Rollick aims a chiding look at the winter fae. “Preferably we don’t go around slaughtering humans, period. It’s bad enough that some of this bunch has ended up with a whole new set of ideas about ‘monsters’ in their head.That’sgoing to be at least as much of a clean-up job as the damn rift.”
His words send a jolt of shock through me. I stare at him, knitting my brow. “After all this, you’re still going to try to convince humans that we don’t exist after all?”
Sorsha lets out a soft laugh from where she’s leaning against the wall at Rollick’s other side. “Yeah, Rollick, I think that ship has not just sailed but sunk to the bottom of the ocean.”
Rollick waves off the phoenix shifter’s wry remark, focusing on me. “Weare going to convince the humans that we don’t exist. It’s still only a very small portion of them who’ve seen us. Once the city is cleared of the rift and the other odd rifts are contained, people will no longer have a permanent reminder. They’ll want to go back to thinking things that go bump in the night are only imaginary, if we can point their minds in the right direction.”
Even Mirage is frowning, an expression that doesn’t sit right on his golden-brown face. “What if we can’t make the rifts go away completely? Peri can brighten them up, but blasting them doesn’t make them let go. They’re stickier than cement.”
The demon sighs. “It isn’t as if we have any other options. We’d better sort this mess out, or we’ll be in an even bigger one soon enough.”
I raise my hand tentatively.
Rollick motions for me to speak, and I give a little cough, abruptly nervous. “I mean… we do have another option. We could just accept that some people know about us, and focus on telling and showing them what we’re really like instead of burying them in a bunch of lies. If they understood us better, maybe they could make more progress in helping with?—”
The demon is already shaking his head, his expression gone hard. “No. I realize you mean well, Peri, but so many humans don’t. Even if they’d accept the shadowkind who can pass for human like most of us here, they’re still going to look at your furry companion there and scream. And even the first part is an incredibly big if.”
Riva speaks up in a cautious tone. “Yeah. I wish it could be that easy, but I’ve seen firsthand how hostile regular humanscan get about even people like me and my guys who are half like them. And I don’t think we want to encourage more of their scientists to start meddling with shadow stuff.”
“They got away with what they were doing to you because of all the secrets,” I have to point out. “If everyone knew, if we could keep an eye on things openly instead of always sneaking around, we’d have a lot more of a say.”
Hail lifts his chin. “We should have a say, shouldn’t we? We’re part of this world too.”
That’s not exactly what I was trying to get at, but I’m glad to have someone’s support.
Hesitation wavers through my connection with Raze—he’s probably thinking about whether he’d be more likely to hurt humans if he was around them more. Jonah is balking inside too. I don’t think he likes disagreeing with Rollick, even if the demon isn’t his boss anymore.
Mirage—well, Mirage is full of flares of gumdrop delight. I think he’s imagining all the tricks he could play with people if they wouldn’t be as afraid of his illusions. I guess that’s a note for the plus column too.
Rollick promptly stomps all over the gumdrops. “That kind of thinking is only going to lead us into a bunch of battles you won’t want to fight. The more we put ourselves out there, the harder it’s going to be to pull back. It’salreadygoing to be just shy of impossible. So forget about that, and let’s focus on sorting out this rift so we can get on with the rest.”
Get on with erasing our presence from the records and reports. Get on with deluding the humans who’ve encountered us into believing we were only figments of their imagination.
I can see the reasoning in every word he says, but something about his decision doesn’t feel quite right.
Maybe because under all his firm words, the vibe seeping off Rollick isn’t calm certainty but a fishy tang of fear.
10
Periwinkle
It’d be a lot easier to avoid humans if they weren’t so curious all the time. When they came up with that saying about curiosity killing cats, I think they must have been projecting.
Raze, Hail, Mirage, and I purposefully went to the quietest edge of the city we could find so I could aim more loving vibes at the shadow sludge. We were hoping no one would be around to notice me glowing up the place and the three shadowkind men dealing with any strange beasts that pop out of the darkness while we’re here.
But I’ve barely managed to summon enough tender concern to bring a soft glow to my palms when a voice rings out from behind me.
“Hey, what are you guys doing?”
Raze very smoothly rolls behind a trash bin with the snarling creature he’d just pounced on. Hail jerks the angle of his hand casting out an icy bolt at another beast in front of him so hispower won’t be visible to our new audience. When the scaly hippo whose legs he froze topples over, Mirage leaps in and leans casually against it as if it’s actually a modern art fixture, not a living being.
I will my glow back under my skin and turn around.
A couple of teenaged humans are sauntering over to us, the guy with his hands shoved in the pockets of his baggy jeans and the girl nibbling on the tip of her long braid.
Does she have tasty hair? That’s a meal I have trouble imagining as appealing.
She keeps nibbling as they come to a stop. The boy cocks his head to one side. “You really think you should be messing with that stuff? It makes things pretty freaky.”
