Small, dirty-faced, blood and bruises near my hairline.
It was that day. It had to be that day.
I wore the same pink jumper. I wore the same backpack on my back, covered in dragons and unicorns. I stared down at little me, and little me stared up. I could feel Ankha’s rage, her slow-building fury as she stared at those wide, green eyes.
She turned to glare at Racyth, head of the Praecuri.
They weren’t speaking in person, exactly, but through a mirror between worlds.
“Where is it?”Ankha hissed.“She had to be wearing it! She had to! She never went anywhere without it! Where did it go?”
The dark-eyed mage looked weary, angry, and more than a little sad.
“It wasn’t there.”
“We had a deal!”Ankha snapped.
“We can’t hand over something that isn’t here, Ankha.”His voice contained an unsubtle warning.“We agreed to give you the stone if she had it on her. She doesn’t have it on her. How is that our fault?”
“Did you go through their bags?”Ankha demanded.
The mage’s expression closed.“File a request with the department. There’s nothing we can do for you that we haven’t already done.”
That scene was already breaking apart.
A fog crawled around the edges of my vision, eating up the tube sign, then the score of mages and witches combing over thecrime scene, their expressions grim. The man with the stunning black irises was the last to vanish.
I heard the rustling of robes, voices clearing, whispers, low coughs.
I sat on a padded bench, with a mage and a witch wearing expensive suits.
Ankha stared up stonily at a higher group, a panel of robed Magicals looking down at her from an elevated platform. They sat stoically, hands resting on an intricately carved wooden table. Matching chairs had high backs, green velvet padding, and long arms with lion’s paws carved at the ends. Ankha seethed with fury at all of them.
Hostility and resentment swirled around her in a cloud.
I registered something close to astonishment when I realized where most of my aunt’s hostility was aimed.
Forsooth sat there, at the very center of the elevated Magicals.
His brow furrowed over lowered eyebrows, his star-filled eyes stormy.
“We’re done deliberating,”Forsooth said, once Ankha met his gaze.
He tugged at his goatee, fingers rough, and cleared his throat. He looked displeased, even frustrated, as if the deliberations had not gone at all the way he wanted. He appeared almost to be stalling, as if still trying to find a way out of the final decision.
“You are granted full custodial responsibility for your niece and nephew, as requested,”he said, not disguising his reluctance.“You are officially named legal guardian of Leda Rose La Fey Shadow, and Arcturus Robert La Fey Shadow, with the condition of full supervision by the Praecuri and G.O.R.E. until they are both of age and have succumbed to magical testing.”
Forsooth wasn’t the only one unhappy with this, as it turned out.
“Supervision?”Ankha stared up at him, aghast.“Why would supervision be necessary? As you said yourself, they’re my sister’s only children?”
“And yet, you’ve made no secret of your disapproval of your sister’s choices.”Forsooth’s eyes hardened.“You are getting what you want, Ankha. Don’t push it.”
“So I’m just expected to tolerate this invasion of my privacy? Of my niece and nephew’s privacy?”She barely got out those last words without spitting, or curling her lip.“You think that’s what I wanted?”
“I think I’ve made it abundantly clear throughout this hearing, I don’t believe you’re the best choice to raise half-human children, Ms. La Fey, regardless of the blood relationship you share with them.”Forsooth voice grew frosty.“Not when you’ve spent most of your life lobbying for aggressive measures against Overworlders, and against your own sister.”
I felt my heart jerk sideways in my chest.
