Keira observed the crystal bird as she turned it over in her hand. It still had an ink like stain lightly spread through it and she hadn’t gotten the crack on its body fixed either. They were in the last leg of their three hour coach journey, but unfortunately there was still a five hour flight to go, not to mention airport bullshit that would inevitably add couple of hours onto that, and another few for the coach journey to whatever university was hosting them. It wasn’t like Keira hadn’t come prepared for it. She had a couple of thick books in her bag. They were rather tame though, she didn’t think she could stomach the ones with horror and gore at the moment. It had been eight months since her run in with the supernatural and the whole business with Amelie. While Amelie was nowhere to be seen, Archer had left to head back to the capital of Aria to continue working for whoever was brave enough to hire him in the first place.
Naima made a muffled noise beside her and Keira dropped her hand and tucked the bird back into her bag. Naima had a face full of hoodies, courtesy of Keira, and to the fact that she had fallen asleep right next to her. Keira is not one to usually ignore an opportunity like that. As Naima made another muffled noise, this one slightly louder than the last, Keira realised that Naima was waking up. Something that was only proven when a hand came up to remove the cloths from her face and drag them onto Naima’s lap. Then she turned to Keira with very frazzled hair that was accentuated by the early morning light. Naima tried to make eye contact but as Keira had taken the aisle seat, the sun was in her eyes and she had to dig out some sunglasses.
“Why?” Her voice was still groggy from sleep and it was enough to make Keira snicker. Naima’s confused look fell into a more fed up one. “Where did you even get all of these? I’m sure you didn’t bring that many.” That question was answered by a louder round of snickers from the seats around them.
“What can I say? I’m charming.”
“No, you’re not.” Naima grumbled, fishing Keira’s hoodie out from the pile that had formed on her lap and threw it at Keira, who was still giggling. “How much longer until we get there?”
“Looking at the signs… about five minutes. Providing traffic is good.” Keira answered, shuffling the hoodie around so she could tie it around her waist.
Traffic was not good and it took another fifteen for the coach to be able to stop at the front of the airport, which didn’t really matter as they had left a lot earlier than they had to so they were certain that they would be able to make the flight. Keira had seated herself close to the front, so she was one of the first people off, leaving her in the role of helping people get their bags from the storage space.
“So, how are you feeling about being in a separate country to you parents?” Naima asked as she approached Keira from her side, not bothering to help with the ferrying of bags.
“A little nerve wracking, since it’s been a while, but it’s not my first time away from my parents. Our school may not be large, but we can still take trips across the border to Duroria.”
“Oh. That must be a pretty long coach journey.”
“Eh.” Keira grunted, spotting pulling out another bag. “It’s tolerable.”
“Then you have a lot more patience than me. Would you mind teaching me your ways oh wise one?”
“Sure. It’s called making yourself busy. I like… liked to stare out the window and watch the scenery pass by on long car rides. On planes and boats I crack out the book.”
“Well I don’t have a book on me so any other recommendations?”
“You have your tarot cards on you, right? Just mess around with those.”
“You think that I should just read my future for five hours straight?”
“Yes. You would become unstoppable, and by proxy I would too.”
“Of course. Then the only thing standing in your way would be your mountain of mental issues. Speaking of which, what about your therapist? Are you going to be doing online sessions?”
“No. He said that I can take a months break and that it would be good to gauge progress.”
“Really?”
“Yes, Naima. I have developed a lot of issues, but abandonment ones are not a part of them. Now,” Keira said, hauling out Naima’s bag, “this looks like a nice bag so you’re going to have to take it off of my hands before I get any ideas.”
“Seriously?” Naima snatched it out of Keira’s hands. “We have the same bag!”
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“Not necessarily. Mine has a lovely little flower painted onto it.” Naima had a look at the blue and white duffel bag at Keira’s feet and sure enough, there was a little flower painted onto it. It was white with light blue highlights, something which matched the rest of the bag, and large enough to be visible from afar but not so it eclipsed the Pioneers insignia on top. The flower was a nice addition and it had the practical application of helping Keira tell it apart from all of the other thousand bags in the airport.
“It looks terrible.”
“My mother painted it.” Naima flushed and started to stutter out an apology but Keira just chuckled and hauled the bag straps over her shoulder. It knocked into her backpack, but she didn’t pay it any mind. “Shall we get going?”
“Y-yeah.” Getting through the initial set of security was not as painful as she imagined, and they ended up with forty minutes before they had to board their flight. While Keira would have loved to spend that time buying something overpriced, she had somewhere else she needed to go first. So, she left her backpack with the instructors who were running the trip and took a quick toilet break.
