Page 38 of Grand Romantic Delusions and the Madness of Mirth, Part Two

I take a steadying breath. I meet Kitty’s questioning gaze. She’s not scared of the energy that has to be rolling off me now, but she is wary.

And I smile.

I smile, and I know. I know what I’m capable of. And that I will do what is necessary to protect not only those I love, but those who don’t have anyone else to protect them.

“You have to be willing to hurt others to save yourself, to save those you love.” That was my father’s challenge, wasn’t it? When he completely overreacted to Radek and Lukas’s feigned kidnapping because he didn’t think I was capable of doing what was necessary to rescue myself.

So, yes. Challenge accepted. I smile, and so I don’t keep worrying the little awry at my side, I reach into the safe for her phone. An interior essence ward of some kind dissipates under my touch. “Whoever set the protections on this safe really knows we’re here now.” My voice is calm, measured.

“Not a problem,” Coda says without further elaboration.

From the top shelf, I pick up the phone covered in sparkly pink and purple decals and hand it to Kitty. She grabs it in both hands, carefully checking it over for damage.

A trickle of disconcertion cuts through my calm acceptance. “Coda …”

“Press your phone, back-to-back, to Mirth’s phone, baby girl,” the tech commands. “Let’s check it for tracking software.”

Kitty follows Coda’s instructions. Energy passes between the two phones, and she gasps sweetly, wiggling her fingers as if they’re tingling.

“Can you tell if it’s the phone that drew their attention?” I ask quietly, focused on grabbing the other phones while pointing Kitty toward the hard drives. All of it gets zipped into the various pockets in Kitty’s backpack.

“It wasn’t you, Mirth.” Coda’s tone has darkened again. “Give me a couple of hours and I’ll get you a detailed report of how the kids came to the attention of the Mobius Group.”

Coda clearly doesn’t want to elaborate yet.

I glance at Kitty, but she’s looking through the photos on her phone — lots of selfies, a few containing Tommy — and I don’t know her well enough to know if she’s shut us out or is listening to everything we say.

Either way, if Kitty’s slip about her mother potentially being involved in their kidnapping is true, it’s best we don’t discuss it.

“Have you got the guardianship paperwork in place yet?” Coda asks.

I swallow. “I can’t just —”

“The awry protect awry. You can. And solely on that basis alone.”

Kitty looks up at me. She’s holding my phone now, and I realize she’s found the first picture Tommy ever sent me. The one with the building in the background — and the stamp on the brick just over their shoulder.

“Can I send this picture to my phone?” Kitty asks.

Tommy deleted the earliest messages and photos he’d sent me, as if afraid of someone seeing them. “Yes.”

She doesn’t look away, so I just hold her gaze steadily and wait.

“Tommy too, right, Mirth?” she asks in a whisper. “Even if he doesn’t have purple eyes? You’ll look after Tommy too? That’s what guardianship means, right?”

“Yes.”

Kitty frowns deeply. “The wolf is going to be very bossy.”

I laugh involuntarily, opening my mouth to tell her that wild, carefree Bolan is the last person who would tell anyone what to do with their lives. Then I see a shimmer of light behind Kitty’s eyes — a shift in essence within those dark-blue depths.

I close my mouth, knowing she’s right. Bolan is going to be a crazy strict parent. Sully and Elias are going to be the pushovers.

Oddly, the idea of all that — building a life together and all it entails — doesn’t concern me. Whether or not I understand every last nuance of what’s going on between us all, I’ve already made my choice. My choices.

Kitty huffs, my silence only confirming her assessment of Bolan, and returns her attention to the phones, transferring more photos between them.

I eye the rest of the contents of the safe. “Coda. Do you really need all the money and —”

“If I’m going to trace it,” Coda says. “So yes. Also, I’m pretty certain you aren’t going to agree to just burning the building down, so I need to plunder what assets I can. To fund our cause, you know.”

Awry protecting awry.

Giving in, I look around for something to cart around the remainder of the safe’s contents.

I’m not sure how much that many stacks of paper money and bonds combined with the one-ounce gold and silver bars weigh, but they’ll need to be carried in something solid.

Spotting a trashcan with a liner in it, I straighten and step away from the safe to see if —

“Now …” Coda murmurs thoughtfully. “Where does this go?”

A section of the paneled wall behind the desk slides open, revealing a doorway and a sporadically lit, brick-walled passageway beyond.

