Page 31 of Grand Romantic Delusions and the Madness of Mirth, Part Two

M IRTH

I should pull the blinds against the dark night sky.

Bolan has crashed out on the floor next to my living room couch like the degenerate rock star he is.

But it’s exhaustion, not drugs or alcohol, that’s caught up with him.

Sully is curled up next to me on the couch, also asleep, and making it difficult for me to reach my phone.

Mostly because I don’t want to acknowledge more of my day …

evening … night … both the overwhelmingly good and the achingly bad.

But three text messages in a row flashing up on my screen are hard to ignore, especially when only a limited few of my contacts are tagged to send notifications through.

I’m both hoping it’s Rian and worried what he’s going to say.

I don’t know anything yet about what happened between him and Sully, except that I’ve never seen Sully take his anger — his hurting?

— out on anyone it wasn’t primarily directed at.

Though that could be because there are few people who wield that sort of power over the fabricator mage.

He doesn’t let many people that far into his life.

The same could be said for every one of the current occupants of the apartment.

The apartments.

After lunch in Zurich, Sully dragged Elias to London with us.

Multiple laptops, devices, contracts, and all.

Hence the need for more bedrooms. Unceremoniously flinging open the doors to Armin’s side of the building, Sully had wandered into my brother’s space as if he had no idea I hadn’t opened those doors in seven months.

He did know, of course. And that was how he dealt with it.

I attempt to slide out from under Sully’s sleep-heavy arm. He shifts in his slumber in protest, and I freeze in place. When he doesn’t wake, I reach out for my phone and snag it off the coffee table with my fingertips.

The screen lights up at my touch. The earlier text messages are from Anne checking up on me, but the last text is from Greg. Not Rian.

I frown. I know the royal guard are scrambling to expand my protection. Roz wants Greg back with me, and other guards specifically assigned to Sully, but she’s extremely picky about whom she’s even willing to interview.

When was the last time you heard from Thomas Walsh?

Flummoxed by the question, I open my messages.

Ignoring that my last text to Rian has gone unread at the top of the list, I open the thread right below containing Kitty’s pictures and texts from earlier in the day.

From those messages, I now know all about Tommy’s little sister’s favorite breakfast — oatmeal with brown sugar and cinnamon.

Her least favorite class — gym. And what she’s drawing during her afternoon art class.

She also sent a short and very shaky video of Tommy racing around a football field.

If he was doing anything of significance at the time, I couldn’t tell.

But I was later informed that their school won the game.

And there was sprinkle cake with white frosting to celebrate. Not Kitty’s favorite.

I check the time on the picture of the cake: 4:45 p.m. We were still in the air between Zurich and London when it came in. I text Greg back.

It’s mostly Kitty who checks in. Last photo she sent was taken around 4:45 p.m. Or at least that’s when she sent it.

Greg replies almost instantly.

Would you forward it to me?

I do.

Is everything okay?

Staring down at my screen for an answer, I carefully slide around Sully so as not to wake him, then get up off the couch. After stepping over Bolan, I pause to pick his Martin guitar up off the floor and place it on the credenza behind the couch.

Just on the phone with tech right now.

Picking up the lit peaches-and-cream candle that Christoph sent me from the side table, I cross through the living room and kitchen, ignoring the complete mess from dinner scattered across the countertops. I send a text to Tommy’s phone — so to Kitty — even though it’s way past her bedtime.

I’m in the hall that bisects the two upper halves of the apartment building, ready to head down the stairs to the royal guard quarters and talk to Greg face-to-face when I look up, momentarily startled.

Because not only is there a light on in Armin’s apartment, hanging low over the large, rough-hewn trestle dining table on the far side of the space.

But through the still-open main doors, I can see someone moving around, deep within the shadows of the darkened kitchen.

And for just a breath, I think it’s Armin.

I nearly lose hold of my phone. I must make a noise. Because Elias’s head snaps up, and all the low light around me dims even further under a sharp tug of his essence. The candle in my hand almost gutters.

“Sorry,” I murmur, stepping into the apartment proper. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

I quietly pad through the shadowy great room toward him, placing the candle on the far corner of the wide counter that stretches between the dining area and the kitchen.

