Page 6 of Sons of Sorrow
“Ooh.” Satchel jumped to his feet, hands clasped. “Could you please take me with you? Please? I really want to hang out with the pixies at the Amber Pavilion again.”
I smiled. Queen Aurelia was chill enough to let a bunch of pixies live on the palace premises. It was very sweet that Satchel was making friends of his own, but I knew he had a secret agenda, too.
“Of course you may come,” Sylvain said. “You’re always welcome at Mother’s palace.”
“Thank you forever, Sylvain. You’re the best.”
Chalk it up to the bond between mage and familiar, how I understood his motives instinctively. Or maybe I just knew my opportunistic little pixie too well. I waggled my eyebrows at Satchel, instantly understanding his master plan: to sell some sweet clothes to the palace pixies. He scowled back at me, crossed his arms and legs, and sat huffily back down on his pincushion.
“Excellent,” Dr. Fang said. “Make full use of the resources available to you, and see to it that you prepare down to the very last detail before entering the Oriel of Fire. None of this is hyperbole, boys, and I shouldn’t need to tell you myself. This is the deadliest of the four oriels, without question.”
Again I nodded, wanting to show her that we were taking her warning as seriously as she was giving it. Sylvain stood up first, followed by Satchel, who flew up to take a seat on his shoulder, the little suck-up.
Sylvain made a shallow bow with his head. “Thank you for your time as always, Doctor Fang. It is always a pleasure.”
“Likewise. Oh, but Lochlann? You should stay. There’s one thing I’d like to discuss with you briefly. Alone.”
I shot the boys a pleading glance as they left, but they couldn’t very well stay against Dr. Fang’s wishes, could they? The door clicked shut.
“You know why we’re here, don’t you?”
My eyes focused on the metal relief of a nautilus hanging like a painting behind her head, the perfect spiral, the golden ratio. “You wanted to catch up, maybe? Because we’re such good friends?”
“Damn it, don’t play so coy. Under no circumstances should you use one of your guardians.” She leaned forward, fixing me with her glare, eyebrows as sharp as daggers. “Not until we truly understand what the hell is going on with them. It’s that amulet you’re wearing. Has to be. Somehow it’s facilitating the release of the guardians’ power.”
I held it between my fingers, warm and familiar, a touchstone. Headmaster Belladonna Praxis had once threatened to obliterate both me and Aphrodite’s medallion if either my magic or the guardians went haywire.
“Maybe I’m just really good at commanding guardians,” I said, sitting tall. “You ever think about that?”
“You shouldn’t risk it,” Dr. Fang said, one eyebrow raising, and then the other, a pair of excitable, if carefully groomed caterpillars. “Why, these things could be stronger than even eidolons. Who knows the kind of overwhelming feats of magic you could accomplish with them?”
“Uh, well. You’re kind of sending mixed signals here, Doc.”
I glanced down at the medallion. This thing really had unlocked a massive new world of hurt for my enemies. It wasn’t like I’d totally neglected my roster of actual eidolons, either. I still had the doves, Old Man the grizzled wolf, and Scruffles, destroyer of worlds, a nuclear warhead in the shape of an orange cat.
And since our adventure in the Oriel of Water, I also had four unicorn sisters more or less at my disposal, even though they said they might not show up all at once if summoned. A toss of a die, one to four unicorns at random. I still liked those odds. I totally forgot to mention that to Fang, though.
My blood froze. Uh-oh. Apparently I’d completely forgotten about something else, too.
“Lochlann, I’m just saying,” she said, leaning into her chair again. “If you were to accidentally unleash more of your guardians, then you should come straight to me to report that. To tell me all about how incredible and amazing it is to harness the forces of the elements.” She cleared her throat. “How terrible and irresponsible it is, I mean.”
“Naturally,” I replied. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“But you know, warnings and guardians aside?” Dr. Fang steepled her fingers, watching me closely. “There’s something else that we need to discuss.”
I gulped. “There is?”
“Remember when you promised to bring me pictures of your unicorns?”
3
“Oh, gods,”I stammered to myself, sprinting down the corridor. “Maybe she won’t chase me. Maybe I’ll live.”
I narrowly escaped with my life, hightailing it out of Dr. Euclidea Fang’s office before she could summon something to devour me whole. I knew she loved that place, how smartly decorated it was, that windowed, sunlit corner office which she wouldn’t dare destroy by summoning one of her own eidolons.
But the redness in her face, the way her voice suddenly got very soft and low? It made me consider the possibility that she would do anything to tear me a new one. It was also the signal for me to get the hell out of there.
Somehow I’d once again forgotten to take pictures of the unicorn sisters. I could barely even remember where my phone was at the time. We needed to sift through blood-soaked waters to retrieve all those Tears of the Ocean from the dead kraken guardians, too. Not exactly the best time for a photo op.
