Chapter 2 — The Goddess of Kent
Pre-flight checklist: Her leather jacket was zipped up snug. Her long brown hair was braided and pinned to her back. The thick aviator cap Jessica had found for her birthday in July sat comfortably around her ears, and the bag Kendra made her was fastened tight to her waist. Boots, goggles, everything was set. She clicked on the little radio that was hooked next to her bag, which beeped reassuringly through the earbuds that snaked through a small tube sewn inside her jacket to her right ear.
Hailey nodded to herself, satisfied.
"You hear me, Rupert?"
"Perfectly, angel." The corner of his lip twitched slightly. He was trying to smile, but his eyes kept drifting over to the edge of the building.
She grinned. "Don't worry, I've done this a thousand times."
"With someone else clinging on for dear life, yes?"
"Oh, don't be a baby. She flies like an eagle, so can you."
Rupert shook his head. "Dearest Jessica is a fair sight braver than I. So do I jus—"
Without warning, Hailey rushed at him. She flung her arms around his well-muscled chest, bundled in a blue overcoat and tight-fitting jeans, savoring the dawning look of shock plastered on his handsome face as his brown eyes widened to dinner plates. He tumbled backward off the edge of the skyscraper with Hailey on top of him, a thousand feet up in the air.
The wind kicked at them as they started spiraling through the air. Rupert wasn't as tightly dressed as she was, and his clothes flapped wildly as they sped up. Luckily his hair was short, or it would have blown right into Hailey's face as they fell. She wanted to enjoy the view—both of the nighttime Seattle skyline, and the exquisite mix of excitement, adrenaline, and fear on Rupert's face.
"You're bloody insane!" he shouted.
Hailey laughed. "Last night you said you were up for anything!"
"I was talking about sex!"
Hailey laughed even harder. They were rapidly approaching the ground, but Hailey knew exactly how long she had. Right before they reached street level—well-lit and populated, even in the middle of the night—she burst open her wings. Rather than a hard brake, which was all she used to manage, they fell into a smooth glide, blitzing over top of the mostly-empty streets. If anyone managed to see them, it would only be for an instant at the speed they were moving.
"Bloody hell!"
Rupert clung on tight as Hailey tilted one wing and spun them in a tight roll. She instinctively retracted her wings as they shot through a tight gap between two buildings, even though they didn't really exist. The pressure in the air and the noise around them dropped for a moment before kicking back into full gear as they emerged out the other side. Hailey flared her wings wide and dipped them, starting to slow down as they swooped out over Lake Washington.
Rupert's heavy breathing crackled through the tinny connection on the radio in time with the short bursts of hot air on Hailey's neck. He was still hanging off her from below, though, and she could tell his arms were getting a lot more workout than he'd expected. Time to break out one of her new maneuvers.
She rolled over onto her back, but mentally flipped her wings as well. She could glide through the air while lying face up, as if the wings were attached to her chest instead of her back. It was really weird the first time she'd tried it, but the idea was so useful she couldn't really ignore it. Flipping them really screwed with her head though, like trying to use only her left hand for things or the thought experiment doing entirely different actions at once with both hands, so she didn't rely on it. As long as the only thing she did while upside down was gentle gliding, it usually turned out okay.
Rupert's arms relaxed a little as he suddenly found himself supported from below, instead of hanging off of her. She released him and let her arms fall wide, almost as if she were floating in water instead of through midair. He looked up, and to Hailey's relief his smile was as wide as her own.
"You're a goddess."
Hailey felt a flutter of joy in her throat at the words. "You're not so bad yourself," she teased. "So how was your first flight?"
"Thrilling, simply thrilling."
He tried to sit up slightly, as if he could actually just sit on top while she glided around, but their balance immediately began to give way. She wobbled heavily in midair, and his legs started to lose grip on her own. In seconds he could fall away and plummet to the lake below them, and that would really put a damper on the rest of their night.
