Page 16 of The Tree of Spirits (Paragons #2)

RAYTAN'S REMOVALS

I was decidedly stuck. I tried kicking the door, but I wasn’t nearly strong enough. Next, I thought of picking the lock, but the piece of wire I found on the floor was way too flimsy. When I inserted it into the keyhole, it collapsed like warm butter.

It was then, while I was shifting and sliding myself around the tiny closet, looking for anything I could use but finding nothing except junk, that I tripped over my own legs. I caught myself—barely—by scraping my hands against the wall, and my orchid necklace slipped over my shirt collar.

You are not lost, Red. And you are not alone. If you ever need me, just whisper to the orchids, and I will come. Anytime. Any reason.

That’s what Conner had told me after giving me this necklace.

Anytime. Any reason.

I gripped the necklace in my hand. I could call on him to get me out of this closet.

Wait, no, I couldn’t do that. Conner was busy. He was fighting in that epic battle in the Park.

And, in any case, it would be way too embarrassing to call him all the way out here just because I’d stupidly gotten myself locked inside a closet.

No, I had to rescue myself. That’s what Knights did.

I remembered how Conner had made my necklace. He’d hummed that magical song, and all that junk had turned into the most beautiful necklace I’d ever seen.

I looked around the closet. There was a lot of junk in here. What if I could turn this trash into treasure too?

So I started humming that same song Conner had. And, to my surprise, I was able to form the metal like he had, with mind and magic. On instinct, I varied a few notes of the song here and there, and instead of a necklace, I made a key.

It was the ugliest key I’d ever seen, but it did unlock the closet door.

Maybe, with practice, someday I’ll be able to make pretty things too, I thought as I rushed down the hallway, back toward the garage.

The Metamorphs were there, but so were the Watchers.

One of the Watchers wore the same black uniform as the others, but he had no helmet.

And he carried a tablet in his hands. He must have been a detective, the very worst kind of Watcher.

They didn’t allow any secret to stay buried, no matter how small.

The detective interviewed the Metamorphs while the Watchers loaded all the evidence into Big Bob. The truck had survived the explosion with nothing more than a few dents and scratches.

“What are you doing?” Raytan demanded, watching the Watchers with angry eyes.

“Borrowing your truck,” replied the detective. “Do you have a problem with that?” He arched his brows, daring Raytan to try and stop him.

Raytan’s shoulders slouched. The angry spark in his eyes fizzled out. He must have known this was a losing battle.

“Drive out,” the detective directed the Watchers, waving his hand.

One of the Watchers hopped into the driver’s seat. The garage doors slid open.

The detective’s steady stare cut across the room, snapping to me like a magnet. “What are you doing here, Apprentice?”

“That’s Savannah Winters,” one of the Watchers told him.

“ The Savannah Winters?” The detective’s tone made me really curious to know what the Watchers said about me during their secret meetings inside the Black Obelisk.

Then again, I probably didn’t want to know.

Maybe they had a dartboard with my face on it in their break room.

I was, after all, always right there when something weird happened.

And if there was one thing the General—and the Watchers who worked for him—didn’t like, it was weird shenanigans breaking loose in their domain.

“Why am I not surprised that Savannah Winters is here?” The detective looked up at the ceiling and sighed. “It’s always Savannah Winters.”

“We could arrest her and bring her to the General,” suggested a Watcher.

I would definitely vote against that idea. Not that I even got a vote.

“No, the General has more pressing matters to deal with.” The detective sighed again. “I’ll just take her statement, and then we can get out of here.”

Taking my statement didn’t take long since it basically consisted of: Someone tried to blow us all up. No, I didn’t see who. And I don’t know why they did it either.

After that, the detective and his band of Watchers drove away in their ‘borrowed’ truck.

And Raytan and his crew encircled me.

“I don’t remember giving you permission to leave your closet, kid.” Raytan waved his people forward.

I hummed a low, long note. The broken remains of all the wooden crates rose into the air. I sang another note, and the debris started orbiting around me like a spiky shield.

The Metamorphs hung back, eyeing the spikes with apprehension.

“Come on, boys,” Raytan prompted his Metamorphs. “What are you waiting for? Grab her.”

“She’s got a shield,” one of them pointed out.

“Are you telling me that you’re afraid of a few tiny toothpicks?”

The man moved toward me, slow and wary.

I changed my song. One of the spikes slashed across his cheek. Just a tad.

My would-be attacker recoiled, nursing his new scratch.

Another Metamorph tried to sneak up on me from behind. I spun around, humming louder. I peddled my hands around each other, winding the wooden spikes into a loop. They shot forward like a stream of fish, twisting around the man’s wrists and ankles, binding them.

“Why, you little?—”

Another strip slapped across his mouth like a piece of tape, silencing him.

The hall fell quiet.

The silence was broken by Raytan’s laughter. “You’ve impressed me, kid.”

“So you’ll call off your men?” I asked, keeping my spikes ready.

Raytan motioned for the Metamorphs to fall back.

I dropped my spiky shield. Wooden shards fell to the ground like dead grasshoppers.

“Ok, you’ve got my attention,” Raytan said. “Talk.”

I glanced around the garage. There were fewer Metamorphs here than before.

“Was anyone seriously injured in the explosion?” I asked.

“Four of my boys were hit hard. A few broken bones. A few puncture wounds. Nothing life-threatening, but they will be out of commission for a few weeks. They’re resting back at base.”

