Page 30 of Family Found

Inkiri was right about that. I nodded and thought about it all through the quiet meal we shared.

By the time we were done, it was dark outside, and I could see one of the moons through the window. By the time Inkiri and I headed to one of the rooms and went to sleep, neither Kinnek nor Lissir had shown up, and Vergis was either roaming the castle, or he was still in Canada.

I slept until I drifted back into the detached feeling, the thing where I wasn’t where my body was, but could instead shift my attention to other places. Fellisse and Nokim were first and foremost on my mind. I wanted to make sure my guys were okay, even if finding them from this side of the veils took a lot of concentration. I managed it though.

They were both still at the house back in Canada. Nokim was in the kitchen, packing up food while talking to two other Raikengana in taupe. He was clearly explaining things about the kitchen, going by his pointing at the toaster oven and pulling a garlic press from a drawer. I was reminded of my mother telling a new au pair how the fancy fridge worked. The two Raikengana were a lot more interested than she had been, oohing and aahing as they took the garlic press from Nokim and tried it out themselves.

I moved on. I spotted Charles in a back room on the first floor, moving weapons from a locker to a duffel bag—the same one he’d had ready in less than five minutes when we’d gone to save Kinnek, and it hit me: the veil. The veil to the monster world still needed to be closed, and they were getting ready for that. Well, not with the garlic press in the kitchen, obviously, but Charles was gearing up for action.

I squirmed in my sleep, but that was ruining my focus, and I wanted to check in on Fellisse. I concentrated again.

The big bagu was in the basement where Zeddira was resting on a cot. Zeddira didn’t look too hot, the blue of his face a lot more ashen than was normal for him. He had two very fluffy pillows under his head so his horns didn’t bother him while he rested, and Fellisse had found him a warm black-and-white checkered comforter.

The basement itself wasn’t too bad a place to keep someone in recovery. It got light from low windows set high in the ceiling, and it was fully finished. It even had one of Kinnek’s murals on one wall.

In my magically disembodied state, I shifted my attention to the art. It showed a bagu child with dark blue skin sitting in the grass and leaning against an apple tree, a book open in his lap. I had no doubt at all who that kid was.

Kinnek had painted Vergis with so much attention to detail, from his lashes to the carefully blended color, to the concentration on his face and a small tear at the hem of his jeans. Vergis had been a cute kid, and Kinnek had made absolutely sure there would always be a memory of that around.

I smiled when I realized little Vergis had a black cat on his shirt, all but half of its face and whiskers hidden by the book he was reading. I’d have totally worn a shirt like that at that age too, and I’d wear it now.

Still, as nice as the basement was, I had a feeling Zeddira wouldn’t have wanted to be caught dead in it. Which he almost had been. He was still too weak to get up the stairs though. As Fellisse bent to check the bandages around Zeddira’s middle, Zeddira’s eyes opened slowly, and he moved his head to see what Fellisse was doing.

They exchanged a few words, though Zeddira’s voice cracked and prompted Fellisse to help him drink small sips from a cup he filled from a water bottle. I really needed to practice my Lugarran more so I’d be able to follow simple conversations, at least.

For the time being, I knew my guys were safe on Earth though, so I relaxed, and the strain of finding everyone across all that distance eased.

The others were here on Aër, and I focused on them next.

Lissir and Inkiri were close, sitting at the table in the front room and sharing breakfast while they talked in hushed Lugarra. That surprised me. I hadn’t realized it was morning or that Inkiri had gotten up. It was sweet of him to let me sleep, even if I was doing other stuff too.

Vergis wasn’t hard to find either. He poked his head into a room at the other end of the Raiken, a hospital room by the looks of it. He’d changed, and I was pretty sure he’d only just gotten back here from Earth.

Kinnek was in the hospital room, sitting on a low chair, but Aragis was the one I focused on. The bagu was out cold, sleeping in the way you only do when you’ve had the good drugs. He was on a cot as well, which struck me as unusual for bagua, who seemed to prefer sleeping on soft bedding on the floor, but then again, this was my first experience with a bagu hospital, or with a Raiken health department, at any rate.

Aragis was wearing different clothes, no longer the thin and filthy ones all of the survivors had been wearing. The soft shibiya were just like the ones that had been waiting in our room yesterday. Kinnek was wearing the same thing. He looked tired, but turned when Vergis came in.

“Dad.”

“There you are. Come here.”

Kinnek held out his arms, and after he looked like he was about ready to cry for the fraction of a second, Vergis nodded and went to him.

They just held on to each other for a few seconds before Vergis spoke. “We’re headed to the Stone. Hove has taken over the planning, and he wants to act sooner rather than later. He hopes that the Koa Esher won’t be organized enough to help the humans, not after the princess made their little stronghold half-uninhabitable.”

Kinnek stroked Vergis’s hair. “Don’t forget I added a bit of fire to that place. But yes, our chocolate cupcake certainly did well.” Kinnek rubbed his eyes and the base of his horns when Vergis straightened. “I will come, but I will be here until Aragis wakes.”

Vergis didn’t seem to want to look at Aragis or acknowledge that he was even there. “Can’t you just—the Raikengana are going to take care of him. You don’t have to do that. Can’t you just come home? Daddy misses you.”

Kinnek looked at his son for a long moment before he spoke. “Aragis will come and stay with us. He’s here for observation to make sure there is no bleeding or infection after his abortion, and they’ll run tests to see if anything can be done for his vocal cords or his feet, to make sure he contracted nothing that needs treatment. Then he’ll come home with us, Muffin.”

I wondered what the Koa Esher had done to Aragis’s feet—not that I wanted the graphic detail I’d almost gotten before. Then I thought about it, and I had an ugly suspicion.

Bagu feet were like cat paws, and some people liked to declaw their cats for…reasons? I’d unfortunately looked that up once, and if the Koa Esher had done anything like that… Which, yeah. If you had claws, you could at least try fighting off the assault. Maybe Aragis had never given up fighting.

My stomach turned at the thought of what had been done to the hangua, and I pulled away before Vergis could say anything else. He looked in no way happy about this new development. I would have a chat with the land as soon as we got home to see what could be done with magic to heal at least some of Aragis’s wounds, if only the physical ones.

I made myself settle back into my body, and I spent a few more minutes enjoying the soft fabric I was wrapped in, the warmth and coziness. Finally, I turned on my back in our blanket bed on the floor before rolling the other way and getting to my feet. Inkiri met me at the door to our room.