Page 8 of Forgotten Arcane (Broken Ashes #6)

Neith

D on’t ask me why my mind instantly went to bomb, again, it just did. I think we’ve been on guard for so long that I now see something that doesn’t belong and immediately think the worst, and that something bad is going to happen.

“That’s mine,” Coen says as he walks over to it and looks inside.

“Mabel must have brought it over from our room. When we first arrived, obviously we didn’t have any of our bags with us.

They appeared in our room a couple of hours after we arrived.

I’m not really sure how, considering that no one was expecting to be pulled into the Choosing so soon, so no one had packed anything. ”

“They didn’t bring much stuff for you, did they?” Raiden notes with a disapproving arch to his eyebrow.

“We’ll have to see if we can arrange for you to go to the Draconian house and pack up the rest of your stuff,” Reed says.

“It shouldn’t be too much of an issue. After everything that has happened, Ty is firing them, and they’ll lose the house too. I should imagine that they will also be in for questioning about Kylen and all the shit he pulled,” Doc adds.

Coen shakes his head and shrugs, “It won’t be a problem either way. That’s all I own.”

Everyone stops and stares at Coen in silence.

“That’s everything?” Evander asks, and Coen nods, “What happened to all of your stuff from the dorm? You had more things than all of us.”

Shadows fill Coen’s eyes, “I don’t know. I guess they gave it all away?”

“You’re fucking joking,” River explodes. “That cunt didn’t even let you take your shit with you? I swear if you hadn’t killed him already, I would have loved to have taken him apart piece by fucking piece, in the most painful way, with some of my most inventive and painful torture methods.”

“That’s so fucking hot,” I mutter.

River’s eyes switch from murderous to heated, several of the other guys have a similar look, and Coen chuckles.

“Oh, yeah. You fit better than I ever could have imagined,” he grins.

“Trouble,” Doc smirks, shaking his head, his eyes briefly flashing gold.

I shrug, and then immediately frown, “What happened to what you get paid from SID, or your stuff at the Keep?”

“Kylen kept my wage, and I haven’t been back to the keep for a few years. Draith wouldn’t have thrown anything away though,” Coen replies, looking hopeful that he still has some things somewhere.

I shake my head, “No, you’re right, he wouldn’t have. He’s been missing you, too.”

“Fucking hell,” Evander fumes. “We’ll get this all straightened out, man. We’ll make sure that the rest of the Draconian team don’t get away with their parts in what happened.”

“I’m good with that, for everyone but Fetrick,” Coen replies. His reply doesn’t shock me as much as it probably should. Coen goes on to explain, “Fetrick was under a similar control to me, it was a ring for him . . .”

I interrupt, “That’s why you took Kylen’s hand off and crushed it.”

Coen’s eyes widen slightly, “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you caught that, even though you had been shot.”

“Nope,” I reply. “Sorry, I interrupted you.”

Coen smiles, “I don’t mind. Yeah, so as Neith noticed, I crushed the ring when I killed Kylen. His control was more orders and stuff, not like my orders were, and Kylen didn’t like to torture him.”

“Fuck man,” Ransom curses, anger and sadness swimming in his eyes.

Coen nods, but breezes past it, “I actually had no idea that he was being controlled in a similar way to me.”

“Wait, he was with Kylen on the first day of the academy, wasn’t he?” Raiden asks.

Coen nods, “Yep. He’s been stuck with Kylen for a long fucking time.”

“We can’t leave him to the same fate as Jamie and Rupert. I’m assuming that they weren’t controlled?” I ask.

Coen shakes his head, “No. Rupert and Jamie both had the same views and opinions that Kylen did. Rupert would occasionally go against him, but it was rare, and Jamie looked up to him and did everything he said without question.”

“I got that impression from him,” Doc agrees.

“I knew there was something about Fetrick that wasn’t sitting quite right. It didn’t feel like he was a threat to us, but like something else was going on,” I add.

Coen frowns slightly, “To be honest, out of all of them, he was the nicest to me. That’s not saying much, he avoided me as much as he could, but if I saved his life, he did say thank you, so that counted in my book.”

“Neith’s right,” Raiden adds. “Fetrick doesn’t deserve to lose his job as well.”

“No, he doesn’t, although I have no idea how good he actually is at his job, and if some of the shit he let slide was because Kylen had told him to,” Coen replies with a frown.

“That’s fairly easily fixed, we’ll just get Ty to put him through some tests again, maybe he could even join one of the classes if his training needs to be brushed up,” Ransom suggests.

