He stares at me.
I’m aware that I may have slightly lost my shit then, but for some fucking reason, I care about Aldrastos, and besides, you would have to be pretty fucking heartless if you didn’t care about someone dying in front of you.
Some sort of emotion flashes across his expression, too quickly for me to name.
“If it means that much to you, then I will be more careful,” he replies with an unsure frown.
“It does,” I reply honestly because I think it’s important that he knows that. “You should care too.”
“Perhaps,” he replies, noncommittal in his response, and that simple answer tells me more about him than anything else has so far.
There is far more to him than I initially thought.
While I didn’t think that his life had been all sunshine and rainbows, how could it have been trying to survive in a place like this? I have a feeling that he is fighting a lot more shadows than I originally thought.
He doesn’t say anything else as he starts to approach the dilapidated building. My gaze locks with Reaper, and we share a concerned look. I’m glad that it’s not just me who likes Aldrastos.
We’ll figure him out, and hopefully, soon, he will figure out that not only do I mean what I say, but that the guys want him to be careful as well. The concept of someone wanting him safe seemed so foreign to him that it makes me wonder if he has ever truly had someone care for him, and that makes me sad and fucking angry all at the same time.
There is a chance that I could be reading the situation wrong completely, and that he is confused because I haven’t really known him for that long, and that was quite a strong reaction to have.
I don’t think that’s the case though.
I can’t do anything about it now, and I sense that if I were to push him on the subject, he would close down completely, and it would take him even longer to open up to us.
Besides, as I said, he barely knows us, and I’m not sure why I keep having to remind myself of that. I refocus and look up at the house as we slowly approach it.
I have to admit that I’m not sure how the house is still standing. The roof has collapsed in on itself. One of the walls looks like it’s about to go at any moment, one of the chimneys has completely gone, and I don’t think any of the windows have any glass in them.
It’s a wreck, quite honestly, and I’m not sure that there’s much point in us going inside. If it is deserted, which I am ninety percent sure that it is, and we try to rest inside it, I have a feeling that we’ll most likely end up inadvertently causing the whole thing to come down on us.
It looks that fragile.
Aldrastos is nearly at the door, and I get ready to yell at him again for not listening and risking his life. However, he surprises me whenhe stops just short of the door, his hand is only a few millimetres away from the handle. He glances over his shoulder at me and shrugs.
“Sorry, it’s automatic,” he surprises me by apologising.
“No problem,” I reply.
I’m not really sure how I’m supposed to respond to that, and the fact that he not only listened but stopped himself and then apologised has admittedly thrown me a bit.
I jog up next to where he and the others have all gathered, and send my magic out at the same time, checking for anything that could harm us or cause us any trouble getting inside. It’s extremely unlikely that there would be, considering the general decay of the house, but you never know. Magic can stay dormant for an extremely long time.
It can be forgotten to time completely, and then a specific and complicated set of circumstances can trigger it and usually cause all hell to break loose.
I frown slightly. My magic isn’t warning me that there is something dangerous that we need to be concerned about, but there is something there. It’s quietly and calmly pulsing in the background.
It’s not a threat to us.
But I don’t know what it is, and maybe the not knowing is what makes it a threat to us.
“Farren?” Loki asks.
“I can feel something, but it’s not a threat,” I try to explain. “I don’t know what the magic that I’m feeling is, though.”
“It could be leftover residual magic from when Ignatius lived here. We know that he was really powerful, and a building, if it’s lived in for a long enough time, can absorb some of that magic,” Zev suggests.
“Yeah, maybe,” I agree with a slight frown.
