“Well, you have shared your own stream is a vibrant yellow that fades from burnt hues to palest yellow. I can see that when you allow me, yes?”
“Of course. What color is Grayson’s?”
“Every color. All of them, all at once. Once you let it free, The Plain is every color. Reds and yellows, blue and green that make turquoise, mixing with purple and magenta, and pinks. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”
“Nimue showed us artwork when we met that reminded me of my—The Plain. It was beautiful.”
Vaayu’s eyes go wide.
“Was it by Chandrakant? There’s a copy of an original of his work hanging at the national magical headquarters, the Maya Lok in Delhi. It’s forty feet by one hundred feet, and covers the dome over the library there. A large, flowing river with long strands of color streaming in from the side in great ribbons. Is it like that, Emre?”
“Yes! Exactly that. Our advanced Plain studies include an entire unit on Chandrakant. He was the last person to see all the colors of The Plain in their entirety. Of course, it’s been several hundred years, and we only know what history tells us.”
“Do you think he might have been Were?” Nix asks, because it makes perfect sense to him.
The others are quiet, especially Ignatius, whose eyes go distant as they often do when he’s presented with something new, like everything they’ve mentioned to him over the past two days.
“That is an excellent question, Nix, and one I will take up with our Time Affinities at the earliest possible opportunity.”
“It makes sense that he might have been, given his reported long life, and that you both see The Plain in similar ways. What makes you ask?” Emre asks, before sitting back beside Selinde and accepting a cookie from the offered plate.
Whathadmade him ask?
His bonds ebb and flow, their beautiful colors brighter than ever. Right now, Jamie and Finn are satisfied, the tang of sweet pleasure swirling reddish-blue. Gideon, Leo, and Luca are farther away, and slightly…sad. Rowan and Grayson are the brightest, as they’re here with him, but they are curious, too.
“If you’d rather not say, that’s alright,” Vaayu says. “We have no right to your truth.”
The other magic users nod in agreement.
It makes Nix doubly sure they have good intentions.
“Thank you, it’s just that it’s sort of personal? Weird, maybe? Do you know much about Weres?”
The irony that he is explaining Were physiology to others when, less than six months ago, he’d been on the receiving end of his own instruction, is not lost on him.
“As part of the magical community and our affinity for the Moon, we bridge that space between Were and Human. It’s part of our magical training. So the answer would be…some?”
Ignatius’s gaze is kind, content to let Nix say whatever he wants, in his own time.
“Good. Well, we are bonded to our mates, and usually, those bonds are invisible to the eye,” Grayson says, squeezing Nix’s hand. “Rowan and I don’t see our bonds with Nix, we can only feel them.”
“Right. But I see mine.” Nix shrugs. “They’re every color of the rainbow except yellow, which is weird. I have since the beginning. So when you described Chandrakant’s painting, it made me curious. Gray’s flow, and then those tendrils you described. Maybe he was magic and Were.”
Maybe he was omega too, Nix wonders, but he keeps that bit to himself.
The room is quiet, except for the occasional snore from Aldis high in the rafters.
How does a bird even snore, Nix thinks to himself when the lack of reaction starts to get to him.
Emre finally breaks the silence. “That is something to think about. I have to ask, when Grayson is using magic, how do you feel? Are your bonds stronger, or unaffected?”
“They’re really good now. I hadn’t realized how much his using The Plain affected them.”
It’s true; Nix’s bonds were strong, and it made sense that even though Grayson was the other half of his soul, his bonds as an omega were also soul-deep.
“But I’m not a magic user, right?”
Emre smiles and shakes his head. “I suspect not on your own. May I see if they’re visible to me?” He gestures to Nix’s chest, implying he’d like to see Nix’s bonds or if there’s some reservoir of The Plain there.
