“I’d think about why that is, if I were you,” said Faris.
“You are not me.”
“If only you’d inherited my common sense.”
I snorted.
There was another flash of magic, and then two more people arrived in my dining room. The woman had platinum-blonde hair and big, brown eyes. The man had gold eyes, a ponytail of black hair, and the tall and muscular body of a combat soldier. I’d never seen either one of them in my life.
“Who are you, and what are you doing in my house?” I demanded, my hands sizzling with magic.
“Wait, Leda,” Cadence said. “I invited them. They’re family.”
“More family?”
“They’re Immortals,” Faris said, completely unbothered.
Well, that did explain how they could just pop up in my dining room. Teleportation was one of the Immortals’ many powers.
“Eva is Lightbringer’s aunt, her mother’s sister,” Faris continued. “And Jiro is Dragonsire’s cousin.”
“How do you know that?” I asked him.
“As I’ve told you many times before, child, I know everything.”
Ok, so I’d actually walked right into that one. Stupid me.
“Well, now that everyone’s been introduced, let’s eat,” Eva said cheerfully and grabbed the bowl of mashed potatoes.
After dinner, Cadence decided to start a game of charades ‘to break the ice’. I could see how much she really wanted our family dinner night to be a success, so I was the first to volunteer. About five seconds into my pantomime of ‘godly’, Faris bailed on us, declaring that he had ‘far more important things to do than play games’.
Then he vanished in a puff of magic smoke. As the smoke dissipated, I wondered if Faris recognized the irony in his words. He only ever played games.
“I’m hungry,” I announced as Cadence completed her dramatization of a vampire feast.
“For blood?” Nero asked.
The reminder of our private, pre-dinner dalliance in the kitchen sent a sudden, but not altogether unwelcome, flush of heat through my body.
“Right now, my heart is set on chocolate,” I said.
He smoothly rose from the sofa we shared. “Then, my angel, I will bring you some chocolate.”
I held back a giddy giggle; Nero was so sweet, it made me love sick. I didn’t giggle, but I did jump up and give him a long, deep kiss before plopping back down in a lazy heap of supreme happiness.
Eva followed Nero to the kitchen.
“Try not to make a pass at him,” Jiro called out after her.
Eva spun around and hit him with a look of pure shock. “Nero is my nephew. I would never make a pass at family.”
“Never say never,” laughed Jiro. “I’m remembering a certain cousin of yours named Haron and your family reunion a few millennia ago.”
I wasn’t sure which disturbed me more: the fact that Eva had hit on her own cousin, or that her husband Jiro was laughing about it.
Eva laughed it off too. “Haron was a very, very distant cousin. We were hardly related.”
Jiro and Eva were such a weird couple.
Damiel waited until they were gone, then he said to me, “I’ve heard about your issue.”
“I have a lot of issues, Damiel. You’re going to have to be more specific.”
I tried to keep one eye on Jiro. Right now, he was impersonating some kind of…bomb? Oven? Ice skater? The Immortals had many gifts, but the art of charades was clearly not one of them. I had no idea what he was supposed to be.
“The issue of having gods inside your head,” Damiel said to me.
“Nero told you about that?”
“He didn’t have to. I can read your mind.”
I glowered at him.
“A joke. I swear.” He lifted his hands in the air in mock surrender. “Yes, Nero told me. He’s worried about you.”
He must have been really worried if he’d asked Damiel for help. The two of them didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye.
“Faris intrudes on your dreams?” he asked me.
“Yes.”
Damiel nodded. “That makes sense. Your mind is weaker when you’re asleep. If you want to keep Faris out of your dreams, you’ll need to fortify your mental defenses. If you do that, even your unconscious mind will be strong enough to keep him out.”
“What about Grace?”
“Has she invaded your dreams too?”
“No,” I said. “But she’s supposed to be a very powerful telepath, so I’d like to keep her out too, just in case she decides to trek all over my personal space.”
“It’s easier to defend than to attack. That’s why the Legion trains a soldier’s defense against a magical ability before they teach the ability’s offensive spells,” replied Damiel. “If you train hard enough, you should be able to keep out even Grace.”
“Well, that’s good news.”
“It is good news. And so is this: I’m offering to train your mental defenses.”
“You?”
“Of course. I was once the Master Interrogator. I’m the best mind-breaker the Legion has. Who better to train you?” He smiled brightly. “So, when shall we begin?”
I considered his idea.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Well, to be honest, I’m not overly excited about the idea of you rummaging around in my head, Damiel.”
He laughed. “That’s because you’re a clever girl, Leda.”
“If you allow Dragonsire into your mind, you will regret it,” Silverstar said in his usual monotone.
Nero returned from his excursion to the kitchen, and he came bearing gifts of the chocolate variety.
I looked down at the bowl full of mint chocolate pieces and declared, “Now I love you even more.” I took a bite of chocolate. “Your father has offered to help me train my mental defenses.”
Nero looked at his father, then declared, “That sounds like a prudent idea.”
His response was unexpected. Nero had always told me to be suspicious of Damiel. So often, he’d reminded me that Damiel’s proposals were never offered out of the goodness of his own heart. If Nero was saying now that I should accept Damiel’s offer, that meant he was more worried about what Faris and Grace would do in my mind than what Damiel might do.
Maybe Nero was right. And, besides, a little extra mental fortitude would anyway be good training for Ghost’s Whisper.
“I’ll think about it,” I told Damiel.
He nodded, then we returned to charades. Five rounds later, the game came to a spectacular end when I tripped over my cat and fell so hard onto the coffee table that it shattered. That’s when everyone decided to call it a night—and I decided to call a doctor.
10
Disaster
“How on Earth did this happen?” Nerissa asked me as she patched up the myriad of cuts all across my back.
I would have healed the wounds myself, but I couldn’t reach those places. Nero could have done it too. However, considering I was also suffering from a broken wrist and a minor concussion that caused me to see spots whenever I tried to count past five, he’d ordered me to go see a real doctor. And at the time, I hadn’t been in any condition to argue with him.