The mother’s power may be frightening, but once those children are fully grown, I would not want to come up against them.
The woman draws level with the three wolves and it’s intriguing to me that one of the animals—the more masculine one—steps closer to the boy, while the two apparently female wolves stand nearer to the woman’s other side.
“You don’t have my permission to be here.” The woman doesn’t raise her voice, but her growl carries authority, the kind of calm shown by those who know they have the upper hand no matter what.
“You will tell me who you are and why you’re here,” she continues. “Then I will decide if I allow you to live.”
My eyes widen at how peacefully she uttered her threat. She could be speaking of the weather, not of death.
Diavolo returns the threat in kind, equally serenely. “Our business is our own. I would advise you not to get in our way.”
As he speaks, his form changes, becoming smoke and ash once more, the insubstantial demon that defied even Vanguard’s power.
The woman doesn’t seem concerned. She turns to the male wolf and then leans toward the little boy.
He looks up at her. “Mom, what’s on his hand?”
The woman has taken her eyes off us—a move that could be dangerous except that the wolves are keeping us in their sights.
“What doyouthink, Theo?” she asks the boy, her voice equally quiet.
Theo’s serious gaze washes over us again. “He’s the dark keeper we heard about.”
The woman nods. “Yes, I think he is.”
She continues to give her son her full attention, even though the gray smoke swirling around the keeper is thickening and Anarchy’s growls are intensifying.
“He is the keeper of dark magic, escaped from his realm,” she says. “A being who was created from theoldestof old magic.” She arches an eyebrow at her son. “And what does that mean for our chances of survival against him?”
The little boy doesn’t flinch. “Well… He’s old magic.” Once more, his serious gaze washes over us. “Which means we can kill him.”
“Yes.” The mother straightens. “We are some of the few who can.”
The central wolf hunches a little lower to the ground, its body language indicating that it’s preparing to strike. It’s uncanny how that wolf seems so in tune with the woman’s own body language. Also uncanny how the masculine wolf seems intensely connected to the boy—like when it looked at the woman as if it had a question and she replied to the boy instead.
There has to be some sort of mental connection between them, but I can’t quite figure out what it is. They certainly aren’tlike any kind of wolf shifters my mother ever mentioned. But then, these children were most certainly born after my mother was imprisoned, so maybe she didn’t know they existed.
As for the woman, well, who knows how old she is?
She sighs into the tense silence, speaking at a murmur that sounds genuinely unhappy. “It’s a terrible waste to end other old magic creatures when there are so few of us left.”
She said ‘us’.
Which means the woman and her children must be old magic.
Of all the things my mother did teach me, my paramount lessons were about survival. Knowing who the real threats are is crucial.
Any old magic creature is a serious threat, without exception.
Old magic creatures can kill every other kind of creature: light, dark, elemental—it doesn’t matter how powerful they are.
Old magic is at the top of the food chain.
This woman’s two-year-old daughter could pulverize me.
Which is a humiliating fact, for sure, but a fact all the same.
And as for the harm they could do to the keeper…
