“True, or make you the Queen of Witches,” she said, tapping his shoulder. “All lies aren’t bad lies, and some lies have managed to save those very kingdoms while they also destroyed the lives of corrupt officials. But everyone has their way of dealing with things I suppose.”
With that, she left him to go looking for Fabian. Pretending she wasn’t bothered by his words about liars. What did that make her when she was a secret keeper of great proportions. Secrets of her own, and many others.
Leaving him behind she wriggled her fingers, immediately a black string illuminated a path that led outside. “There you are,” she said to herself, following the path of the string.
At least there was something she could control and that was finding out about herself, and her first step was talking to Fabian.
It didn’t takeher long to catch up to him, he was sitting in the center of the back garden. His staff spinning in front of him, as his hands were pressed together in the form of prayer. This was her first time taking in his full appearance, his black hair was amass of curls he kept clipped back. His skin was slightly tanned and some sweat dotted his brow as he attempted to focus.
The magic he emitted was like the Surrem in that it was heavy, but unlike the Surrem magic it had fluctuations that made it soften occasionally here and there. And when it did, the lights around the staff turned from orange to white.
She watched him, reminded of the times her sister and herself practiced their magic. At the time she’d felt hopeless as dark magic was hard to control, but with being a numb Witch she had to make using black magic more natural verses just using the other forms. Especially when she knew someone was out to find her.
She’d rejoiced when everything had ended and had hoped she’d never have to face such horrors again. Only for the nightmare to show back up on her doorstep ten years later. Starting with her sister getting hit with a secret keeper hex.
Destiny had jokes.
Fabian released his tightly held breath and opened his eyes slowly lowering his staff.
“You’re good at that,” she said, approaching him.
He jumped and looked up at her in surprise. “You’re alive.”
She paused at that before continuing toward him and taking a seat across from him. “Well, that’s an interesting way of greeting someone. And here I thought you’d be all, oh my god my savior has appeared.”
His expression told her more than enough about what he thought of that suggestion.
“I was joking,” she offered hoping he’d stop looking at her like she was an alien. “Why wouldn’t I be alive?”
“The Vampire,” he answered as he looked around before leaning in close lifting his hand as if to impart a secret. “He didn’t seem to like Surrem, and your magic is Surrem isn’t it?”
Lanias hadn’t thought anyone would notice her magic during the chaos. “Why do you think that?”
“It feels like Roni’s, he taught himself how to hide it by thinning his magic out.” He said looking at her with eyes full of questions. “He said he’d gotten so good that when he met people from the Veil, they thought he was a rare male Witch.”
“Is that what you were doing out here,” she asked, instead of answering his question. “Training your magic to be softer?”
“Yes,” he said while nodding. “It’s the last step before they let you go back to the human world. Stan was going to take me to the others so that I could be trained to become better at it.” At his own words his expression fell, “But he hasn’t come back, and so I was waiting for perhaps Roni to come, but instead-.”
“We came.” She finished for him.
Pulling up pieces of grass, Fabian sighed. “Yeah, I was surprised the hex fell when you guys entered. It’s supposed to only work for those who are keyed into it. Did you know Stan?”
“No, my uncle did some business with him. He must have keyed me in back when I was a kid when he brought me with him,” she said though in truth she didn’t know why she’d been keyed into the secret hex. How could he know she’d come back; she wasn’t sure herself when she’d initially woken up that she would even want to find out more about herself.
Fabian seemed to take her words at face value. “That makes sense, so where did you learn how to control your magic?”
She thought it over, she’d always thought of herself as a numb Witch. Some parts she’d learned to suppress and when she’d realized what her magic truly meant she’d worked ten times harder to hide it. “As Witches there are naturally five types. Black, white, grey, green and numb. It’s natural for all types to learn how to train and control our magic, or we could hurt someone inadvertently.”
“Really? I’ve never hung around Being’s, so I don’t know a lot about them. Though I’ve always been able to see the veil,” he said his expression became sad. “A whole world of magic, and I was stuck in the human world.”
Seeing this she found herself asking without thinking. “What about your family? You haven’t mentioned them at all.”
The way he looked away from her, told her that he wasn’t comfortable talking about them.
“If you don’t want to tell me I completely understand.”
“My mom lost her mind after I turned four,” he said grimly. “My father seduced her cause he was bored. The Surrem’s seduction ability is like that of Sirens; at least that’s what Stan said. He said, they seduce human women or men. Surrem pull them in and play with them before throwing them away once no longer wanted. When she woke up from her dream my father was gone and there I was.” He bit his lip, his expression darkening with something Lanias understood all too well, hate.
