Fourteen

Eli sat in a chair that had been dragged into the room. Maria was curled in the infirmary bed with Bas after having nibbled on the food he’d brought. He couldn’t help but feel envious. Wherever his mate was…

The witch suddenly shuddered and arched off of the bed making a strangled sound like a man screaming in his sleep. Maria lurched into a sitting position and shouted his name, gripping his shoulders.

“Bastion! Bas! Please! Bas!”

With another shudder the man opened his eyes and stared up at her, “Sibbi… s-so cold.”

“Where are they?” Eli came to stand next to the bed. “Can she see anything?”

Maria bent and kissed his head as the man closed his eyes and started to weep softly. “All he can feel is how cold she is. So cold she can’t think. She needs to be warmed and fed.”

“Try to make her focus on what’s around her, Bas. Help us find her.” And Grace, he bit the words back.

“They gave them blankets that smell like… like hay and animals. Horse, dog… racoon. Grace… Grace is afraid. The stone creatures…” Bas looked anguished for a moment, “They don’t understand how to care for them. That they need warmth or food.”

“Where, Bas?” Eli struggled not to reach out and take hold of the man.

“A hole.” Maria whispered. “I can see it, a stone pit. A little light, no sky, and cold.”

“Is it a mine shaft?” There were a few of those scattered through the reserve.

“Is Bas awake yet?” Aurel came into the room with a grim expression.

“Yes.” The witch let his mate help him into sitting. “She’s awake and I have to be when she is.”

That made little hairs stand on the back of Eli’s neck. “The burdens of her needs.”

“You have no idea.” Bas gave him a pained look and beckoned to Aurel, “What do you need?”

“Your father’s notes… We found notebooks he filled on the stone creatures. If you’re able you might be able to help us decide which information will be important.”

“He needs rest.” Maria smoothed the man’s dark hair and he turned his face to kiss her wrist.

“I can’t rest until she does and I need to find her, my love. She’ll catch her death or starve…”

“I’ll go tell-”

“Eli, Madam Cate said you’re to stay with Bas. Your only task is looking after him.” Aurel gave him a hard look. “Get him something to eat and something warm to drink, meet us in the Sibyl's library.”

The only thing he wanted to do was start hunting through mineshafts for Grace but he headed for the kitchens. The Alphas had given a command and, as much as he hated to admit it, Genevieve always seemed to be right. If he wanted Grace back he needed to help Bas.

A concerned looking young wolf was cleaning up from the pack breakfast and he flagged her down, “I need breakfast for Bas.”

“He… they usually eat in their house.” She scurried into the kitchen and Eli followed.

“-to feed Bas?” The young wolf was speaking to Anna, the one who ran the kitchens.

“He takes his coffee with cream, I’m not sure what he ate off of his own plate, he made sure Vivi was eating and I know he traded her his sausages for her fried egg. I’ll fill a box for him.”

“Thanks, Anna.”

The older woman inclined her head. “He’s awake?”

“He’s gone to help them in the Sibyl’s library, I was told to get him something to eat.”

“He’ll dive right in to getting Vivi back and having someone make sure he and Maria don’t run themselves ragged is a good idea.” She bustled away and it wasn’t long after he had one of the lunch boxes the woodworkers occasionally took with them in his hand and a thermos of coffee to go with it.

The Sibyl’s library was a stand alone building that had gone up next to the main house and held Mesny’s books and writings, creepy looking museum collections, and the separate basement room that the Sibyl took her audiences in. Bas had suggested it. The Sibyl should have a safe space to work.

He heard voices from the library basement and went down.

“He tortured them, Bas. Are they planning to do the same to Vivi?” Rob sounded almost sick.

“I don’t know. The presence I felt was curious, not malicious. But I suppose Father was curious too. He wanted to know how much it took to break them.” The witch sounded tired.

“I’ve brought coffee and food for you, Bas. The kitchen wasn't sure what you’d want, you traded food with Genevieve.” Eli looked for a place to set the food down on the notebook strewn table, noticing the large portrait hanging on the wall of Mesny standing with his children. “Who hung that?”

“I did.” Bas rubbed his temples. “Sibbi wanted a place she could go to look at it and remember the few good days we had as a family. Father was a monster but he was still our father. We loved him.” 

“That’s her audience dress…” 

The dark-haired man breathed a laugh, “It's the only formal dress she owns. Father sent me shopping with her, to impress her and give her a reason to want to stay with us and do as he asked. She’d never had money before and she was so sure she was only going to live another month at the most she bought the things she’d always wanted. 

“Impractical, ragged, expensive clothes.”