I blink at the gaping hole in the back wall. “Well … cutting through the brick was definitely not permitted under the heritage restoration bylaws.”

Coda cackles.

Kitty, still hovering by the safe, whimpers quietly, drawing my attention. She presses her phone to her chest, eyes wide and fear shimmering off her in waves. “That’s where they took Tommy,” she whispers.

“All right,” I say, stepping back to pick up her backpack and help her get it settled on her back. I retrieve my phone, ignoring the rest of what’s in the safe. “Then that’s where we’re headed.”

“I don’t have access to the cameras through there, Princess,” Coda says, sounding actually cautious.

“We’ll come back for the money.”

“That is so not the point,” Coda mutters.

I take Kitty’s hand. She clutches her phone in her other hand.

“These people …” Coda’s fingers are flying over their keyboards again, likely trying to gain access to whatever tech is beyond the passageway.

“They care more about your purple eyes than your rank or, like, the societal standards or whatever normally keep you relatively safe. You don’t have your entourage to protect you, Mirth.

Wait for them, then we’ll all look for the boy. ”

“I never actually needed anyone to protect me, Coda.” I squeeze Kitty’s hand. “I’m in disguise, you see. The pearls, the perfect smile, the sweet demeanor. The crown. Underneath, slumbering deep, deep down, I’m the one to be truly feared. And there’s only one way to wake me …”

Kitty squeezes my hand back, not the least bit scared of me.

Together, we cross around the ostentatious desk, stepping into the passage and the shadow beyond.

Hand in hand, Kitty and I pad along the dark hall.

Just past a short side corridor, we cross into a large, low-ceilinged room.

Minimal light sources, all filtering down from above, carve a spotty path through to a dark area that might be another egress on the far wall.

A large electronic control board is situated against the wall at the mouth of the office corridor.

I have no idea what it controls, but with its many levers, it looks a little like one of the sound boards I’ve seen in Bolan’s recording studios.

Still hand in hand, and with Coda exceptionally silent on the phone, Kitty and I cross deeper into the room.

Despite the sporadic pools of yellow-white light, it’s dim enough that we almost stumble upon a low round platform.

It’s empty. But as we continue on, it’s easier to see at least a dozen other similar platforms that contain some type of display.

We cross by the art first. I’m not in any way an expert, but I think the first is a blue-and-green-toned Monet I’ve never laid eyes on.

The second is a Picasso that I’m certain is supposed to be housed at the National Gallery.

A large chunk of concrete, clearly having been somehow removed from the foundation of a building, sits on a larger platform.

On it, etched in thick lines of black spray paint, is a Banksy portrait of an angel-winged girl in a bulletproof vest. The angel’s eyes are a purple hue.

“Fuckers,” Coda snarls over my phone speakers. “That’s supposed to be in New York. We’re fucking taking that with us.”

I don’t correct Coda’s language. Mostly because the angel-winged girl reminds me— terrifyingly so— of the girl currently holding my hand.

Heart aching in my chest, I know for certain what I’m looking at now.

Jewelry and other antiques that should be in museums are set on another half-dozen pedestals.

Including a carved and painted mask that clearly belongs to the Salish people, and a flawless step-cut vivid blue diamond practically the size of Kitty’s palm.

But this isn’t a gallery. There’s no proper lighting, and the ceiling is low enough to feel oppressive. It’s not conducive to —

A murmur of voices filters through to us from up ahead, near the dark space that I thought might be another exit. Followed by laughter, then a defiant, pained cry.

Maybe the shadow is a dark-colored divider or … a thick curtain?

I press my hand over Kitty’s mouth the moment I realize who has voiced that cry, then I tug her into the deeper shadows behind the Banksy angel.

Kitty struggles against my hold. In protest, not in a serious bid to get away from me.

I let my essence unfurl. I’ve been holding it loosely for a few days now, and it stretches around me almost gleefully when I slacken my hold further.

Kitty stills in my arms, but she doesn’t flinch or try to pull away from my touch.

She doesn’t start laughing as she would if I were melting her brain.

I remove my hand from her mouth, offering it for her to hold again. She blinks up at me in the darkness, then takes that hand.

She doesn’t voice a single laugh, not even a giggle from the touch of my power.

And I knew that would happen. Didn’t I?

Logically, I knew it couldn’t just be my brother and father who were immune to me. At least immune without me specifically targeting them.