“That’s a great idea,” Van agrees. “We can do that once we get home, after we’ve relaxed for a few days at least.”

“Van’s right, let’s get out of here,” River says.

It only takes a few more moments for everyone to grab their stuff and then head back through the hallways, and down to the main hall where the portal is opened in the middle of the entrance way, ready to take us home.

“Did you find Ribit?” Mabel asks me as soon as we get down there.

I shake my head, “No.”

“That’s okay, I’ll tell her that you said goodbye.” She levels me with a look, “And that you’re coming back for a visit.”

I chuckle, “I am definitely coming back for a visit.”

“Good,” she tells me. A twinkle appears in her eye, “Tell Sully that I said hello, and that he still owes me that beer.”

I stare at her in surprise for a few moments while my brain tries to compute what she just said.

“Wait a second, did you say Sully?” Griff asks.

“That’s what I thought she said,” I exclaim. I’m glad that someone else has confirmed that I definitely heard what I thought I heard, because for a minute there, I thought I was going crazy.

“You know Sully?” Reed asks, his eyebrows high on his forehead in surprise.

“Of course,” Mabel replies as she ushers us toward the portal.

“Should I bother asking how you know him?” I ask.

Mabel’s smile is full of secrets, and she says, “Probably not, Dear. Now, off with you. It’s time for you to go home.”

“I’ll second that,” Ransom agrees.

Looking up at Coen, I grab his hand, “Come on, let’s go home.”

His eyes fill with a swirl of emotions, and he mutters, “Home.”

Still holding hands, I take one last look around the castle.

“By Castle, thank you for looking out for us, I’ll see you again soon,” I say, not caring if everyone thinks I’m crazy.

“Well, I’ll be damned. Castle has never reacted in that way before,” Mabel mutters in awe, as random stones all over the entryway start to flash and light up with different colors.

I grin, “Castle is special.”

Mabel studies me closely, “I’d wager that he’s not the only one.”

I shrug. I don’t really know what to say to that.

“Come on, the guys will be waiting for us,” Coen says, squeezing my hand.

“Bye, Mabel,” I say for the last time.

As we step through the portal, I feel the familiar sensation as it transports us, and I say a quick plea to anyone who is listening that this portal is actually going to take us home, and this isn’t some weird fucked up last trial or something.

I really wouldn’t put it past the Choosing to decide that we need to get to know our new team member, Coen, and throw us into another life-threatening situation.

“We wondered where you guys had gotten to,” Reed says as soon as we come out the other side.

I grin as I look around the familiar entrance hallway of the guy’s place, “Ah it's damn good to be home.”

We all fall silent for a moment as we just stare at each other and try to absorb everything that’s happened over the past week.

We’ve all been stretched to our absolute limits, there’s no question about that.

Not just physically either, but mentally and emotionally as well.

I’m exhausted in so many ways. I don’t think I have been this exhausted for a long time, and looking around at the guys, I know I’m not the only one.

“Right,” Reed starts, “I’ll call and get takeout.”

“Dude, you don’t have to keep your suppression on your magic anymore,” River tells him with a smile.

Without any hesitation, Reed releases his magic and takes a deep breath of relief.

“Whoa,” Coen exclaims.

It’s then that we all seem to realize at the same time that Coen hasn’t been exposed to Reed’s full power like this before.

“Shit sorry man,” Reed exclaims.

Coen grins, still standing next to me and not squashed to the floor, “I’m good man. I don’t know why, but your magic hasn’t squished me to the floor for a while. I honestly thought that you were avoiding me on purpose.”

Reed shakes his head, “Nope. But I’m damn glad that you aren’t affected like everyone else.”

“Me too,” Coen grins. “When did you learn how to control it?”

“It’s not really controlling it, I still can’t release it around anyone else, it just turns out that due to exposure and all of your strength, you aren’t as affected by it,” Reed explains. “I’ll explain it better when I’m not hungry.”

Coen laughs, “Oh, of course, the way the dragons do around their demons?”

Reed’s expression shows surprise, “Yeah, exactly.”

Coen's expression becomes apologetic, “I’m sorry, man, we don’t get taught about that and a few other things until after we leave the Magical Academy. I’m sure there are some things that I missed out on learning when Kylen stopped me from going back to the Keep.”

Reed smiles, “Don’t worry about it. I know you would have told me if you had known back then.”

“I would have tried to tell you if I had put two and two together before now as well,” Coen adds.

“We know, man,” Griff says.

Of course, my stomach chooses that moment to growl really loudly. The guys all turn to look at me, every one of them fighting their smiles.

I shrug, “I’m hungry.”