“Oh, wait, is that Danielle’s room? The one with the girl who went to imaging, but then her record couldn’t be accessed anymore?”
one of the younger ones asks, looking over the old woman’s shoulder.
“No, she was discharged. The record was just glitched for a few minutes.”
The other younger one.
“Ah, yes. It says here she was discharged,”
the old one says, after her snail-pace typing finally yields results.
“Thanks, ladies.”
Snail nurse was no help, but the little gossips were. Such darlings. Rumors have always made the world go round… not always for the better, but hey, sometimes they’re actually useful.
Another buzz of my phone. Probably the stupid Divinities, but I check anyway, just in case.
Thankfully, I’m wrong.
[CAINE: Thom can’t track her.]
[LYRE: Who the fuck is Thom?]
[CAINE: My wizard.]
Ah. The sniveling thing he brought with him, with the strange glasses. Well, it’s no surprise someone of his meager talent would be lost in this situation. Humans were never great vessels for arcana.
[LYRE: At hospital now. Checking for traces. I’ll update when I find something.]
[CAINE: Jack-Eye is already there.]
I lift my head with a scowl as I almost collide with a wall of wolf muscle. Jack-Eye-Caine’s beta with a ridiculous name-steps out of Grace’s hospital room, wearing an expression matching my own.
Just what this clusterfuck needs: two people with bad news and nothing else.
I shove my phone into my back pocket.
“Learn anything?”
Jack-Eye shakes his head, nostrils flaring.
“Nothing. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was never here.”
The muscles in his jaw twitch with frustration, and I sniff at the air. My sense of smell is far stronger than a human’s, but all I can pick up is the smell of bleach and the distinct undertone of wolf, courtesy of the Lycan Beta.
“Move,”
I say, not bothering with courtesy as I shove my way past.
The flow of arcana-a subtle current of existence, or energy, or magic, whatever you’d like to call it-shimmers in the air like thousands of colored threads.
They’re too… straight. Clean. Perfect.
Woven by someone with a master touch, but not enough experience to understand their work only raises red flags.
Grace’s room should be a mess of magical residue-my wards, the hospital’s ambient energy, her presence, the bond she shares with her annoying boyfriend…
Instead, the pattern here is strange. It reminds me of something. I can’t quite remember, though.
Jack-Eye follows me into the room with a grunt.
“What do you see?”
he asks, his voice lowered to a faint rumble.
“Shut up.”
Extending my hands helps with feeling the currents.
I walk the perimeter of the room, fingertips tracing invisible lines. Near the window, I pause. The pattern shifts here. This is where they began their weaving.
“Someone’s erased her presence,”
I tell Jack-Eye, who just nods. He gets it. To his nose, this room must smell strange. Missing things. Even a recently cleaned room has a multitude of scents, and yet there’s nothing here.
As if everything has been planted. Not just what we smell, but also the arcana in this place.
I run my fingers over the wall absently.
“They didn’t just grab her. They erased the very concept of her being here.”
That’s what bothers me about the symmetry. It reminds me of-
The memory clicks like a lock tumbling open.
“Son of a bitch.”
Giant brown eyes watch me with such suspicion, I’m pretty sure their owner thinks I’m a very hungry dragon with toddler on the menu.
I pretend not to notice the tiny human’s approach. Looking directly might spook her-or worse, encourage her to come closer. The bunny ears on her onesie bounce with each determined step, her diapered bottom swaying like a pendulum as she toddles across the uneven stone floor.
My kidnapper-can I even call him that now?-thrusts three sticks toward me. Each holds several bright red strawberries coated in a crystalline shell that catches the dim light. Tanghulu. I’d seen pictures of it before, fruit skewers dipped in sugar syrup that hardens into a candy coating.
The man’s face remains impassive, nearly hostile, as if handing me this sweet treat is equivalent to passing over the keys to his entire fortune.
I accept them cautiously.
Not a word has been spoken in the ten minutes since I regained consciousness, lying on a pile of thin fleece blankets.
My kidnapper (?) grunts at me before shuffling back to his boiling pot, dipping yet another stick of strawberries in it.
“Uh… thank you,”
I offer, though I’m not sure why I’m thanking someone who drugged me and stole me from a hospital.
The cave-or whatever this place is-stretches around me in a peculiar mix of primitive and modern. Natural stone walls curve overhead, but someone’s strung LED light chains across them, the wires draped between wooden beams jammed into terracotta pots. The effect is oddly… homey.
A few other children sit cross-legged on mismatched rugs and pillows scattered across the floor. They crunch on their own tanghulu, sugar crystals catching in the corners of their mouths. They don’t seem concerned about being here. None look malnourished or scared.
What kind of kidnapping operation is this?
The toddler’s eyes remain locked on my untouched treats, a thin line of drool escaping the corner of her mouth. Her own tanghulu casualties lie scattered on the floor beneath her-strawberries separated from the stick, their sugar coating cracked and sticky against the stone floor.
Someone should probably clean that up.
Not me, but… someone.
No one seems to care, though.
“You don’t have to give her any if you don’t want to.”
The oldest kid-maybe fifteen-squints at me.
“She’s just a glutton. Already wasted hers.”
The toddler’s bottom lip quivers at this betrayal.
“I don’t mind sharing,”
I say, surprising myself. I’m still woozy from whatever drug I was given, but clear-headed enough to wonder at my own calm. Shouldn’t I be screaming? Fighting? Looking for escape routes?
Instead, I’m contemplating sharing candy with a drooling toddler and possible fellow kidnappee.
I tap one of my sticks against my palm, testing its stickiness.
“Is this place… where you all live?”
He shrugs, his dark hair falling across one eye.
“Sometimes. Depends on what’s happening.”
A younger boy pipes up, maybe seven or eight, strawberry juice staining his chin.
“It’s one of the safe houses.”
“Safe houses?”
I repeat.
“For emergencies!”
A girl with braids wrapped around her head like a crown says this like I should already know.
“You know, when the bad people come for us.”
The toddler has reached me now, standing so close I can smell the strawberry on her breath. Her fingers tentatively reach upward.
I hold out one of my sticks, and she snatches it with surprising dexterity.
“What’s your name?”
I ask her.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.