Chapter 625: Trust The Maji
The kitchen filled with the aroma of pancakes, soft talk in the late night/very early morning, the sky nowhere close to hinting at dawn. Gram wielded her favorite spatula like a weapon as Charlotte hovered by the door, staring out into the dark. Shenka squeezed my shoulder as she went about her usual business and I realized then, we'd made ourselves an oddly organized and predictable family. With a routine. I felt like the 50s dad who sat around while life went on without him, waiting to be served.
Charlotte's low growl and subsequent reach for the door made me tense, only to relax as she pulled it open to reveal a yawning Trill.
"Felt a disturbance in the house," she said. "I take it something happened?"
She listened quietly, helping herself to pancakes as I told her about Alison. I sighed. One more thing to worry about, one more loose thread I let fall and fray because I forgot or was distracted by other things.
"You need to let Demetrius take care of that echo." Gram slammed my plate down in front of me personally, glaring with her faded blue eyes. "We have bigger things to worry about."
Like saving the Sidhe. I'd been hoping something new would come to me, but all I could think of was Ameline.
Right. I had more to tell them.
I spilled the beans on the visit from Iepa while Gram swore around a mouthful of breakfast, Sassafras's tail thrashing so hard he dipped the tip of it in my syrup, a trail of sticky mess painting the table top as he thrashed back the other way, spraying Charlotte with a fine mist of maple.
"I don't trust this maji," he snarled, chin white with a bead of milk he swiped away with one paw as Charlotte glared at him, carefully dabbing the gooey mess from her cheek. "She seems to only show when it's convenient for her and never with the kind of information you could really use."
Trill wiped her lips with her napkin before shaking her head. "No," she said, "Iepa might be many things, but she's trustworthy." Her grimace told me there was a lot she hadn't shared yet.
"Evidence?" Trill, I trusted.
"She saved me, saved all of us, my brothers and I." Trill's hand vibrated with a soft tremor. "When she wasn't supposed to interfere. The maji punished her for it, but she helped us anyway." Tears stood in her eyes, thickened her voice. "So, I believe in her, Syd. That she has our backs. Even when it doesn't seem like she does."
I could have prodded her for more info, but what would be the point? She didn't seem all that willing to talk about it and I wasn't sure it would make me feel better anyway. Besides, there were things she didn't know, nitty-gritties I had yet to share. Figured we'd have time to exchange full-scale war stories maybe when we were old.
Oh, right. I wasn't going to grow old.
I knew for most people the idea of living forever wasn't a bummer, but I couldn't help thinking differently.
Gram thudded both fists on the table, grim scowl pulling at the deep lines around her mouth. "Damn the maji," she snapped. "Damn the fates." She crossed her arms over her chest, thin nightgown strap falling from one narrow shoulder as she kicked me with her bobbing foot. "And damn Ameline Benoit." She stared at me, chin tucked low, gaze dark under her lashes. "If only it was that easy, saying damn them all."
If only. I'd take it.
Or would I? Sucker for punishment.
"If freeing Ameline means saving the Sidhe and defeating the Brotherhood," Gram said the unthinkable before I could stop her, "then that's what you have to do."
No nonsense. No second guessing. No doubt.
I wished.
"I agree with Ethpeal." Trill's voice carried, despite the low, softness of her words. "I don't know how to help you, to keep you safe, but if there is anything I can do, just ask." She met my eyes with her dark brown ones, almost black in the early morning. The white light over the stove glowed behind her, lighting her black hair with frost. "But like Owen, Apollo and I, there must be balance between the light and the shadow for you and Ameline."
"She will fight for the dark maji." How could I just set her loose? Maybe I could control her somehow, keep her prisoner myself?
"She will," Trill nodded, no trace of doubt on her face. "And they will embrace her. I believe that is the key, Syd. She will release them from their ties to the Brotherhood, steer them back on the path they were meant to take so both sides can rally to attack our real enemy."
"And the army?" That would make me feel better. Trill's maji army. Who knew how many maji blood were left and what they would look like coming together? She'd been tasked with gathering them and I felt badly I didn't ask her how she was getting along with that.
But the gentle, almost loving, smile on her face made me pause.
"Syd," she said, voice full of happiness, "there is no army. I misunderstood. It's not the ranks of the blooded we need."
"Then who?" I was so sick of these riddles, half-truths, being led around by the nose, a straight-forward answer would be nice for once.
"You," she said. "You are my army. The souls of the maji bloodline all lead back to you."
***