Hailey reached out to grab him, and at the same time she summoned up a burst of wind behind him to shove him forward. Rupert found himself flung down into her arms. They took a hard dip toward the lake before Hailey managed to steady them out again.
"Won't be trying that again, I suppose," Rupert said, smirking.
Hailey laughed. "Where were you trying to go, anyway?"
She gently pushed his head a bit closer with another gust of wind, and in an instant his lips found hers.
Between the dark water, the receding city lights behind them, the full moon above, and the handsome guy clinging tight to her chest while he kissed her, Hailey Winscombe felt very pleased with herself.
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Hailey groaned at the second knock on the door. "Is it that late already?"
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Rupert leaned up to check the clock on the wall, squinting to see the hands in the semi-darkness. "It's eight PM. Weren't you planning to leave now?"
"But it's so warm and comfortable in here," Hailey mock-whined, wrapping an arm around him.
Rupert pushed her gently away. "Jessica would take my head, angel. Up you get."
Hailey groaned again, more for effect than because she actually felt any reluctance, and set to finding her clothes. Jessica Silverdale burst into the room, too impatient to wait any longer. Rupert—bashful around every single person he'd ever met—grabbed up the sheets to cover himself, but Jessica barely even glanced at him.
She eyed Hailey with annoyance, pointing at the faintly glowing hands of the clock on the wall.
"Yes, Jess, I can see it," Hailey said irritably, nodding. She started getting dressed while Jessica tapped her foot pointedly on the floor. "I can always just fly us there faster, we'd still get there at the same time."
"Why don't you, then?" asked Rupert.
"Because then Jess couldn't keep us hidden," she sighed.
"Ah. Something to do with light and photons, correct?"
"Yeah, pretty much. She figured it out after watching Cinza a ton, but I can't cast it thanks to my stupid diffinity." Hailey finished getting ready, and before she could say a word Jessica grabbed her by the hand and pulled her out of the room. "See you later, Rupert!" she called back apologetically.
Jessica pulled the door closed and frowned. She pointed at the door, then made a flat illusion in midair of Rupert, accompanying it with a picture of a small chain. The chain broke in two, then Jessica dissipated them again.
Hailey shook her head. "I trust him."
Jessica frowned again. She tilted her head slightly to the side and raised an eyebrow.
"Yes, I'm sure." Hailey pointed back at Jessica. "What about you?"
Jessica took a full minute to answer. Finally, another image of Rupert appeared in midair, followed by one of Hailey. Jessica moved Rupert closer to her, then changed her to a smiling face, before vanishing them both again. She smiled reluctantly.
Hailey nodded. "Yeah. That's enough for now. Thank you."
She held out her arm, and Jessica took it firmly. They walked together to the backyard, where Jessica helped her put on the rest of her flight outfit including the straps. Normally, they flew without anything since it was a lot more comfortable, but this was a long trip—nearly seventy miles. Even Jessica, as strong and experienced as she was flying with Hailey, started to have her shoulders fall off after that long.
Jessica held herself tight to Hailey and double-checked the straps. She tapped Hailey on the shoulder twice and Hailey took off, jumping into the sky by propelling the air around her. Once she'd gotten enough altitude, she released the jets of wind to great relief and unfurled her wings, gliding out into the cloudy night sky. The patch of stars she'd seen the night before with Rupert was a rare exception. Most of her flights these days seemed to match the attitudes of everyone else around her, covered in a unbroken sheet of mundane grey. There weren't even any beautiful cloudscapes to enjoy, just endless carpets of flat boring clouds.
"You know, we're crazy lucky he turned out to be a cool guy," Hailey added.
She couldn't make any gestures to really talk to her, but Jessica had intimated that she should talk aloud while they flew this route every time. Partly, Jessica thought it might help her learn to talk again somehow—though they'd seen no evidence of it yet—and also because it helped her stay awake while she powered the small square of invisibility below them, masking their flight from anyone who might be watching. It didn't really take much out of her, but it was so easy to get complacent on these long flights. Sooner or later, they both worried one of them would slip up again.