While the gate they had to board was at the opposite end of the airport from the entrance, which was a nightmare since they were in one of the largest airports in the country, there were still quite a few stores dotted around. So, there was a lot of foot traffic. Something she expected the toilet to reflect, but when she walked in, there was literally no one. Keira frowned and walked back outside to check whether she had missed a sign on the door or yellow tape, but there was nothing. She walked back inside the bathroom and looked around, noticing that the lights were either dimmed or completely turned off. Then a voice interrupted her thought process.
“Hello again.” Keira sighed, counted backwards from ten and then turned to face Gastele.
“I’m on holiday.”
“I don’t care. I’m here to call in that favour you gave me, and you can’t refuse it. Though it won’t take up all your time, if you’re worried about that.”
“Oh, so I can sleep?”
“That’s the spirit! In any case, I won’t keep you here for too long, here’s the instructions on what I want you to get.” Gastele handed Keira a sheet of paper that had a poem on it, that while pretty, provided very little to go on. Keira mouthed the words as she read along and then she locked eyes with Gastele.
“What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?” Gastele made a lips sealed sign and shrugged. “Why didn’t you assign this to someone more qualified?”
“Well, I would say that you’re qualified, and you owe me. Oh! And before I forget.” She grabbed Keira’s hand and turned it so that the palm faced upwards. Then a circle of black ink slowly started to fade onto her wrist, or rather a screen that was placed before it was taken away. There was a sinking sensation in the pit of Keira’s stomach, but she pushed it to the side and asked the obvious question.
“What’s this?”
“During the hand over of the ritual with Palotl, I said that I would take everything I needed to, but what Palotl had attached to your soul was more than necessary. This is the little window of power it gave you so that it had access to some of its power when it ascended, but as you can see, it’s now yours.”
“Is this safe? And why hide it from me? And why didn’t you keep a hold of it?”
“One question at a time, if you could. To answer them though, the question of safety and why I didn’t keep a hold of it are both in the same category. For you, it will slowly seep into your soul and alter it, but to be honest, humans don’t live long enough for such a thing to demonstrably change them. Now if you had a larger window to that plane, it would be a different story, or if you were to use that power consistently, which are details that Palotl most likely skipped over. For me however, it is a different story. Unfortunately, you and I are made of different stuff, so what you may be able to tolerate would tear me apart.”
“And why would you hide it from me?”
“When they asked you on your involvement in the supernatural, I needed you to say minimal, and I needed you to be honest. You had to believe what you were saying for the deception to work. And it did! Look at where we are now. Ready to go international!”
“You’re a fucking asshole.”
“Hey now. I may need you in one piece at the moment, but your shelf life is limited. And when that insurance runs out, well, it’d be best to stay on my good side.”
“I’ve heard fae appreciate honesty.”
“That’s a generally good lesson to remember, but another one is that fae value politeness and charisma. So, if you do wish for one to die to their face, do so in a roundabout manner.”
“I find myself likening the words that are coming out of your mouth to what-“
“That’s not what I meant. But don’t worry! You’ll have time to work on it. Now if that will be all-“
“I do have one more question. It’s about what happened to Amelie. I do realise that I wanted Iris out of harms way, but what did you do? No one’s seen or heard anything.”
“Hm. How best to answer this… I made her disappear. Like smoke in the wind.” Then Gastele laughed a little and made eye contact with Keira. She knew that she had asked the woman to not kill Amelie, but is there another way she could have gotten rid of Amelie that was equally as awful but not classed as killing? Was there a loophole that she found in Keira’s wording? It was a possibility but not one Keira wanted to entertain.
“Right… Is there anyone I can ask for help with this?” Keira asked, holding up the little slip with instructions on it.
“Maybe, maybe not. In the meantime, have a little gift from me and don’t miss your flight.” Gastele shoved a brown block of wood into her hand and with a flicker of the lights, she was gone. Keira backed away slightly and ended bumping into a woman right behind her. She muttered out a quick apology and did her business.
When she approached the rest point, Naima lit up and then frowned as she tilted her head to get a better look at the block of wood in Keira’s hand.
“Don’t worry. I haven’t brought the shit with me.” Keira stated, going to put the wood in her bag.
“No, no. I wasn’t thinking that. I was just wondering who Darian Moss was.”
“Hm?” Naima then picked up the block of wood and turned it over to the side that had been facing away from Keira the entire time to find the name engraved on it. “Ah. I have no idea.”