“Why is Willa invisible?” Emmy started in on Fakey again, and this time the imposter didn’t hesitate to answer. I think she was afraid that I’d hit her from nowhere again.
“There should be something on her,” Fakey snapped, stepping back from everyone and brushing off her clothing as her mirage rippled, transforming right in front of us. “Something which is rendering her invisible to any gifted being. That was the easiest way to ensure that no one of importance saw her kidnapping.”
I should have started looking for the device as soon as she mentioned it, but I was too busy staring at her. At Fakey, who had looked like me a moment ago, but now looked completely different. She was standing taller, her body thinner—almost painfully thin, though she managed to make it look graceful, somehow. Her hair was a silky black curtain around her face, her features delicate, but tight, as though she didn’t smile very often.
The longer I stared at her, the more ‘herself’ she seemed to become, until I was taking an involuntary step away from her. Her light-blue eyes skipped right over me, the icy shade of colour making my skin crawl. I was thankful that she wasn’t quite as adept as the Abcurses at seeing through my invisibility, because I really didn’t want her to become the kick-ass female in the room. I wanted all of my backbone from a moment ago to come flooding back into me, but it seemed to have skipped away as soon as the sol in front of me had manifested.
She was terrifying-looking. There was no other way to describe it.
I finally shook off the weird sensation that her icy eyes had given me, pulling away from Aros and running my hands quickly over my body in an attempt to find that device. I didn’t want to just stand there, cowering and invisible. I could at least fake that I was brave and kick-ass. It was better than nothing.
I searched my shirt and my shorts, before bending down to search my shoes. I could feel nothing out of the ordinary on me. Aros pulled me back again, and then his hands were skimming over my shoulders and down my sides. I shivered, trying not to focus too much on how his hands felt. With Aros, every single touch was purposeful. There was an energy behind it, begging me to lean into him, to press my body back into his fingers. Just as his hands reached the curve at the base of my spine, I was yanked away by Yael.
“Come on, Seduction,” a deep voice grated, right above my head. “You know this isn’t a job for you.”
Aros’s golden gaze went a little black around the edges as he stared his brother down, but he didn’t fight back. “It’s the perfect job for me, but I understand what you’re saying,” was all he said in response, folding his arms over his wide chest. So reasonable was that response that … now I was worried I had some fake Abcurse brothers to go along with the Fake Willa.
Coen must have noticed my expression, or heard my thought. He gave me a lazy smirk. “Rau won’t mess with us so easily again.” Some of that smirk vanished with his next words. “Especially since we almost lost you right out from under us because we were too busy fighting. We have survived the insane politics of these worlds because we stick together. Chaos knows that. We won’t let him win.”
Since when did sols care about the particular politics of the gods?
I stared at their faces, waiting for a response to my thoughts. Conveniently, they pretended that they hadn’t heard that one. Yael, who had been running his hands along my clothes, stood up and took the length of my hair into his hands. As his touch shifted through the strands, a very small device fell out. It was like a tiny, jewelled bug. I frowned, swooping down to pluck it from the floor. It looked so real. And then it moved.
Emmy squealed and jumped back, but I was able to pretend that I was unfazed, because Emmy’s reaction had shocked me out of my own. All that really amounted to was the fact that Emmy reacted to shit quicker than me, but I grinned at her anyway. Like I was superior, because I didn’t scream like a girl. As I turned my eyes back to the beetle, Rome stepped forward and swiped it off my palm.
“No!” I quickly followed his massive hand, grabbing at his fingers and prying them open again to rescue the jewel-coloured little thing. “That’s mine. You can’t crush it.”
“It’s not yours,” he corrected, and I could tell that he was trying not to roll his eyes. “It’s Elowin’s. And she was using it to play with us, so I will crush it.”
I managed to regain custody of the beetle, and Siret was at my side in an instant, holding his hand out to me. I gave him a narrow-eyed glare, but he only met my suspicion with a smirk that said trust me. Technically, Siret was the least trustworthy Abcurse, but he was usually on my side if it would annoy one of his brothers, so I handed over the beetle and he slipped it into his pocket.