"Ready?" Fawn's body shook with coldness as an icy breeze blew through, ruffling her blue hair every which way. Her nose scrunched up as she squinted her eyes, and it was adorable.
It was obvious that I found everything she did adorable. We all did.
We stepped out of the Demented Cave to make sure the guards from the Revivium Empire were long gone, just like Fawn said.
"Let's get this over with." She huffed out a breath.
I didn't blame her for her frustration. Matthieu was always weird, but he'd become even stranger since meeting Fawn.
"We got your back, goddess. I'm itching to slice off his entire hand this time." Casper's lips curled into a smirk.
"Much rather end his life," Jasper murmured with a groan.
"As if you don't want to torture him instead." Silas scoffed.
"Torture himto deathwould be most ideal, butno.You don't want me to kill the creep."
"It's not thatIwant him alive. It's that it would cause issues with the emperor. You know this." Silas rubbed his palm against his forehead with a sigh. "Let's just get out of here."
"From here to there, let time and space be unaware," Fawn murmured, and we chanted with her. "Spirit's of Hexarium bless."
The familiar magic of teleportation slipped around us before it warped us back into the Allura Empire.
Honeysuckle hung in the air as the early morning sun rose from the horizon. In front of Fawn's cozy cottage, Matthieu ruined the peaceful view.
He leaned against the siding, ignoring the foliage clinging to it. His yellow eyes sparked with excitement and zeroed in on Fawn within a second. "How wonderful that you've made it! I'm surprised it took you so long to meet me here."
"We were avoiding you," Fawn deadpanned and crossed her arms over her chest with a frown. "I'd say sorry, but I'm not."
As she spoke, Cosmo, Karma, Oz, and Charm floated out of the cottage and hissed at Matthieu as they passed by him. They flew toward her, circling around and rubbing against her before departing to the rest of us.
Cosmo bee-lined for Silas, and he took him into his arms as he let a summoned mist of water coat his fur.
Karma bounced between Casper and Jasper, and they each rubbed behind her ears, and Fawn wiggled her fingers, letting a small flame flicker in front of her to swat at.
Oz went to Bastian, and Fawn let the wind ruffle around him as Bastian petted him.
Charm came to me, and I wrapped her up in my arms as I summoned a vine for her to play with.
Even with the attention from us, each cat glared at Matthieu.
"You're such a delight." Matthieu pushed away from the cottage and strolled toward us. "Can't believe you got caught by guards, though. That was rather careless of you."
The cats hissed as he stopped a couple of feet from Fawn, and both of the twins flanked her as Bastian, Silas, and I stepped in front of them.
There was something off about the way he spoke with Fawn, and clearly, it didn't just rubmethe wrong way.
"We found what we needed," Silas stated, narrowing his gaze at him. "It wasn't a loss."
“Yes, well. Give me whatever needs to go to the emperor.” He grinned, holding out his hands.
Bastian rolled his eyes before handing over some documents and potions, but he held back quite a few of the potions. It seemed like we were all losing faith in Matthieu’s character other than the emperor.
Matthieu tilted his head, orange hair falling to the side as he peered past us to Fawn, stuffing the stuff in a satchel hanging from his shoulder. "I heard that you'vebondedall five of them,Master Fawn.How wonderful. How do you feel not being the only immortal in Hexarium? How do you feel about sharing that precious curse of yours?"
"Not your business," she bit out through gritted teeth. "What did you want to speak about?"
"Honestly, I wanted to speak a little bit about you. Are you being shared by all five of them? Five's a rather big number. It's quite impressive that you can manage that." His eyes twinkled with what seemed like arousal as he wet his lips.