Within the kitchen, Elias sets the kettle aside.

He was making himself tea. In the dark. Presumably, a mage who can wield light has amazing night vision.

I don’t, though, hence my momentary confusion.

Beside and behind me, the trestle table is strewn with paperwork and electronic devices. After we tumbled free from the helicopter still perched on the reinforced roof, and once he had commandeered the space, Elias conducted individual meetings with Bolan and Sully, then got Christoph on the phone.

During that time, I had a much-needed shower, answered a few neglected text messages and emails, and ordered dinner.

And three Savoy bond group contracts were quietly, but seemingly definitively, signed.

With plans made for Christoph to come by in the early morning to sign the fourth.

Or, more specifically, to add his signature to four of the five accepted contracts.

I’m not quite certain what I’m feeling about any of it — the paperwork and the life-altering promises passing between them all. Except … hopeful?

And … concerned about the fifth unsigned contract.

“You should be sleeping, Mirth,” Elias says, skirting the kitchen counter.

“You should be sleeping,” I say, trying to be playful. But now that my heart rate has returned to normal, most of my attention is back on the text messages from Greg. Both Tommy and Kitty are likely happily tucked in bed, I remind myself.

“What’s wrong?” Elias asks, crossing to me, close enough to touch but not actually touching. “Do you need anything? Where is Sully?”

“He’s sleeping —”

My phone buzzes in my hand. A new text from Greg appears on the screen.

The tracking software has been disabled or blocked on the kids’ phone. The techs noticed during their regular late-evening ping.

Pure fear streaks through me. There is nothing at all logical about the extreme nature of that reaction, but —

“Mirth!” Elias’s hands close around my upper arms. “Tell me.”

I shake my head. “I don’t know anything yet. The kids …” Elias has no idea whom I’m talking about. “I … met a young boy at my last literacy charity event. He … he’s Tommy, and his sister is Kitty. I …”

I flush a little. The fact that I have the royal guard tracking children I’m not related to or responsible for isn’t something I should probably just blurt out. Not even to someone in the process of forming a bond group with the specific intent to woo me into joining them.

Elias gently takes my phone from me. He scans the texts, swiping his thumb over the screen. And I just … I let him.

I just need a moment.

The phone buzzes in Eli’s hand. His light-blue eyes flick over the screen to read it.

“Last known location was their apartment. Greg already has the locals doing a drive-by.” He sets the phone back into my hand.

Then, still holding that hand cradled in his own, he guides me over to the kitchen table.

“The kids probably accidentally broke their phone.”

I slump into a chair. “Of course.” I exhale heavily, placing my phone face up on the table. “I’m overreacting.”

“I didn’t say that.” Elias steps to reach across the counter to pull the tea strainer from his mug, depositing it in the sink. “I don’t think that.” He places the steaming mug in front of me, then steps back around the table to settle in the seat he’s already claimed for himself.

I wrap my hands around the mug, inhaling deeply. I don’t drink tea. And Elias knows that. So I just accept the comforting gesture for what it is.

I watch him work for a few minutes. That too is calming. Tucked into this pocket of light within the dark of my beloved brother’s apartments. It feels … oddly right.

I lean forward far enough to push the unsipped tea toward Elias. He picks the mug up without looking away from whatever he’s typing on his laptop, taking a sip.

I tap the screen of my phone even though it would have lit up if there was a message.

“Are the children ours?” Elias asks, his tone even.

“Ours?” I echo stupidly.

He turns his head just enough to pin me with a sharp light-blue gaze. “Do they belong to you? To our bond group?”

“I … don’t …” My heart rate picks up a little, and another shiver of fear snakes down my spine. “They’re just children. I was concerned about something Tommy said about purple eyes … I have a responsibility as an awry.”

“Your reaction indicates it’s more than that.”

“Isn’t that enough?”

Elias simply raises an eyebrow. Then when I don’t cave under his scrutiny, he turns his attention back to his work.

It’s just that there isn’t anything to cave in to …

And … now I can’t stop thinking about it, thinking about how blind I might have been … about so many things.

“What if …” I whisper. “What if they are … ours? They have parents, lives. They’re just kids.”