Winter:Let’s go all out. Add in the oatmeal, please. See you soon. XOXO.
They were already there. I needed to hurry.
We were all having dinner atLunaris Nocturntonight.
It was the restaurant I’d had dinner at with Dad months ago, just before I’d started at Loxley Academy.
We were heading back to classes on campus tomorrow, no more remote learning, so I’d figured it would be a cool way to mark it.
Well, three of us were heading back. Vax wasn’t. He’d dropped out a couple of days ago as he had to attend to things in the Basilisk Dominion. Instead of being overwhelmed by having such an immense responsibility thrust upon him, he was loving it. Seriously in his element with it.
I’d thought I wouldn’t be able to focus enough to sit through actual classes and be around other students until we’d dealt with Ruxnoth.
But the tracking of that fucker had ended up hitting a snag.
His magic had been petering in and out and Ambrose had determined that Ruxnoth had immersed himself in a deep meditative state in a bid to try to heal the damage I’d done to him, and that was why the spell sweeping the supernatural world for him hadn’t pinged him yet.
With that delay, holding out any longer had become unhealthy.
Not just for me, but for my loves trying to put up with that.
No. Not happening.
Also, it would have been like Ruxnoth was still controlling me, still ruling my life.
I wasn’t having that.
Ever again.
I spun and strode over to Dad still talking with the Temperance leaders. “Dad, I have to head out now. I’m already running a bit late.”
“Late for what?” Hale, the brasher of the two leaders asked.
“Dinner with his three loves,” Dad said, sounding so proud and happy for me.
“Dinner?” Hale mused to himself.
“Still getting used to the idea of me being a real boy?” I asked.
His lips quirked. “Perhaps a little of that, yeah.”
“I get it.”
Dad kissed the top of my head. “Go. Head out. Enjoy your meal.”
I squeezed him to me for a moment, then strode off.
Ideally, I wanted to teleport, but showing any display of my power while Temperance still had me in their eyeline didn’t seem like the best idea right now. They were coming around, so it was best not to do anything to tip that back the other way. I really did believe now that things would stabilize with that soon. But I also understood that it would take time.
The important thing was that it was changing.
It took me about twenty minutes before I was finally able to turn a corner out of sight.
Then I teleported out.
Gray light toreinto my teleportation path.
I was ripped from it in the next second, then hurtling into a black rock wall.
