Ethel chuckles, “No, dear, you haven’t failed. The magical responsibilities mostly refer to House and me, and we’re perfectly happy. It’s nothing for you to worry about.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I level her with a look, “Are you sure about that?”
“I am. There is nothing else that you need to know about right now,” Ethel replies.
“But there are more things that I need to know?” I ask because there was a distinction in her reply.
“There is always more that you need to know, my dear,” she replies. “Let’s put this all back where it belongs.”
“Fine, I get it,” I reply, knowing that there is absolutely no point in arguing with her because she’s just going to ignore me anyway, and I’ll just get frustrated.
We put everything back where it belongs, after Raiden has taken a long look at the bone and no doubt categorized every detail that he can, so that he can do some research on it at some point. Although it’s not going to be until we can get back to the guy's place and he gets his books back that he’s going to be able to look into it. I know he brought some of them with him, but he left a lot behind, and I doubt that he brought the books that he would need in order to research this.
“Let's head back upstairs before Zephyr gets annoyed with the noise and comes to shout at us like the old man he is,” Ethel says with amusement in her voice.
“I heard that!” A disembodied voice calls out, thankfully also sounding amused.
“I know you did. Nosey!” Ethel calls back.
My eyebrows raise as I distinctly hear the slamming of a door.
“So he really does have a whole fucking house in here?” River asks as we turn around and start to head back up the steps.
“Sort of,” Raiden is unsurprisingly the one to reply. “If I’m understanding correctly, he’s somehow managed to create a tiny pocket realm that is the size of his house and no bigger. He must be very powerful.”
“Should we be concerned that he’s hiding out here?” Van asks. “Does he need help?”
“If he needs help, I am sure that he will ask. He is very aware of who you all are and what you are capable of,” Ethel replies.
“That’s good, I suppose,” Reed replies with a slight frown. “At least I think it is.”
“Don’t worry, dear, he’s a good ally to have should you need him,” she replies rather vaguely. As soon as we’re all clear of the door, it slams shut and then completely disappears. “You will be unable to gain access unless House or I allow it. You understand that opening the doors just entices those after the key?”
“Of course,” Griff replies for all of us.
“Now that’s all settled, I think it’s time that you all got some rest. Something tells me that you’re going to be pretty busy in the coming days,” Ethel replies as she floats back over to her corner and settles down.
“Good idea,” Ransom replies.
“We’ve got Ty sending over the files for the wolves case that Coen asked for, and we need to go over the file that Rana sent as well. We then need to compile as much of the information as we can in order to make it easy for the team that’s going to be going after them,” Van says, as we all sort of gather in the hallway.
“We also need to find Pete. I’m hoping that Kar is going to give me a more precise location than just Ireland. Ireland isn’t exactly a small search area. We need to find Murray, too, and see if she’s being controlled by Casimir,although I’m not sure if there is any real way to test that, so I guess we’re going to need to talk to Dimitri again as well,” I start. “Then there are the wards that the Elders suggested we put on ourselves because of my whole angel situation, the fact that the books the Elders gave us are full of shit, so we still don’t know much, if anything, about angels. Winston is MIA again, and I have no idea if Wallace is okay, or what was in the woods and made me lose all of that time.”
“Erm,” Coen starts as they all look at me in shock.
I wince, “Sorry that sort of turned into a rant. What’s worse though, is that I didn’t even cover everything.”
Like the unicorn mark on my wrist, that’s a pretty big one. The huge storms that I can make, which is fucking awesome, but that Winston said wasn’t normal, the fact that Ahren rang River, and that whole clusterfuck, the Reaper Council, they’re still an issue, and there’s still more.
It’ll be fine, it’ll all be fine.
Deep breath.
The Voices muttering becomes calmer, and I know that they’re trying to help calm my mind as well.
I’m kind of fond of the fuckers.
Reed smiles gently, “I think we should take it one step at a time and maybe focus on a couple of things and not try to focus on the whole.”
