“Kylie, no. That’s not what I meant, I just—”
Movement in her peripheral vision distracted her as Dag rose and rounded her desk to stand beside her. “I think the witch simply referred to the fact that you are not a member of the Guild, and therefore not normally privy to matters of our concern.”
Wynn’s face lit up, and she inclined toward her monitor as if to get a better look. “Was that him? Where is he?”
Dag leaned over Kylie’s shoulder to peer at the screen. “I am here. You are the witch?”
“Um, I’m a witch; the witch is just a little too much pressure, to be honest.”
Kylie shrugged, deliberately knocking into the Guardian with her shoulder. “And I’m still here. Or would you rather I gave you two some alone time to bond?”
“We three.” The large man seated beside Wynn spoke for the first time. He had the same gravel bed under his voice that Kylie heard every time Dag opened his mouth. “However, I believe the best strategy would be for all four of us to remain in contact until we have finished our discussions and agreed on our next steps.”
“Well, I, for one, am not stepping anywhere until someone tells me the whole farfoilt story.”
Maybe it was the Yiddish that finally got through to Wynn, for after all that her friend had the decency to look abashed. “Right. On it. Introductions, then the story. Promise. Guardian, I am Wynn Powe, Warden to your brother Knox. Kylie, Knox is like … uh, sorry, I didn’t catch his name.”
Kylie pressed her lips together. Apparently Wynn had not met the love of her life at a store she supplied with bath products as the woman had originally said. “Dag. Dag, Wynn. Wynn, Dag. Story. Now.”
“Absolutely. Just do me a favor? Try not to hate me or think I’m crazy until I get it all out, okay?”
And finally, Kylie got to hear the story. It sounded like a fairy tale, or a high-fantasy novel she’d glanced at while she wandered through the bookstore. Shelved somewhere between Terry Brooks and J.R.R. Tolkien.
Once upon a time, thousands of years ago, the world found itself faced with a great danger. Just as there is Light in the universe to give life and peace to all living things, so there is a Darkness that seeks always to devour goodness and to remake the universe in its image. Because Darkness, like Light, can never be completely destroyed, the only hope of keeping it at bay is to divide it and contain it, to keep it from pooling its power and devouring all that goes before it.
At the point where the world was most at peril in the face of this great evil, a group of immensely gifted magic users joined together to summon forth a power capable of defeating the Demons who make up the Darkness.
That power took the form of the Guardians—seven immortal warriors, one for each of the Demons they would combat. The mages did not create the Guardians but merely called them forth from the Light, fully formed and ready for battle. Their purpose became their titles, because they existed to guard humanity from the servants of evil.
The mages quickly realized, however, that the Seven Demons of the Darkness could not be entirely destroyed. They were formed from the Dark itself, and so will exist forever in the same way that the Light will exist forever. In order to contain them, they were separated from each other to prevent them from feeding each other’s power, and each was banished to a desolate plane where it was imprisoned for eternity.
Knowing of the potential for the Seven to return, the mages made the decision to remain united and thus formed the Wardens Guild in order to monitor the ongoing threat from the Darkness. They gathered and shared their knowledge of the enemy, assisted the Guardians with the tools and support they required for battle, and monitored the activities of humans seduced or enslaved by the dark powers. The Wardens bore the ultimate responsibility for alerting the Guardians when they needed to rise up and face a renewed threat, and they also acted to send the warriors back to sleep when the threat was vanquished. Even during those periods of slumber, the Guild remained vigilant against the forces of the Darkness.
“A broch.” Damn, Kylie muttered when Wynn finally wound down. “You guys were really serious about the demon thing.”
“Deadly serious. But how did you find out, Kylie? Part of the job of the Guild is to keep the truth from the world so that humanity doesn’t panic and start acting stupid. If random people are finding out our secrets, we might have a whole new problem on our hands.”
Kylie’s eyes darted to the side, her lips pursing. “I, uh, I don’t think you need to worry about that, Wynneleh. It’s not like it’s the hot topic around the water cooler. I think you’re good.”
Wynn’s eyes narrowed. “Kylie, what did you do?”
She sighed, big and loud, the way her bubbeh had taught her. “Come on, Pooh Bear. What do I always do?”