Page 7
Afew days had tumbled by since Thayen and the others vanished, likely into the same unknown realm that had flooded ours with murderous clones. Two days of feverish waiting and studying every portal remnant the creatures had left behind, thanks to the Daughters of Eritopia. There were hundreds of shimmering portal traces, some newer and others dating back six months. It still boggled the mind to consider this horrifying fact. For half a year, the clones had been coming in and out of this world, and we were no closer to figuring out their agenda.
They had taken Isabelle, Serena and Draven’s daughter, two months ago. Voss, Chantal, and Richard were also missing. Viola had been taken, as well… I could only hope that our son’s crew would bring some justice. That they would recover our people safe and sound.
But in the end, we didn’t know anything. We only had this muted hope while we struggled to find a way into that strange realm. Phoenix was working with Safira and the other Daughters on a way to reverse engineer the shimmering portals, though they were nowhere near a solution. Mona and Kiev had returned, but the witch didn’t have much to add to our investigative efforts—much like Corrine and Shayla and the others, Mona was stumped by this entire affair. This wasn’t about throwing our most powerful witches at the problem—the problem itself pertained to magic and knowledge that none of us had ever dealt with before.
We had put teams in place, each with a witch or a djinn ready to teleport them to wherever a new passageway might open. Derek and I had made a crew of our own for the same purpose, joined by Rose, Ben, and Kailani. Caleb and River were manning the executive side of all things GASP-related, while the rest of our friends and family—Victoria and Bastien included, along with Lucas and Marion, Claudia and Yuri, Eli and Shayla, Tejus and Hazel, Vivienne and Xavier, and Liana and Cameron—focused on making sure each of the deployment teams were fed and equipped with everything they might possibly need for a new and mysterious dimension. Alas, there was only so much preparing we could do…
Waiting was all we had left, and I refused to spend another moment in this damn limbo. A mere hour earlier, I’d decided to take Derek, Ben, Rose, and Kailani to Serena and Draven’s treehouse. Our great-granddaughter and her Druid husband only used it for their holidays since they lived on Calliope, but Isabelle had been spending more time here over the past year, particularly during her training sessions with GASP. She’d once told me she liked The Shade better, though she hadn’t given me any specific reasons why.
The house had already been searched by our agents, and nothing of significance had come to light. I wasn’t sure why I wanted to do another thorough search, but it was the only thing I could think of to stop the anxiety and keep me from falling apart. We needed our wits about us if we had a chance to go after Thayen. My son was missing, and an emotionally distraught mother would not be able to save him.
Keeping busy in this treehouse had seemed like a good idea, and none in my crew had spoken against it. We assigned ourselves different parts of the redwood residence to search. Draven and Serena had built it on three sprawling levels, with each floor designed as a self-sufficient apartment—the top belonged to Isabelle, the middle to her parents, and the bottom was reserved for potential guests from Eritopia. I suspected Draven and Serena had also contemplated having a second child, but given the current madness, it was the last thing on their minds.
“Derek is making them tea,” Kailani said as we searched through Isabelle’s living room. Rose and Ben had the bottom level, while my husband was keeping our great-granddaughter and her soulmate company. Both were devastated by Isabelle’s absence, though they did retain a certain calmness. Despair would serve no one, anyway.
“Yeah, I can hear the kettle, too,” I replied, trying not to smile. The things I loved most about Derek were these small details of his behavior. For all his strength and masculine poise, he was a sensitive and caring creature. He drank blood, yet he didn’t mind brewing a cup of fragranced tea for those who might find it refreshing and perhaps even comforting. That was Derek. He cared about others more than he did about himself. A selfless beacon of light confined to living in the shadows.
Isabelle’s floor of the house was spacious and airy, with large square windows and flowers growing in tin pots at every sill—red and pink blossoms overflowing and spreading their perfume throughout each room. There were pictures of Isabelle with her parents, cousins, and friends framed in delicate bamboo and hung on the walls, leaving little room for much else. To Isabelle, these moments were important. Her family and those she’d bonded with were important. I remembered she wasn’t the most social of creatures, but those she’d grown close to meant everything to her.
“It’s like a little corner of her mind,” Kailani said, almost reading my thoughts as we moved our search to the bedroom. We weren’t sure what we were looking for, just looking for anything the others might have missed before us. “Every inch of this place says ‘Isabelle.’”
The bed was a classic four-poster with a sculpted headboard and a pale blue organza canopy. The silks were a creamy green, and she had stocked up on decorative pillows with intricate white floral embroidery. The desk and bookshelves matched the hazelnut wood used for the bed, and soft rugs of green and warm yellow covered the hardwood floor.
Photos covered the walls here, too, along with a massive corkboard on which she’d pinned keychains from all the Earthly places she’d been to over the past five years. There was a miniature Eiffel Tower from Paris, a Spitfire bombardier from London, and countless other trinkets that put her all over Earth’s map. Isabelle loved our realm the most, I realized, and it warmed me up on the inside. She was destined to rule over Eritopia someday, but until then she had chosen to spend her time here. Draven and Serena didn’t show any signs of slowing down with their honorable leadership of Calliope, anyway, and there were places I looked forward to visiting with Isabelle, places I loved and I’d told her about. I’d promised I would take her to the Grand Canyon. It was a promise I intended to keep.
