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God, no. “I think I’ve got a pretty good idea of what to expect just from that,” I say diplomatically.
“All right. There’s one other matter I’d like to talk with you about, just the two of us.”
Riva shoots him a curious glance, but she heads back to the house without complaint. Rollick’s done more than enough to earn all of our trust.
Sorsha ambles off with Lance, motioning toward his clawed hands. “So, I’m assuming you don’t attend a whole lot of tea parties…”
Rollick waits until they’re all out of hearing. I assume he can tell whether there are any shadowkind nearby in the shadows too, although maybe he doesn’t care about some of them overhearing.
“I’ve been thinking about the problem of your tentacles,” he says.
I instinctively reach toward my shoulder, toward the spot on my back just below where one of the two tentacles spouts. Something about his phrasing, calling them a “problem,” itches at me. “What about them?”
“It’s odd that the others haven’t experienced any kind of growth when they’ve experimented with borrowing your power. From what I’ve gathered, you didn’t always have those appendages, did you?”
I shake my head. “They emerged about three years ago.”
Rollick taps his lips. “And you could draw energy to heal before that. They weren’t necessary.”
“Well, no.” I hesitate. “But my powers got stronger after they came out. I don’t know if that’s because of them or if it would have happened anyway.”
“They do make a regular life blending in among mortals difficult,” the demon says. “Nearly as much as those claws of Lance’s. I told you before that we could attempt cutting them off but that there was a reasonable chance they’d simply grow back.”
The itch expands into a creeping sensation over my skin. “I decided it wasn’t worth trying.”
“Yes. But having worked together some more with our phoenix, it occurred to me—I think it’s likely Sorsha could use her supernatural fire to permanently burn them away. If you wanted that.”
My heart all but stops. It takes me a few seconds to recover my voice. “I—I mean, I might need them in the battle—”
Rollick waves his hand dismissively. “Yes, of course. I didn’t mean right away. But after we’ve dealt with this Balthazar and whatever’s left of the Guardianship if necessary, when I’d hope you six can go on to lead relatively peaceful lives… I thought you should know the option is on the table. So you can take your time considering it. It sounds as if you could assume you’d keep some—if not all—of your actual powers.”
To shed this very literal weight off my back—to feel fully human again on the outside if not the inside… There’s no energy I could siphon that could bring the same thrill as that thought.
But it comes with a starker uncertainty that sinks through my abdomen. Without the tentacles, I might only be capable of the relatively minor healing I could pull off as a kid and teenager.
Would that be so awful, if we weren’t fighting battles where my friends might take near-fatal injuries?
Can I even really hope that we’ll finally get the kind of peace where giving them up wouldn’t feel like a huge risk?
Before I can prod at that question much further, a curvy figure bursts out of the shadows with a jostle of blond curls. Pearl grins up at Rollick with an eager but urgent air.
“Toni gave them the push they needed!” she crows. “We’ve got them! The Guardianship is making their plans for Balthazar—and he’s agreed to meet them tomorrow.”
Sixteen
Riva
Ilean against the tree trunk, the tang of pine scent tickling my nose, and will away the knots in my stomach. Knots that aren’t only because of the perilous mission we’re here to carry out.
In every direction around my perch about ten feet off the ground, trees loom close together. Their branches—some bare, many sprouting needles so dense they look like a chillier version of palm-tree fronds—crisscross overhead, filtering the late-afternoon sunlight.
A faint dusting of snow coats the forest floor and the winter-wizened vegetation between the trees, which is why I’m up in the air. Turning invisible doesn’t do us much good when our footprints will still be seen.
Everything about this place washes over me like an echo from the past. The only thing missing from the memories it stirs up is the dark walls and sloping roof of Ursula Engel’s cabin.
We aren’t anywhere near our creator’s final home, the site of her death. It turns out—maybe not surprisingly, considering they owned an entire tropical island—that the Guardianship has a little property in Europe too. Including several dozen acres of undeveloped forest in northern Wales.
Balthazar agreed to meet them here, on a slab of concrete the size of a tennis court that’s the only sign of human intervention here so far. It’s just beyond the limits of my vision through the trees up ahead.
