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From the look in her eyes, Ms. Lowe would skewer me if I didn’t tread carefully. Heck, she might skewer me if I told her the truth.
“It’s a simple question, demi-god,” Ms. Lowe continued. “Where did you take Sera?”
I sighed, knowing whatever I told Ms. Lowe, that it had to be the truth. Some mages could discern lies, and I had to assume at least someone within the powerful Lowe family had that gift. Regardless, if I wanted her to believe me, I needed to be honest.
“Respectfully, that’s less important than where she is now.”
Her gaze narrowed on me. “You admit you know where Sera is right now?”
“We’re not positive,” I replied, casting my gaze to Liam and then Marcos, who sat to either side of me. “But our best guess is that the fae, Taneisha, has abducted her.”
Ms. Lowe’s expression changed from one of icy anger to one of surprise. “Taneisha?” she said, her voice barely a whisper. She gestured to her assistant, who nodded and wordlessly started tapping into the tablet she’d been holding. “The name’s not familiar to me. But why? What would a fae want with Sera?”
“The fae had a grudge against my friends and I which Sera agreed to help us out with. We think Taneisha still has her.”
Ms. Lowe raised a finger to interrupt me. “Who exactly is this ‘us’ you refer to?”
“Myself, Liam, Caden, Franc, and Marcos,” I replied. “We’d offended the fae while at Goldenbriar Academy, so she sought retribution against us.”
“You five got in trouble with this fae and Sera willingly helped you out? I find it hard to believe she’d help you ruffians.”
“Willingly, yes, but I talked her into it. Sera owed me a favor from our school days, and I told her I’d consider it honored if she helped mediate things between Taneisha and us.”
Ms. Lowe arched her brow. “At least you’re not sugar coating it. Now I know how she ended up in the company of two shifters, two demigods, and a demon. I swear, when Erebus told me she was last seen in the company of the five of you, I thought he was just telling a bad ‘so I walked into a supe bar’ joke.” I glanced back at Erebus, but he wasn’t laughing. Or even smiling. Did he even know how to smile? “Let me see if I have this right. You coerced my granddaughter along on your shenanigans and then this fae took you where?”
I winced at Lowe’s use of the word coerced, but then again, I supposed I deserved it. “Taneisha portaled us to her fae demesne. Sera attempted to negotiate with the fae on our behalf, but Taneisha wouldn’t see reason. Taneisha offered to send Sera home, but she stayed with us.”
Ms. Lowe frowned deeply. “To honor her owed favor to you, no doubt.”
I shook my head. “No, she’d already tried to help me, and I wasn’t holding it over her head.”
Ms. Lowe’s gaze lingered between Liam, Marcos, and myself and then gave a brief nod. “I sense the truth in your words. So why did my granddaughter stay with you?”
I wasn’t sure what to say next, instead I leaned forward and placed my arms on the table as I thought through my response and how much I wanted to share with Sera’s grams.
It was Liam who spoke next, his voice carrying a heavy gravitas. “In part, Sera missed the supe community. She saw this foray as an adventure that might fly under the radar with her family.”
Marcos cleared his throat, and then added, “Sera made it clear she’d lived in isolation ever since she’d left Goldenbriar. She craved the adventure.”
I had to wonder, did all the Lowe clan, including those in this room, know why Sera hadn’t been active with the supe community? Had her inability to control her magic been common knowledge with everyone in house Lowe, or just key people like her grandmother?
Ms. Lowe’s gaze shifted between us, her expression unreadable. “I take it then that you three have gotten close to my granddaughter.”
We all answered at once, a chorus of “Yes ma’am’s” and “Yes, we have’s”.
“All five of us,” Liam added, his heated tone making the intonation clear.
Ms. Lowe nodded slowly, her gaze still shifting between us. “I see,” she said after a moment of silence. “Tell me then, what did my granddaughter tell you about her magic?”
I exchanged glances with Liam and Marcos before I spoke up. “We learned Sera had powerful magic, but she couldn’t control it.”
Ms. Lowe’s eyes widened in surprise and then narrowed in suspicion as she looked at me. “Sera freely admitted this to you?” She asked, her voice tight with emotion.
“Yes ma’am,” I said, not wanting to make her any angrier than she already was by telling the truth about Sera’s confession to us about her magical challenges. “There were several times on our adventures when Sera used her magic to aid us, and it was clear it wasn’t easy or without complications for her. At least not at first.”
She let out a heavy sigh and shook her head before standing up from the table and walking over to the window overlooking the gardens outside of the house. She stood there for a moment before turning back around and facing us again with an unreadable expression on her face.
“Wait, you said ‘not at first.’ Explain.”
