still hope.

And once we could physically get our hands on whoever was the cause of this, things would be better.

But it wasn’t fair to put everyone at risk over the actions of a few.

While there was still a pressing need to find Bianca, it wasn’t nearly as urgent as before. That gave me hope that, maybe, she was with Titus.

If they were together, everything would be okay. He’d never let anything happen to her.