But then again, hungry vampyres were hardly known for their intelligence.
Kit looked around the area, scanning the well-manicured bushes and carefully watered grass that screamed money. Witches lived here, but their often magic-less spouses and children benefitted from their much higher earning potential in Skadra. Kit spotted a gleam of yellow from underneath one of those bushes. He levitated it out.
It was a familiar little backpack, the one Nona had carefully packed for each of the kids.
Mary, their siblings, and the enforcers landed next, and soon the backpack was stored in a plastic containment bag. The uniformed witches promised to scan it for DNA and send it to the most qualified tracker available.
Kit hardly listened as he stared at a nearby manhole cover. The Underground stretched the entire length of the city, and the vamps had had days to dispose of their evidence.
The kids could be anywhere by now.
forty
Gentry
Gentry no longer had eyes by the time her sister finally came for her. The birds had quickly found a clever way to balance themselves on her blouse to get to the juicy stuff. But even without her eyes, Gentry could hear the gasps of passersby, who were becoming less and less frequent. The guards the Weavers had assigned by her body were growing complacent too, taking smoke breaks and playing games rather than watching her.
Which gave her sister the perfect opportunity.
While Gentry could no longer control her flesh, she could feel some sensations, albeit at a lesser level when she’d been living. She knew when the air swung her, when a bird landed for its meal. So she knew the exact moment when her sister levitated her out of her chains — it had a chaotic pull, her sister’s magic, never quite stable.
If Gentry could’ve moved her lips, she would’ve smiled.
Gentry gasped awake, sweaty and truly disgusted from the process of ‘getting in touch with her soul’. She immediately sat up and separated herself from the ruined sheets. Thankfully, sheknew Kit would be able to spell up a makeshift magical laundry in the bathtub; she’d seen her father do as much.
The apartment was empty, and she was bummed to see that Kit hadn’t returned from his search for the children, nor had he left her a message. She’d been hopeful that the witch would send word if he’d found them — she’d given him a temporary number to text that she could answer from the laptop.
With how weird and creepy her dreams were, she sure could use some good news. Gentry immediately hopped in the shower, her thoughts preoccupied with the second zombie dream she’d had.
The first one may have been a fluke, but the second one was surelysomething. She refused to believe it was somehow Drayer’s inherent fear of birds. It had to be a memory of sorts. A memory of what, she wasn’t so sure, but from now on, she was determined to lean into the dreams.
So did that mean that Drayer had somehow been… dead? She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was a single child, and that vision had felt distinctly feminine.
So Drayer’s a girl, Gentry decided as she turned the shower off,that’s what I’ll assume for tonight.Perhaps in the future, she’d change her mind. But for now, it felt like the mostillogicallogical conclusion. The person who’d stolen her life was a girl disguised as a boy. She’d dealt enough with magic to know that it never made sense the way technology did. She much preferred technology.
That decided, Gentry got dressed and lay down on her mat, letting her mind go blank in a half-assed attempt to meditate. She only had an hour until Wren and Adrienne arrived for their appointment, and exhaustion from staying up all night hadn’t quite subsided. The tonic certainly hadn’t helped. So she drifted.
And then she jolted upwards as pure, unadulterated rage hit her like a truck. It made her heart quicken, her breath come out in pants. And then it was gone.
It’ll help if you mirror the emotions it's feeling so you can learn more about it.
Following Wren’s guidance, Gentry did her damndest to think of things that made her angry: Visha’s smug face when she’d poisoned her, the kids getting kidnapped, her father dying just as she’d learned how he’d been so heartlessly manipulated…
It worked like a charm. Rage once again exploded into her body, and this time, she could hear whispers of thoughts. About the election. About that damned girl they hadn’t caught yet. It was so unmistakably the bastard who’d stolen her life. Drayer.
The connection cut abruptly and Gentry instantly felt her rage get replaced with joy. Not only had she made a connection with Drayer,but she’d actually heard the bastard’s thoughts!Instinctually, she knew Drayer had never been inside of her head before.
Gentry was still smiling when she opened the door to the faces of a surprised Adrienne and Wren.
She finally had something on the bastard.
forty-one
Gentry
The check-up with Wren and Adrienne had gone exceedingly well. Wren had immediately had better luck distinguishing between Gentry and Drayer once Gentry told her to look for a feminine presence that felt older. At first, she was going to sayambitiousandangry, but then again, that applied to Gentry too. Soolderended up being the distinguishing factor.
Wren babbled happily at her as she helped Gentry make a small cut on her palm. “She’s completely different from you, Gen,” she said happily, “waaay more vindictive and angry. I’m shocked that I didn’t see it before. I thought you were just a difficult person.”