Here I am, thinking about her like she’s just around the corner, about to walk through the door. My heart ached. I took a deep breath and got down on my knees to look under the bed, while Kailani worked through each shelf loaded with books and old notebooks.
“I have to admit, Draven and Serena are doing great at keeping their wits about them in this situation,” the witch said, keeping her voice down. “I don’t know what I would do if my child went missing like this.”
“Let’s just hope you never have to experience that for yourself,” I replied. “Speaking of, you and Hunter have been married for… what, ten years now?”
“Mhm.”
I ran my hand over the floor and found a couple of shoeboxes. In each, Isabelle had stashed more photos and mementos from her journeys, along with several other precious objects from Calliope and Purgaris. I recognized the miniature fragrance bottles that had been given away as favors at Draven and Serena’s wedding. The girl had likely snatched them from her mother to keep for herself, and I could see why. Her parents’ love had brought her into this world, and Isabelle had wanted a physical memory of that.
“Are you talking about children yet? Or are they still far away on the horizon?” I asked, setting the boxes aside. I ran my palm over the floor under the bed, feeling something uneven.
“To be honest, Hunter and I aren’t interested in having children right now,” Kailani said. “We want them, obviously, but given our long lifespan, we decided to make the most of what we’ve got before our lives change forever. I’ve seen it with Draven and Serena, and I’ve seen it with Field and Aida and the others in their generation, too. Kids take a wonderful toll… my husband and I just aren’t ready for it, yet.”
I chuckled softly. “That’s okay. If there’s one thing I always told my kids, Thayen included…” I paused for a moment, my throat closing up as the thought of my son filled my mind. “If there’s one thing you can’t do, it’s rush into having children. You need to be mentally and emotionally prepared. And if you don’t feel that way, it’s fine. It’s absolutely fine.”
“Sometimes, I do feel bad about it. Hansa and Jax would like nothing more than to have a child of their own. Chances are they’re going to adopt soon, but I know it’s killing Hansa that she can’t give Jax a baby with his bloodline.”
“Well, bloodlines matter, but they shouldn’t dictate anyone’s happiness,” I replied, finding a nook between the floorboards. Sticking my finger into it, I quickly assessed that there was something underneath. A space of some kind. We had insulation material under the hardwood in every treehouse; this gap wasn’t supposed to be here.
“I absolutely agree. Hansa knows that too, but she’s more… old school, I guess. Remember the Red Tribe and the pride she and Anjani took in the Gorria name?” Kailani giggled.
I wanted to say yes, but I was struggling with the nook. “Can you help me with the bed? There’s something under it.”
“Sure.” In an instant, Kailani had pushed the bed aside to reveal the floor beneath. I found the nook again, now visible under the warm light from the ceiling fixture. “Whoa…” she said.
“My thoughts exactly,” I replied.
With the bed out of the way, I was able to pry up the floorboard without difficulty. “That came off easy,” Kailani murmured, her brow furrowed. The second one was just as easy to dislodge. Moments later, we could see the hidden storage space where insulation material had once been.
“No wonder they missed this during the first sweep,” I said. “It’s well concealed.”
“What the hell is that?” Kailani asked, leaning closer to get a better look.
I shoved both hands into the dark space and took out a square box made of polished, shiny metal. It didn’t look like anything familiar or GASP-issued. The design felt foreign. The metal itself struck me as odd. I couldn’t make any sense of it.
“It’s not from The Shade,” Kailani breathed, slowly reaching a hand to touch the lid. It had a small round lime green button on the side. “I can… feel it.”
“Magic?” I asked.
She shook her head slowly. “Maybe. But it’s not what I feel. It’s just… ugh, it’s hard to explain. The Word tingles inside me, whispering ‘foreign’ over and over, and I think it’s about the box. It’s not from here.”
“Could it have been put here by Isabelle’s clone?” I wondered aloud, then set the box on the floor and pressed the lime green button. It seemed like the only way to open it. I excluded the possibility of a trap. Had Isabelle’s doppelganger wanted to hurt us with this thing, it would’ve been much easier to find. No, this was meant to remain hidden. The lid popped open with a low hiss. Inside, there were dozens of small cubes, no more than one inch wide on every side.
“Maybe,” Kailani mumbled, her eyes widening as she took one of the cubes and carefully weighed it in her hand. “This weighs barely anything. This isn’t our tech. Not our magic. Not of the Supernatural Dimension or the In-Between. The Word is whispering for a reason…”
“Why would Isabelle’s clone have kept this here?”
“I don’t know. But if we figure out what these things do, I’m certain we’ll find the answer to that question and more,” the witch said, giving me a determined look. For a second, I was hypnotized by the specks of gold lining her white irises—the mark of a swamp witch, a servant of the Word.
We’d found something otherworldly. Something that belonged to our enemy. While there wasn’t much I could do for my son or the others who had gone missing—and since no new shimmering portals had opened lately—I knew this was the one lead I could follow to maybe get some answers.
Information was the thing we most desperately needed, and these strange silvery boxes could give us that. My fingers trembled slightly. Maybe we were one step closer to the truth.