It was too soon to share such information with Redmayne, regardless of his motives. Maybe Redmayne was trustworthy,but MERS was another story. He could only share what was accessible to academics publicly at this point.
“Can you describe your fae artifact to me?” Raum asked carefully. MERS dealt with top-secret and dangerous magical events and people, and if a curse-breaker was summoned from another country, it had to be serious, and deadly. It was entirely possible such an object was known in the historical record, somewhere, some-when.
“Is that a good idea?” one of the sergeants asked, the taller one built like an American football player. Harlan, Raum thought his name was.
Raum raised his eyebrows in question at the soldier, and Ezra turned to look at both sergeants, petting his cat as he clearly thought about it. The shorter sergeant shrugged, not offering an opinion either way.
The Lykoi cat in Ezra’s arms made a quiet chirp and began to purr loudly enough that even Raum could hear her. Ezra looked down at her for a moment, then nodded to himself, before turning back to Raum.
“A skull, not human, and one I am presuming belongs to one of the Elder fae peoples. Covered in blue flames, etched in ancient symbols—though the symbols come and go—and trapped in an endless cycle of chaotic elemental magics and death magic. The soul of the deceased fae is trapped within the skull while it tries to heal itself, but it cannot. Its basic nature is an immortal one, and the magics that make the foundation of the Elder fae, eternal life, are then converted over to the turmoil of death. The result is a riot of uncontrollable storm magics, likely the Elder fae’s aspects when they were alive. All the aspects aren’t entirely clear, but they seem to be winter-focused, generating a blizzard instead of a hurricane or tornado.”
Raum went cold at the mental image that description conjured. An utterly nightmarish existence, a relic ofunimaginable power and misery. A hellish afterlife, but trapped in the living world.
“Is the soul aware?” Raum asked quietly, heart leaden.
Ezra grimaced, with an awkward half-shrug and a pained expression. “I don’t think so—I truly hope not. When I interrupted the cycle and shut down the artifact, it didn’t react to me. It might be dormant. It’s not a revenant, nor do I think the soul is haunting the skull. I’m afraid it’s…” Ezra grimaced. “I think the soul hasn’t let go of the skull because it’s from a species that isn’t meant to die—there is no natural process for it to follow. If I can find a way to destroy the artifact completely, it might let go and move on to the Other Side.”
“I hope for the sake of that soul you’re right,” Raum replied. He took a deep breath, trying not to focus on the horror of the situation. He hoped with everything he could muster that Ezra was right and the soul was unaware of what happened to it and its current state.
“Our records said you’re an expert in ancient artifacts and Elder fae species,” Sergeant Owens spoke, though his tone was more curious than anything. “Any chance this is something you recognize?”
Raum shrugged one shoulder, trying to be honest without the breaking vows of secrecy made to his people when he left his childhood home. “I’m an expert in artifacts only so far as it pertains to pre-Christian Norse mythology and history, and while that does include a history with Elder fae species, the Elder fae weren’t limited to northern Europe. There were Elder fae peoples all over the world at one point.” He paused, thinking. “There are limited resources here in Special Collections about that form of magic—Elder fae-based relics, crafted from organic remains—but there are numerous legends and myths of beings who were considered godly by early human civilizations and peoples but were more than likely Elder fae beings. InScandinavian cultures the artisans were typically dwarves, and not the cartoon type. Many of the Elder fae could have been considered dwarves by the humans and younger fae peoples. In pre-Christian histories and legends, some dwarves were alleged to have crafted powerful weapons and artifacts, objects capable of seemingly miraculous things, though not from body parts of their deceased.”
Ezra’s eyes lit up in interest. “Like Osiris’s crook and flail, Zeus’s lightning bolt?”
Raum wiggled a hand back and forth in a so-so gesture. “Less popular mainstream media lore and more weapons of mass destruction.”
“Guess even the nearly divine Elder fae made mistakes,” Ezra said with a contemplative hum. He suddenly bent and gently let Lilith down, where she promptly shook herself and then pranced off into the stacks, tail held high, the tip slightly curled. Ezra straightened and gave Raum a brilliant smile.
“Show me what you’ve got,” Ezra said, and Raum grinned at the not-so-subtle challenge he detected in the curse-breaker’s tone.
CHAPTER NINE
EZRA
Diving headlong into a stack of dusty old tomes was every bit as exciting as anything Ezra could have dreamed up as a child. When he was younger and still living under the oppressive weight of the Redmayne name and his family’s thumb, he escaped to the library, to books, and kept his head down and his mouth shut.
Especially once it became apparent that his brain worked differently than his siblings’, and his autism and ADHD were diagnosed by a staunchly disappointed family doctor. To his parents’ horror and frustration, Ezra’sdeficitsweren’t something that could be disciplined out of him, and what they’d taken for laziness, stubbornness, and pure contrariness was merely his mind working in a way they could never relate to—and never tried to understand.
They continued trying to force him to change, through punishment and lectures and repeated groundings. Even when a mundane human specialist confirmed his diagnoses, and then the numerous practitioners who specialized in mental health spellwork and treatments said there was nothing to fix—his mind was different, not broken—his family never really gave upon the idea that if he only tried hard enough, he could be normal. Like them.
Ezra spent days and weeks, months and years, avoiding his family. Avoiding the frowns his mother sent his way when she thought no one was watching at public events and family gatherings, and the lamenting sighs of his father when he spoke about his sons to company over brandy and cigars.
Ezra was the second-born son, and he took the chance to be the spare with gratitude.
There were no accommodations, no help for him to be found in school or at home when he was still under his family’s control. What he did learn to help him manage his ADHD he learned on his own, and later he sought out medical professionals that weren’t on his family’s dime. He took his saved allowance from years of saving pennies and paid cash for medications and therapy, and when he got to college, he took advantage of programs for students like him without means. It wasn’t perfect but it was better than the nothing he got while living at home.
The fact that he graduated from college was a testament to his ability to get lost in subjects that made him happy and excited, a place of release from the constant censure he endured at home. Learning about history made him happy, kept a steady supply of happy brain chemicals flowing, and even when he struggled with other subjects like various types of math, his strengths were enough to pull him through to graduation.
Ezra’s failure to change himself disappointed his family. His desire to control his future disappointed his family. Everything Ezra did and said disappointed them, and only time, and working on his mental health, helped him see that he was not a failure. Their disappointments were not his fault, nor his problem. That epiphany was liberating in all sorts of ways. Also exhausting, since he had no support system to help boost him along on his journey. Well, he had a support system of oneperson, but she was more mentor than friend for most of his time in college.
Black sheep weren’t all that rare in the Redmayne line, at least one every generation, and he was merely embracing that role with far more willingness than previous outcasts. Ezra left as quickly as he could when he reached his majority and he never looked back.
History degree in hand, and nothing but freedom in front of him, Ezra fell into the most fulfilling of careers—curse-breaking wasn’t even a blip on his mental dreamscape as a child, but once he discovered that he had a unique advantage with his dual affinity and education, he didn’t hesitate.
Six years later, he was in a different country, working with a government agency, surrounded by priceless old books and was less than a dozen feet away from a sexy professor who ticked all the boxes for Ezra. Raum smiled at Lilith, appreciated history and magic, and didn’t complain when Ezra failed to mask adequately. In fact, Ezra hadn’t even tried to mask around Raum Norsson. At all.
He lifted his head from the book he was leaning over and thought about it for a startling moment. He was accustomed to dire situations and tense professional settings, but it always left him exhausted and his social well empty, feeling short-tempered and needing space. His abrupt nature and blunt form of communication was not as much a hindrance working with MERS as it was in the private sector.
