Page 27 of Forgotten Arcane (Broken Ashes #6)

Neith

W e all carry on talking about less intense subjects, like deciding what we all want to eat, as Van leaves the room to talk to his parents.

Once that’s decided, River grins at me, “I believe that we promised you a tour of the house?”

“You guys still haven’t given her a tour?” Coen asks incredulously. Smirking, he adds, “You’re slacking, guys.”

Reed chuckles as he retorts, “Fuck off. There’s been a lot going on.”

“True,” Coen concedes.

I grin, “Come on, show me around.”

Doc grabs my hand and pulls me from the room, the others quickly following behind us.

Evander

T aking a seat in my office, I sigh.

I’m thirty-four years old, the leader of my own SID team, and now part of a Warrior Bonded team, and yet, making a very overdue phone call to my mother scares the shit out of me.

She’s going to be panicking about the Choosing, even though she knows that we got through it fine, and she’s going to be mad that I haven’t called her sooner, and that she still hasn’t seen Neith yet.

I don’t think Neith realizes just how much they have missed her.

There’s a lot that we need to talk to them about, not just Neith’s parents, but also the whole King and Queen thing, which to be honest, thanks to everything that has happened recently, doesn’t really seem like such a big deal anymore.

There are also things like the kelpies. My parents are the leaders of the water kingdom in Trieneliea, and so they have knowledge of a lot of water supes.

We know that they were using the kelpies in the war in Trieneliea, which means that they most likely have a lot of information about them.

There are only a couple of things that I want to know, like why the whole herd is changing color, not just our kelpies, and why Neith can call on all of them, although I have a sneaking suspicion that those two things have something to do with each other.

I’m stalling.

I know that’s what I’m doing, and as I look down at my phone, another text comes in from my mom, and I know that I can’t put it off for much longer.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love my parents, and I love that they care about me, and the others like they do, but they can get a bit intense at times.

I press call and hold the phone to my ear, it doesn’t even ring once before my mom picks up, and I smile.

“Hey, Mom,” I greet her.

“Evander,” she replies, and I can tell that she’s smiling. “Hang on, let me put you on speaker, your dad is here as well.”

“Hey, son,” Dad greets me. “I’m proud of you. You did really well in the Choosing, you all did.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I reply, with a smile.

“Are you all okay?” Mom asks, sounding concerned.

I nod even though she can’t see me, “Yeah, I’m good. We all are. We’re just taking it easy for a while before we go back to work.”

“Good. I was going to make sure that you weren’t intending to go back to work too early,” she replies. “Ty told us that you were continuing to work at SID.”

“Yeah, it’s where we’re happy, and we can trust Ty. With the recent developments and everything that has happened, that’s really important,” I reply. I narrow my eyes slightly, “What else did Ty tell you?”

I hear Dad sigh, “That you are now aware of who we are.”

“Yep.” I say, passive-aggressively popping the ‘p’ a little too hard. I sigh, “We can talk about that tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Mom asks excitedly.

I can’t help but smile, “Yeah, if it’s okay with you guys, we thought that we would come over for dinner tomorrow? We all want to see you, but there are a couple of things that we want to talk to you about too. Things that are probably best not to be spoken about over the phone.”

“Of course,” Dad replies. “We’re always happy to have you here. It’s been far too long since we saw you all.”

“We will also answer as many questions as we can,” Mom adds. “But I’m afraid that there may be some that we can’t answer.”

“We understand that,” I reply. “We’re coming to see you guys mostly,” I grin, as I add cheekily, “And to get a home-cooked meal. We’re not that great at cooking.”

My mom gasps dramatically, “Don’t tell me you’ve all been eating takeout since you got back?”

I grimace slightly, but it quickly turns back into a smile as I reply honestly, “Well, yeah, but in our defense, all of the food had gone bad, so we didn’t really have a choice. We’ve got a grocery order coming tomorrow.”

My mom hums thoughtfully, and my dad chuckles, clearly knowing what she’s about to say. I decide not to say anything else and risk digging myself into a deeper hole, as I wait to see what Mom is going to say next.

“Right, that’s it. I will get some of my easier recipes together and write them up, and I will teach you all a couple of them when you come over for dinner tomorrow.

You can help me prepare a couple of the dishes.