Eli watched Maria smile and stroke the man’s back. 

“But that dress she insisted I shouldn’t buy. She loved it and it looked beautiful on her but she caught a glimpse of her burn scar in the mirror and her face fell. I bought it and had it sent home to Father despite what she said. She looked so beautiful in it.

“Father lent us both the jewelry we were wearing, except for my ring.” He held up his thumb that bore the same ring from the picture. “This was a gift from Sibbi.”

“He doesn’t look like a monster in the picture.” Maria leaned and kissed her mate’s cheek. “He looks like a proud father.”

“He was. He was so proud of Sibbi. She challenged him in ways I never could. He was able to bend me from my shape but he couldn’t bend or break the Sibyl.” Bas drew a deep breath and squared his shoulders, “She’s stronger than she looks.”

“Go eat, my love. Then you can help them.” Maria pressed against him and he looked anguished for a moment, “I know you feel like you can’t eat when she’s hungry but you have to try.”

Bas pointed toward the door and followed Eli back upstairs. There was a narrow bench between two of the glass encased statues and the witch sat heavily. Eli sat at the other end of the bench and put the food and coffee between them. 

As the dark-haired man opened the box, Eli couldn't help but ask, “How did the two of you get so close? You and Genevieve?”

 

“We were born that way. The Sibyl and the Servant. I spent my whole life with an ache in my soul knowing she was there and knowing I needed to find her. There were nights I couldn’t sleep as a child and I didn’t know why, days I couldn’t bring myself to eat. Father… I don’t know if he understood or not, but he trained me. I can rest even when I can’t sleep, I can force myself to eat.

“Knowing that I can’t sleep because she can’t, that it’s her hunger keeping me from wanting food, it makes me feel ill.”

Eli looked down at his hands as the man started to eat a rolled pancake slowly. “You screamed when you woke up?”

“The spell they sent through the glass of Madam Cate’s mirror at me, it was,” Bas shuddered, “it was one Father taught me. I felt the presence and… I heard his voice. Where they drew the power from… I don’t know how long I would have been caught in that spell if-if Sibbi hadn’t woken. Her waking forced me out of it.”

“You heard his voice?” Eli felt the hair rising on the back of his neck.

“It’s how they communicate with people.” Rob came up with a notebook in his hands, “Mesny said that they remember and repeat. He was baffled that they did it that way but in his research the original creators didn’t want them to have their own voices.”

“The original creators?” Bas rose from his seat to look at the page.

“They flock to where the Sibyl is born. They’re meant to watch over her so that she lives to adulthood and in exchange she creates more of them.”

“That’s why they took her.” Eli stood up and glanced toward the door, “But why take Grace?”

“The Sibyl can’t be alone.” The witch covered his eyes, “They watched Father train me to do some terrible things in that room. They can’t take me because I’m dangerous, I’d fight them. Sibbi… Sibbi won’t fight. They would have seen at least some of what he did to her in his workroom and the worst she did to him was put him to sleep.”

“He recorded the spells he used to trap them and make them obey.” Rob pushed the notebook at Bas, “Can you use them?”

“No. She set them free and made sure those spells wouldn’t work on them again.”

Aurel came up the stairs with Maria.

“Why did they wait? Why didn’t they just take her and fly off with her when she set them free?” Eli rubbed his chin, if they needed her it would have made more sense.

They all stood silently for a moment and Bas breathed the words, “There is no trust.”

“What?” 

Aurel lifted his hand, “They don’t trust us or anyone else. They needed to find a place to take the Sibyl.”

“Yes. They’ll have carved it out of somewhere and it won’t be easy to find. It’s a hiding place they’ve spent years working on.”

“How did they find her? They flew away.”

“The face in the glass. She gave them glass pieces from her bracelet to protect them so that they could pull the void over themselves and be concealed, protected…” The witch glanced around at the glass of the displays around them with something like amazement, “Does it let them reach through? Any glass?”

“Who are you asking?” Maria was looking at the glass with concern.

“What does it say about how they’re made?” Bas looked around helplessly for a moment before wiping his hands on his pants and holding them out for the notebook. “What sources did Father find in his research?”

“Should this be done somewhere without glass?” Eli was processing the meaning of those things being able to send curses through glass and it was putting his hackles up.

“I won’t harm them.” Bas looked up from the notebook with a startled expression, “They have Sibbi and without their care she’ll die. She wants mercy for them, that was part of her plea. They have no reason to attack me again.”

“Do they know that?”

“Cate agrees.” Aurel frowned glancing around. “We’ll clear some spaces and take the notebooks there.”