Page 59

“It had fallen down the back of the couch,” he says. “Nothing to worry about. I don’t think any of the humans saw it, let alone became corrupted by it.”

“I see you bought new computers back here,” I say.

“Are you going to smash them up again?”

The energy is very strange. Equinox and I had come to an understanding, but right now it feels as though we have a great distance between us. There is an abyss of it, and I do not know where it is coming from.

Then a sound comes from somewhere around my knees.

“Hm.”

It is a little human sound that heralds the complete unraveling of this scene.

“I don’t think this is real,” she says, frowning.

“You’re attuned to it. Of course it’s real,” Equinox says.

“Give it to me,” I reply, reaching down for her, pulling her and the seal up together.

The second it touches my fingers, I am almost certain it is not real. It resonates, but not with the feeling of an ancient seal. The sensation is more… electronic. Human. This might be an object of power, but it doesn’t originate from here.

“What is going on, Equinox. Why can she feel the seal, and why is this one clearly a decoy?”

He sighs and takes several steps back, putting space between us. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says. “That’s what I found. It looked like the seal to me.”

“It doesn’t really. The real seal has bits of kobold paint on it. This is too clean. And it’s too heavy. It feels like a lead weight.” She looks at Nox. “Did you really not notice?”

In her innocence, she is doing what I would be doing more harshly. She is so confused. She does not see the answer that is clearly before us.

She feels the seal because it is here.

“Are you going to try to keep the real artifact for yourself, Equinox? Do you have some plan that involves the possession of one of the seven seals?”

I purr the questions slowly, softly, trying not to escalate a situation that has already escalated. He hoped to come back, pawn off the fake, hope Melissa’s sense for the real thing would be confused by proximity.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, not sounding convincing in the slightest. The air smells of guilt and betrayal. The energy has shifted. I think of all the fights I have had with the whelp for all these years, and I sense that they have come to a head while I was not watching. It is a strange thing, to feel a shift in energy that does not seem as though it could be backed up by evidence, except I have lived long enough to know that it will be.

“Where’s the real seal?”

“That is the real seal.”

“You didn’t have a plan for this part, did you?” I make my voice softer. I make myself sound as though I am almost sympathetic.“You thought your little ruse would go over without anybody noticing. But Melissa is smarter than you thought. And you’re not as good a liar as you’d like to be.”

“Nox?” Melissa pipes up, sounding appropriately hurt and confused. She really believes in him. I should have kept her further from him, but that’s hardly practical when family lives together the way we do.

He sighs. “Fine. I have the real seal. I didn’t want to hand it over because she’s only going to lose it again, and you indulge her, Uncle, and I don’t want to have to go back to the human world in five minutes’ time when she runs away again.”

“Hey, fuck you. You were the one who talked me into running away,” Melissa exclaims.

Oh, he’s really made a mess of this now. He should have tried to keep her sweet over me. She’s more incendiary than I am, and I am on her side.

“You’re kind of an asshole,” she frowns. “Where’s the real one?”

He reaches into his pocket and hands it over to her. She drops that one too, but this time it hits the floor with a much more satisfying and legitimate sound.

“There it is,” she says. “It’s perfect.”

“You and I need to talk,” I growl at Nox. “Not now, but later. I know you are a developer, but I have no time for these games.”