” She adds excitedly, “Oh, I know, we’ll make it a banquet.

We haven’t done one this month yet, and everyone will be excited to see you and Neith. ”

The compound's banquets happen at least once a month, and it’s where the whole compound and any guests eat together.

There is this huge table that they set up and stretches out from in front of my parents’ house, which is in the middle of the compound, straight down the middle of the main part of the compound, and everyone brings something, and food gets shared. There’s always music and laughter.

It was always one of my favorite things about growing up on the compound, and to be honest, it still is.

“That sounds great,” I reply. “The banquet, I mean, the cooking makes me nervous. Are you sure that you want to risk it? Some of us can cook decently enough, but there are a couple of us that shouldn’t be allowed near the kitchen.”

Mom and Dad burst out laughing, and I don’t bother telling them that I’m probably one of the ones who shouldn’t be allowed near the kitchen. I’ll let them figure that out on their own.

“Don’t worry, your mom won’t leave you alone,” Dad replies, trying to be reassuring.

“That’s a smart move,” I agree seriously, making them laugh again. “Alright, I’ve got to go, but we’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Okay. You will need to get here just after lunch so that we have enough time to cook what we need to. I’m kind of throwing you in the deep end. You’re going to be cooking on a massive scale,” Mom says, sounding a little bit apprehensive, and I can imagine the face that she’s pulling.

“That’s okay. There are nine of us now, and any meals that we manage to make are on quite a big scale. Especially as none of us has what anyone would call a small appetite,” I reply. “Although admittedly, the meals that we prepare aren’t on the same scale as cooking for the whole compound.”

“Oh, thanks for reminding me. I’ll write out the recipes for ten people, and that way you don’t have to worry about trying to increase them to make enough, and I will make sure the portion sizes are big enough for you all as well.”

“You’re amazing, Mom. Thank you,” I tell her honestly, this phone call has gone a lot smoother than I thought it was going to.

“I know,” she chuckles. “To be honest, I should have done it a lot sooner for you.”

“What about you, Dad?” I ask, “Will you help teach us how to cook?”

My dad is an amazing cook, and it’s actually surprising that I turned out as bad as I am.

Dad chuckles, “Not this time. If your mom is planning a banquet, then I need to make sure that everything is set up properly, and I also need to make a big batch of my famous chili.”

“Oh man, I love your chili,” I reply, my stomach rumbling at the thought. I voice my previous thought out loud, “You know it’s surprising that I turned out to be such a shitty cook when you’re both so good at it.”

“We should have taught you more,” Mom replies.

“That’s okay, you can teach us now,” I grin. “And besides I didn’t want to be taught back then, I was either spending every free moment that I could with Neith or planning to go to the Magical Academy and making sure that my gifts were up to scratch.”

They both chuckle at the reminder.

“I’ll teach you how to make my chili when we’ve got more time,” Dad adds, “I’ll have to get up pretty early to start it tomorrow, and then add things at different points during the day.”

My eyebrows raise, “I had no idea that it was that involved.”

Dad chuckles, “No one does.”

“Alright, we will see you tomorrow after lunch,” I reply. “Love you.”

“Love you,” they say together as they hang up and leave me smiling.

Right now, I’ve just got to go and tell the others that we’re leaving slightly earlier than we had planned so that Mom can teach us to cook. I’m actually really looking forward to it, and Raiden and Neith should still have plenty of time to do the research that they want to.

I know that Coen and River plan to go for a fly and run.

Ransom wants to work on the ward that will keep us all hidden while we’re out and about like the Elders had suggested, Griff and Reed are planning to work on some flight maneuvers that I think Coen is going to help with once he’s done with River, and I need to go to my pool.

I need to recharge properly.

“How did it go?” Neith asks as soon as I walk back into the kitchen, where they are all gathered and now sitting at the table and talking.

I grin, “Great. We’re going over after lunch tomorrow, and she’s going to teach us all how to cook some things for the banquet, and she’s also making us a cookbook with some of her easy recipes for us to take home so that we’re not eating takeout as often.”

There’s silence for a moment before everyone starts grinning.

“God, I love your mom,” Neith chuckles.

“To be honest, we could do with the help,” Reed agrees.

Coen clears his throat, “I can cook pretty well.”

“No way?” River asks.

