I heard her exhale beside me, her own frustrations rattling through the red-tinged air.
“I guess that would be marathon. What did you end up telling him?”
“The truth.”
“The truth?” She was frustrated, and I didn’t blame her.
My focus snapped to her at the panic in her voice, not surprised to see the aggravation that normally came before some kind of reprimand. Even if we were crushing on each other, she couldn’t let that side of her go all the way. I didn’t blame her.
“Calm down, Risha.” I was careful to keep the irritation out of my voice, but she fumed more. “I didn’t tell him anything. He had already figured it all out himself.”
“So much for shielding him.”
“That’s the thing, though,” I sighed, scooting a tiny bit closer to her as I lowered my voice, careful to keep him from overhearing.
She leaned forward, and my brain tried to melt out of my ears again.
Keep it together, Ry, I ordered. It was becoming my mantra around her.
“He doesn’t want to be shielded, Risha. He wants to be prepared.”
She was obviously expecting something else. Her eyes widened with a little headshake, and then she pulled away from me a bit in shock.
Chuckling deeply at her reaction, I scooted away a bit, desperate to get some fresh air instead of that deep perfume she always wore.
It did, anyway, not that I minded.
“So he wants to know?”
“Every word.”
“Do you think he’s ready?” she asked me curiously, her eyes full of the same sparkle I had seen on the very first day.
“Why are you asking me?”
“Well, it’s like before … You aren’t his friend. You can’t be. But you are something, a guardian, maybe. Something like that. It seems like a decision such as that would be up to you. I mean, he can’t have a government raising him.”
“Don’t you think I’m a little young for that?” My voice was shaking violently, but I didn’t even try to conceal it. I wasn’t too happy with the sudden turn this conversation had taken.
Yes, it was something I had thought of barely moments before, but hearing it from someone else was a little too solid.
I swallowed heavily, trying to get the heavy lump out of my throat, yet it didn’t seem to want to move.
“I think you are as old or young as you want to be, but sometimes, when hard things happen, we have to grow up a little bit, whether we want to or not.” She stared at me intently, my heart racing even faster at the look in her eyes, at the little dimple that played around the corner of her lips.
“Risha!” Jaromir’s shout rippled through the courtyard as the boy intersected with Risha, tackling the beautiful woman out of sight, leaving me staring blankly into the courtyard as Jaromir began regaling her with everything that had happened over the past few hours.
I barely saw.
I barely heard.
I sat beside them, one word echoing through my head.
Guardian.
Scarcely a minute before, I had realized I felt like a parent to this boy. I had felt responsible. And now, with that one word, everything from before kind of fit into place.
Risha was right.
More than responsibility, more than some twisted parental relationship, sometimes you had to grow up and do what was needed of you.
Slowly, the idea cemented in my mind, becoming more familiar than it should have, the scene before me becoming a little clearer through the fog.
“Some marathon, huh?” Risha said as I looked up to where Jaromir was still occupying her, some weird pink smoke seeping from the palm of his hand.
I stared at them, watching her eyes sparkling as my stomach flipped again, the pungent smell of Jaromir’s magic filling my mind. It might have been the fumes from the smoke, but I was fairly certain being around Risha had turned Edmund’s voice off in my head.
Some marathon, indeed.
It was the cloaked figure right before me, exactly as it had been for the last month, flitting in and out of my sights in a horrifying parade of faces and purposes.
Except, this time, it was not sight. It was reality. It was a terrorizing reality I needed answers to. I couldn’t let them get away.
We had been close in the graveyard, and now he was right in front of us.
Inches from me.
The fabric rippled before me as the figure ran, frantic to escape, Ilyan feet from them.
They couldn’t get away.
Then, with a faint pop, they were gone. Disappeared into thin air.
“No!” I screamed as they left, my hand millimeters from pulling the cloak from their head, Ilyan inches from tackling them, the violet stream of his attack still moving uselessly into the darkness.
Moving right into me.
Ilyan and I shouted in unison. I sidestepped as he pushed a wave of counter magic after his attack, the black smoke swallowing it whole. I knew it was pointless, magical attacks didn’t work against mated pairs, but even though it wouldn’t hamper me, it would still hurt. I wasn’t in the mood for crippling pain right then, not with what had happened.