Darcy grabs my shirt collar and pulls me down, kissing the hell out of me. I give in to his ardor, opening my mouth so he can taste me, push his tongue in my mouth, and claim me like I wasn’t already his. He tastes like the sweet coffees we drank on the way over here and smells like fire and incense. He pullsa groan from me with a possessive grip on my ass, and when he pulls back, it takes a moment to get my breath back.
“Why do you smell like incense all the time?” Those words probably didn’t need to fall out of my mouth, but goddamn, he smells so good. It’s grounding after such a hot makeout sesh.
His affectionate smile makes my stomach dip and my heart flutter with happiness. “It’s just how I smell after making magic.”
“It’s an excellent cologne substitute. Ready?”
Darcy threads our fingers together, up-nodding Bellamy. “Go on, Bella.”
Bellamy narrows his eyes for the briefest moment before turning on his heels and marching toward the building where his office is located. I’ve been told there are legal portals in that building, and we’re taking one to Australia where the council has their offices. The council governs the non-human community on Earth and functions as a liaison to magic aliens that don’t live on Earth. That’s a thing I learned today. Apparently the council recently went through a change in leadership, and Romily’s best friend is the leader. I’m looking forward to meeting him. I wonder if he’s also an alien—non-human?—or if he’s from Earth.
“Do we call them aliens if they’re not from this planet?” It’s a valid question. “I don’t even know if non-human is the right word.”
“Non-human is fine,” Santanos answers smoothly from behind me. “But only if you’re talking about all the species who aren’t human, and we occasionally say ‘species’ when we want to include humans. The species are in danger. If you’re talking about just the people who know about magic on Earth, then we call ourselves the magical community or just the community. If you’re talking about people who don’t live on this planet but do live in this universe, then you call them Yunkin, because the name of this universe is Yun. Otherwise, it’s fine to refer topeople as their species, such as human, demon, dragon, goblin, gnome, et cetera.”
“I didn’t know we named the universe,” I comment. Last time I’d checked we hadn’t.
“Humans still haven’t,” Darcy informs me. “The rest of the known species agreed on Yun when we discovered multiple universes were possible. Yun is the first letter in the Standard lettering system that the space-faring species use for writing. It’s a bit on the hubristic side, but I like it.”
With an ego as large as his, it’s no wonder that he does.
“Nice. We’re allowed to name our universe whatever we want.” If we ever do dip into other universes, I hope they also name themselves first in their lettering systems.
Bellamy hums his agreement, opening the door into the building and letting the rest of us through. He quickly jogs ahead, leading us to the elevator, where we crowd in. The people in the lobby all stare at us like we’re the strangers that just walked into the hometown diner in a small town.
I’ve never been stared at like that before, but I have been the person staring. My hometown is tiny—just a rural community about fifty miles from the city. We stare when people we don’t know wander into the diner. It’s fun. Something to pass the time. Plus the gossip it generates gets out of hand so fast.
“I wonder how Maeve’s doing.”
“Who’s Maeve?” Darcy asks.
I guess my inside thoughts are coming out of my mouth again. “She’s the old woman who owns the diner back home. She makes up stories about the strangers that come in to eat, and it keeps the town entertained with gossip so we don’t gossip about each other. She’s the best gossip girl in town, even if everything she says is fiction. It’s fun. We had a family of werewolves come through… you know, it just occurred to me that maybe she wasn’t making everything up.”
The elevator door opens, and we exit the lift into a room with doorways with portals standing free in rows three feet apart. There are probably a hundred of them, but Bellamy takes us to the first one, gesturing for us to go through. “Right behind you,” he says, and Darcy walks through, keeping my hand in his and pulling me across the world into another boring office building.
For all the magic happening all time, it seems like bureaucracy is bureaucracy no matter what.
33
As I watch Darcy report to the council that The Hollow, an evil so horrifying that there are places in the universe that have no galaxies in them because of it, is back, I have to admire the absolute balls (gender neutral) on all the council people to take that information without freaking out. Akile Aristide is the speaker for the council, and as the Avatars come up with a plan, he manages the rest of the council, making sure all the questions and comments happen in an orderly fashion.
I’m hanging out with Edovard, Hassan, and Gregory on the sidelines, and listening to Gregory’s quiet commentary helps both me and Edovard understand what everyone’s talking about while they throw around ideas. The problem really is that the universe is vast and The Hollow could be anywhere. It can hide fourteen billion light years across the universe from us and still send giant insects to my house. It has a very long reach, according to the oldest person on the council, Grissom Brow, who looks like a hunched over granny with dark gray skin, a white bun on top of her head, and a weathered ballsack with three testicles where her chin would be. It even has wiry white hair growing out of it. It’s weirdly off-putting, and that’s comingfrom a guy who enjoys testicles of all shapes, sizes, and ages and would never ball-shame anyone for any reason.
“It’s distracting.”
Edovard leans hard into me. “The… um… balls?” he whispers emphatically.
I nod. “Exactly.”
He nods with me. “Is it rude to stare?”
“Only when she’s not talking,” I assure him.
“Oh. I thought she was a he,” he confesses softly.
I pause at that, thinking about it. She has boobs and looks like a granny, but maybe my biases are just showing. “Maybe we just assign ‘they’ as a pronoun until we know for sure,” I suggest.
Gregory snorts. “She is a she. Those aren’t gonads on her chin. Those are venom glands.”