Coen nods, “Yep, I cooked all the meals with the Draconian team, but it was actually something that I didn’t mind doing. I know it’s probably odd, but I find cooking really calming.”

“While I hate that you were made to do it, I love that you enjoyed it,” Neith replies.

Coen grins, “Yeah, so I can help teach you guys some stuff as well or I can just cook our meals.”

River frowns, “No way, man. We all contribute in this family, there’s no way that we would let you cook for us all the time.”

“Especially since you were made to do it with the Draconian team,” Reed adds. “But, I for one, would love to learn more about cooking, we all need to get better at it.”

“Agreed,” Doc replies. “We’ll have lots of recipes to practice from Calia, you know that she’s not just going to do a couple of recipes written on a sheet of paper.”

“Oh, definitely not,” Ransom grins. “It will be color-coded, and a whole binder full of them.”

“Exactly,” Doc grins.

“We should all take it in turns to cook dinner when we’re at home, obviously. We’re not going to be able to do it while we’re elsewhere working cases,” Raiden suggests.

“That sounds good,” Coen agrees. “I really do enjoy it, so I can help out whenever.”

“I’m definitely going to need help,” River frowns.

We all laugh, and Reed explains what we find so funny to Coen and Neith.

“Last time he cooked, he somehow burned it and left it raw,” Reed smirks.

Coen’s eyebrows rise, “That’s actually quite impressive and not easy to do.”

River grins, “I’m a genius.” Before any of us can point out the flaws in that statement, he continues and points at me. “That’s nothing compared to Van.”

I groan, “I panicked.”

The guys burst out laughing.

“He set the saucepan on fire, not just the contents, but the whole damn thing, and then seemed to completely forget that he was a supernatural that could control water, so he started yelling hysterically and caught the curtains on fire on the back door, and burned the steps on the deck as he launched the whole pan out of the door,” River carries on explaining.

Everyone’s laughter gets louder, and Neith joins in after trying to give me a sympathetic look and failing.

After a moment, Coen shakes his head, still smiling, “Yeah, I think this might be harder than I thought it was going to be.”

“Probably,” I shrug.

“The foods here,” Ransom says, as he gets up, having been alerted by the ward. He looks at Doc, “I’ll come with you. I’m fairly certain that we ordered a lot.”

“We always do,” Doc grins, as he puts a hand on Ransom’s shoulder and they both disappear.

Neith

I woke up this morning far too hot and surrounded by Griff and Reed.

I fucking loved it, and I loved their morning kisses even more.

Unfortunately, we’re on a time crunch now since Calia wants to teach us a couple of recipes later today for the banquet, which means we need to get there early.

So instead of being able to see where those kisses may lead, we all had to press pause and get up.

“We’ll leave you to get dressed,” Reed says reluctantly and then pulls back. “As much as I want to take this further, we don’t have the time right now, and I am sure as hell not rushing it.”

“Fuck no,” Griff agrees, his voice rough as he kisses me again and then joins Reed at the door. “See you at breakfast, Gorgeous.”

I nod, and as soon as they’re gone, I groan. Damn it, that was so fucking hot, and now I’m all flustered. Even though I have to admit that they are right. I don’t want to rush either.

Right, the first thing I need to do is have a cold shower.

I hop up and head over to my closet. I need to find something that’s comfortable enough to do research in, but nice enough for a meal at Van’s parents since I don’t want to change if I don’t have to.

I finally settle on a pretty summer dress, some black Dr. Marten-style boots, and a leather jacket that I’ll put by the front door so it’s ready to go. It’s not too cold, but there is a chill in the air in the evening, and the banquets are always held outside at this time of year.

On the way to the bathroom, I remember my phone. I put it on charge before we went to Sully’s yesterday, but then I completely forgot about it. I dump my clothes on my bed as I pick it up and unlock it.

My eyes widen at the sheer number of texts that I have, and then I realize that they’re all in the group chat between Navy, Neera, Joey, and me.

Clicking on it, I frown.

There are nearly a thousand messages, and I’m not even kidding. How the hell have they managed to send that many messages to each other? That’s an insane amount.

I’m not even sure that I know how to have a conversation that long.

I start to scroll through the messages, and I quickly give up. There is no way that I’m going to be able to go through all of those. It will take me forever. There wouldn’t be much point anyway because most of the conversation ended days ago.