“The people who stole your trucks, whoever they are, are probably the same people who just tried to blow us all up,” I said.

“Oh, really?” Raytan barked, crossing his arms.

“We need to figure out who they are. And get your stuff back.”

“Thank you for that. I’m so glad we had this conversation. I never would have realized that without your invaluable input.”

A few of his men snickered.

“And, by the way, kid, I already know who’s responsible. The Elves .” Raytan growled the word.

“Wait, are you just saying that because Metamorphs and Elves have this whole mortal enemy thing going on, or do you have any actual evidence?”

He grunted. “I don’t need evidence.”

“Uh, I’m pretty sure that’s how this whole catching-the-bad-guy thing works.”

Raytan’s icy smile shot chills down my spine. “You are so naive.”

The Metamorphs shuffled around the garage, restless and angry. Their trucks had been stolen and a bunch of their friends were lying wounded in bed. And now they were out for blood.

“If you launch an attack on the Elves here in the Emporium, the Watchers will stop you. And then you’ll be deported,” I warned them.

“It would be worth it,” Raytan said, and the others nodded.

“Is it worth it, though? Is it really worth throwing away everything you’ve built here—your business, your reputation—on a petty feud?”

“The Elves tried to blow us up!”

“You don’t know that,” I replied calmly. “Let me look into this. Let me get to the bottom of what’s going on. If I can’t, you can always go berserk on the Elves later.”

Raytan considered my words. “You have one hour, kid. That’s as long as I can hold off my boys.”

I believed him. Although maybe his one hour was overly optimistic. The other Metamorphs looked ready to march into bloody battle this very second.

“I need to speak to the four Metamorphs wounded in the explosion. Can you get me in to see them?” I asked Raytan.

He frowned. “Why do you want to waste your time talking to them? I told you the Elves are behind it.”

“You also told me I have one hour,” I reminded him. “So how about letting me decide how to use it? The wounded were closer to the blast. One of them might have seen something, some hint of who’s behind this.”

Raytan shrugged. “Fine, whatever. If you want to waste your time, then go right ahead. I’ll bring you to them.”

The Metamorphs started walking. I followed.

“So what’s the deal with this feud between Metamorphs and Elves?” I asked Raytan.

“It’s pretty simple actually. Elves are insufferable twits who think they’re better than everyone else. And we Metamorphs don’t stand for anyone looking down on us.”

“Surely, it must be more complicated than that.”

“Why?” he asked. “Because people are so inherently rational, enlightened, and accepting of anyone who’s different than they are?”

He had a point. People could be real boneheads, humans and supernaturals alike.

There wasn’t more to say, so we didn’t say anything at all until we were back at Raytan’s Removals.

Raytan brought me upstairs to an open room with four single beds—and four wounded Metamorphs. “Savannah is going to ask you some questions,” he told them, then added with a wolfish smile, “Don’t eat her.”

And with that dramatic line delivered, Raytan walked out of the room, leaving me with four smirking Metamorphs.

“Hey,” I said, backing up. “He told you not to eat me.”

“Hardly worth the effort anyway,” one Metamorph commented, looking me up and down.

The guy sitting next to him nodded. “She’s way too small and scrawny.”

“Don’t listen to them. They just get a kick out of scaring people,” the third Metamorph told me. “What did you want to ask us?”

“Raytan thinks the Elves are behind the theft of his trucks,” I said. “And the explosion that wounded all of you.”

“Because they totally are!”

“We’re at war!”

It turned out these Metamorphs weren’t just being melodramatic. Their clan and one of the Elven clans were literally on opposing sides of an inter-realm war. Apparently, not everything in the Many Realms was so shiny and perfect, despite what Prince Fenris would have people believe.

“The Elves obviously stole our trucks to bait us,” said one of the Metamorphs. “And then they tried to kill us.”

“Na, the Elves here on Gaia are too soft. They’re not warriors,” said another. “You could see that from the explosion. The timing. The way it went off, too far away to do us any lasting harm. They weren’t trying to kill us. They just wanted to sideline us for a few weeks.”

“Because?” I asked.

“Because the Elves want to rob our clan of the best fighters in the Many Realms, of course! They must have discovered that the four of us are all shipping off to the war next week. Or at least we were shipping off.” The Metamorph scowled.

“Stupid Elves, ruining everything. We were sooo going to kick some Elf ass. And now we have to wait until the next rotation. And with our luck, the war will be over by then!”

One could only hope.

“You’re a fool.”

Everyone looked at the Metamorph who had his arm in a sling. This was the first time he’d spoken since I’d set foot in the room.

“The Elves wouldn’t go through all this effort to wound four random nobodies just so we can’t join the war. That’s plain nonsense,” he said. “We aren’t the best fighters in the Many Realms. And we won’t make any difference in the war. There’s nothing special about us.”

“Speak for yourself, Xael!” shot back one of the others. “I, for one, am very special.”

“You’re special , all right. A real special kind of idiot if you truly believe any of that nonsense you just spewed,” replied Xael.

The other three Metamorphs scowled at him.

I positioned myself between Xael and his friends before they put his other arm in a sling too. “Ok, so who do you think is behind all of this?” I asked him.

“Intelli-move.”

“Intelli-what?”

“Intelli-move,” Xael repeated. “They’re a hauling business, just like us. In fact, they are our number one competitor.” He looked at the other wounded Metamorphs. “This isn’t about politics, boys. It’s about profits. And our business has put a big dent in theirs.”