"Just think if the guy who spotted us hadn't been awakened already, or if he'd been a psychopath or something," Hailey went on, while Jessica mumbled something below her. She flew right-side up because Jessica preferred it for some reason. Maybe she was just used to it. Hailey hadn't figured out upside down until only a couple weeks earlier.
"Now he's part of the team. And that accent. If you could hear it, you'd get it. Seriously," Hailey laughed, but she felt a little sobered by Jessica's accusation earlier.
It wasn't jealousy. Jessica had a legitimate reason to be concerned, given how many secrets they were hiding. Rupert hadn't asked much, and she'd only told him about themselves and a vague idea of where they went every week. She wasn't giving him anything really dangerous.
Besides, Rupert had readily surrendered the crumpled copy of the first page he'd awakened from without even being asked. He understood how their world worked right now, and why they had to keep everything secret from humanity for the time being. He was making steady progress toward being trustworthy. Hailey was considering introducing him to a few other people soon and starting to connect him to the rest of the community—but beyond her own small corner of the world out in Kent, that decision was out of her hands.
Jessica tugged at her arm and spoke into her ear to get her attention. Hailey looked down across the wide expanse of evergreens—and sure enough, she could already see the familiar patch of trees in the bowl of hills around them. She went into an easy dive, nothing nearly as intense as her breakneck skyscraper diving with Rupert yesterday. As they approached the trees, the air shimmered slightly. Suddenly there was a wide clearing in front of them, dotted with cabins surrounding a fair-sized farm.
Hailey set down right on the little wooden bridge that crossed the stream through the center. No smoke billowing out of the chimneys yet, since it was still an uncomfortably warm September, but there was a very distinct outdoorsey feeling anyway—so long as you ignored the satellite dishes, steam generators and other equipment scattered near several of the cabins.
As Hailey unstrapped Jessica, who stretched out her shoulders in relief, they heard a shout from across the clearing. Nikki Parsons and Joe McKinney emerged bearing hovering bundles of wood through the air, which they immediately dropped in a pile as they rushed to the bridge.
At the noise, other doors began to open. Soon they were joined by old Rufus Hill, a slow-moving but cheerful Brittany Wilkins, supported across the field by her husband Matthew. Makoto Kirishima, Cinza's quiet and intense lieutenant, stood on the porch of his own cabin and simply watched from afar without a word. Hailey gave them an update on what they'd missed from the rest of the community, which really amounted to nothing now that they were all talking online.
Jessica shrunk away from the crowd and floated away to one of the generators, where Natalie's mountain lion Scrappy was curled up. Hailey extricated herself a minute later, wanting to get the real business out of the way quickly so they could move on. She didn't like making Jessica wait around while she chatted to the whole group, when Jessica couldn't ever join in.
Hailey walked straight to the first cabin they'd ever built. It was smaller than most, but it had much more elegant construction thanks to the diligent work put in by both Rufus and Ruby. The wood was cut perfectly in smooth soaring arcs, and lanterns in the shape of the eight-pointed star symbol from the Grimoire hung on either side of the intricately carved door.
Ruby had made a lot of progress on the door's design since the last time Hailey had visited. The wood was carved into eight panels each depicting one of the eight branches of magic, with the top half showing the internal four and the lower half the external four affinities. Hailey gently traced her fingers along her own panel, just below the door handle on the left side, where a mixture of images had been carved in: A fireball whose tail became a whirling tornado, while a lightning bolt crossed it shifting from jagged forks into a twisting river. The amount of detail Ruby had managed in a relief carving was astounding.
Hailey gently knocked on the door, and to her surprise it swung inward on its own. Cinza was usually diligent about securing it. The thick, beautiful star-laden curtain blocked off one dark half of the cabin from view, while the other half was evenly lit from no apparent light source. Ruby lounged at the computer desk in the corner typing away, while Cinza herself sat cross-legged in her wide armchair, narrow-eyed staring down Joshua Miller. From the looks of it, Hailey had just interrupted a tense argument.