“You know what? They never really gave me an official diagnosis; they just provided a list of the most likely ones. Would you like the list?”
The beautiful prince grimaced. “I already regret sending Nate to check the death roll. There is no point. Cress, I told you that we do not need her.”
She straightened up. “We do, Donovan. Of course we do. She is the Chosen One.”
The prince—Donovan—grimaced. “She is not Chosen. She fell into the role by quirk of her birth.”
“Then she is the Chosen. She is the only one in all the realms who can help us, Donovan.”
He threw me a look of such blistering contempt, it almost scorched me. “She has no idea who she is. Molinere did not train her. She does not know what she is capable of. Even if she could help, she has no understanding of what she should do.” He let out a dismissive, manly grunt. “I told you from the start we should focus on finding the spark stones first and hiding them before he could get to them.”
Cress gave a delicate snort. “Even if we did, the danger remains. The stones need to be closed, or Connor will devour them and absorb their power. And the only person in all the realms that can do that is her.”
“Ooh,” I murmured. “Interesting. I should write this down.”
Cress and Donovan turned to stare at me.
“No,” I said. “Keep going, this is great stuff. Audrina’s always talking about things like this in her crazy fantasy novels. If this episode has a good ending, I might see if I can pitch it to someone. Once I’m sane again, obviously.”
After a long moment of silence, Cress cursed. “You do not know what you are.”
“Nope,” I said cheerfully. “I mean, apart from the fact that I’m the chosen one, obviously. Tell me. This should be good.”
“You are the Chosen One because you are the only One of Every Blood.” I could even hear her put capitals on the letters.
“Great, great,” I nodded. “Now, what do you mean by ‘every blood’?”
“You are the only creature in existence who carries theblood of every species of every realm,” Cress answered. “Your heritage includes everyone from the lower, middle, and upper Worlds. You are a mix of imp, demon, wraith, human, vampire, dragon, shifter, berserker, fae, elf, scribe, elemental…”
I snorted. “Okay. Here I am thinking I’m just a mostly white mixed-race girl, but it’s nice that my brain wants me to feel super-special.” I smiled up at her. “So, what are my powers?”
“You do not know.” Cress looked horrified. “Even if you did not know what you are, you must know what you could do. There is no way you could suppress the power inside of you. To ignore it could lead to catastrophe. ”
“Okayyy,” I said, still smiling and nodding. “Is it like, the power of love? The power of heart? The power to make a delicious scallop linguine?”
“It means you can move between any of the realms without having to beg or borrow a Key. Your blood grants you access to all Worlds. Not only that, but you can also move the atoms in any realm. And that is where your destiny lies. You must?—”
Donovan slammed his hand down on the counter, and I jumped. “Cress,” he growled. “We are wasting time. The scribe stone is in this city, and he is hunting it now. We must find it before Connor does.”
“We need her, my liege.” The blond one finally piped up. “Now that he knows their power, nothing is safe until the stones are closed. The prophecy?—”
“Damn the prophecy!” Donovan roared.
I jumped to my feet and clapped my hands twice. “Inside voices, please!” My hallucinations were getting a little testy; it was time to take control of them.
It was probably the best way to handle this episode, anyway. This bunch of colorful characters weren’t much different from the team I managed at Base Budget Insurance.I had twelve staff underneath me, and they all had unique personalities and required careful handling. In fact, Cress’s whole goth-warrior-badass aesthetic was quite similar to what Cora, one of the girls in my team, would gush over on Pinterest.
Silver sparkles erupted from nowhere, forming a circle, and Nate reappeared, straightening his enormous, muscled shoulders. “I’m sorry, my Prince. My aunt would not see me.”
“Thank you for trying, Nate.” Donovan let out a gruff sigh.
My curiosity pricked me. Nate’s story must be a fun subplot; hopefully, I’d get to it. Follow the story to the conclusion, and they’d go away. And if they didn’t, I’d ask Dr. Byron for the strongest antipsychotics he could prescribe.
“Okay, team.” I clapped my hands again. “Let’s focus. First, I’ll open with an apology. I regret that I don’t have the skillset that you were expecting, but it can be easily remedied. I am a very fast learner, and I promise you I will do my best to get up to speed.” I turned my head, deliberately holding eye contact with each one of my hallucinations in the same way I’d do with the twelve lunatics I managed during our team meetings.Build rapport. Get them on your side.“But I need your full cooperation. In order to get up to speed, I need to know the details. We have a problem that needs to be solved, but I prefer to think positively. Problems are just goals to achieve. So. What is our goal?”
They all stared at me in silence. Finally, Cress blinked her big eyes. “To stop Connor from devouring the spark stones, absorbing the intrinsic power of every creature in every realm, and becoming an all-powerful tyrant?”
“Fantastic.” I gave her a big smile. “Thanks, Cress! That’s very helpful information.” Positive reinforcement didwonders for every individual on the team. I just had to get the rest on board. Donovan would be the most unwilling; he reminded me of Thomas, the grumpy old bastard operator who’d worked in the call center for two decades. Thomas’s tenure extended through five company name changes and at least two dozen team leaders, and he’d been a thorn in the side of every single one. Yvette, my department manager, had warned me about him when I started managing the team.
