“Lohuis and Marya,” Casimya repeated, tilting her head as she looked at me with sudden interest. “Ring any bells?”
“Louis and Mary,” I whispered. The room tilted. “Oh my god. Oh my GOD.”
“Your grandparents,” Mal said. He didn’t sound surprised at all, the bastard.
“But that would mean they were over two hundred years old?” I looked between them, waiting for someone to tell me I was being ridiculous, that this was impossible.
“If they’re who I think they are? Yes. And they were definitely hiding from something. Or someone.” Casimya studied me like I was a particularly interesting puzzle. “You didn’t know. About any of this.”
“No! I thought they were just normal old people! Who died normal old people deaths a few years ago!” My voice was rising but I couldn’t control it. Killian stirred slightly in my lap and I forced myself to lower my volume. “They were my grandparents. They raised me. They made me pancakes on Sundays and taught me to read and helped me with my homework. They were just normal.”
“Did you actually see the bodies?” Casimya asked, her tone gentle.
I opened my mouth. Closed it. “Yes. They were cremated. My grandma’s heart gave out, and weeks later my grandpa followed her. They are dead.”
“Huh. Maybe human Earth snuffled their powers, or maybe they were ready to see the afterlife and decided to leave this physical plane.”
I was going to be sick.
“Portal casters are always so dramatic,” Casimya continued conversationally, like she hadn’t just upended my entire understanding of reality. “Always with the ‘ooh, look at me, I am a superior being.’ Please. It’s exhausting being around them.”
I let out a surprised laugh despite everything. “You don’t like portal casters?”
“I respect their power immensely. But they’re tiring as people. Always disappearing mid-conversation. Your grandparents once portaled away in the middle of a council meeting. Just gone, right in the middle of someone’s sentence. Very rude.”
“That sounds exactly like something they’d do,” I admitted, actually smiling even though my worldview was imploding. They’d done the same thing to me countless times growing up, just vanishing from rooms. I’d thought it was a game, that they were terribly fast.
It had been magic the whole time.
Casimya was watching Mal now, her expression shifting to something amused. “Something wrong, Your Majesty?”
“No,” Mal said stiffly.
I could feel his jealousy through the bond like a warm pulse of irritation. He was annoyed that I was bonding with Casimya, that I was smiling and laughing with her when I’d barely spoken to him for three days. Well. Served him right.
“You look constipated,” Casimya observed with clinical interest.
I choked on a laugh, pressing my hand to my mouth to keep from waking Killian. “He does kind of.”
“I do not...”
“Very constipated. Maybe eat more fiber. It’s good for regularity.”
“Oh my god,” I was full-on laughing now, my shoulders shaking.
“This is not productive,” Mal said, sounding so offended that it just made it funnier.
“Fiber is very productive. Keeps things moving.”
I loved this witch. I was absolutely keeping her.
“I found a book,” I said, the memory suddenly surfacing through my laughter. My smile faded as the pieces started clicking together. “Years ago, at Halloween. Five years ago, actually, right before I opened that first portal. A magic book in their storage room. I thought it was just old and weird, some kind of antique. But it was real, wasn’t it? The magic was real. They were actualwitches and I just thought they were quirky old people with a thing for creepy books.”
My breathing was getting faster. “Oh god, they LIED to me. About everything. My whole childhood was a performance.”
“Why did they disappear?” Mal asked Casimya, his attention fully on her now. “Why hide in the human realm for two hundred years?”
“Many people wanted their power. To study it. To steal it. To weaponize it. The magical community can be rather acquisitive about rare abilities. Especially ones as powerful as portal magic. And there were a lot more people interested in their abilities.”
