Page 46 of A Siren of Beasts

“A little overwhelmed but all will be fine in time,” I answered, leaning into him then looked over at my guardian. “Ceas, was there more you needed to share about the wizard?”

“This time he was here as a ghost of himself, but he told me he was coming back. He’s coming back for his child… his daughter,” Hisceas said slowly, as if saying the words were painful. “I don’t know why he’s coming for you, but whatever the reason, it has to do with why he took your mother in the first place.”

“His daughter?” I said, hung up on that part of what he’d just told me. “The wizard is my father?”

“I don’t know, Little Siren, but from what he said and the connection wizards have with their offspring, it’s possible to be true. My knowledge of anything human is limited and what I know about wizards is even less,” he admitted, his irritation at that fact showed in how his tentacles moved like a disgruntled cat’s tail. “He believed I didn’t understand what he was saying and I wasn’t sure he would keep talking if he knew that I understood everything.”

“After this, I will go look in my library, there are many many books that I’ve collected over the centuries. Some of them have to have information about wizards,” Imp added, leaning forward to meet my gaze. “Shiny, we won’t let him take you, you’re mine, no one takes what’s mine, and lives.”

His vehemence was reassuring even as the pit of my stomach churned with uncertainty. Since getting on that ship with Barnaby and Finn, my life had changed in every way possible. I was an orphan, human, a whore, and alone in the world. Now I knew who my mother was, a man was claiming to be my father, I was a monster, and I was mated to two and a half monsters with who knows how many more to appear. There was taking things in stride and letting the dice fall where they may, but at some point, things became just too much.

Rhun must have sensed this as he dragged me back onto his lap and snuggled me close to him. He didn’t say anything just held me as he turned to Imp. “How is it you have all those books but you don’t know what they’re about?”

“I’m a thief, I see something I want, I take it. What’s so hard to understand about that?” Imp questioned. “I saw Shiny, I wanted Shiny. No idea who or what she was, other than she’s pretty and I wanted her in my nest. Now she’s my soul mate and I wear her mark so I get to keep her forever. See, works out every time. Which is why I know there will be books about wizards in the library.”

What I wouldn’t give to have a mind like Imp that just trusted everything would work out the way it was supposed to. Yet my brain decided that it needed to take every piece of information we’d learned so far and try to put the puzzle together until it made sense. Why was this happening now? Mother said I was placed where I needed to be to help destroy the madness and save this land.

“Imp,” I said absently, trying to pull myself out of the hole my brain was trying to take me down. “You said something was happening with the humans?”

My raven practically bounced in his seat at the fact I called on him. “Yes, while you and your guardian were bonding I decided to check my normal spots for treasures. It had been a few days and humans are so forgetful, leaving things all over the place. I was sitting in a tree on the edge of the forest when a male human was talking about how someone important sent word they were coming for a visit. Was it a holiness? Or a highness? No, maybe high past? I don’t know, but it was an odd name that didn’t make any sense. They were so excited they ventured closer to the Hollowed Forest than they had in years to hunt. Something about a week to get things prepared for the high holes person to arrive.”

Imp paused and shot to his feet startling us all with his sudden reaction. “Wait, do you think they were talking about the wizard?!”

“Then it means we have a week to figure out what we’re going to do, and learn as much about wizards as we can,” I reasoned. “Better to assume that might be the case than to end up in trouble knowing nothing at all.”

Hisceas stroked his tentacles like I’d seen men stroke their beards while they were deep in thought. “As I replay what the wizard said in my mind, I was so focused on the part about you, I might have missed him admitting he’s the one who’d created the madness. He called it a curse, and thought we’d be destroyed by it at this point. Then added something about burning the whole forest down with us in it. Yet I still can’t figure out why he would want to kill off us monsters when he came here to steal our queen.”

“You wouldn’t want something more powerful than you alive if you could help it,” Milin commented. “If he thought the madness would cause us to kill each other then he really doesn’t understand monsters. We are a cohesive network of balance that lives off the magic this land produces. Even if he were to burn the forest down with all of us in it, some would still survive and others could easily be recreated.”

Tapping my finger on my chin, I tried to think of this like a human would. I’d listened to enough men talking about strategy for this war or that hostile takeover. Each time, they talked about what the land or position of the kingdom gave them an advantage in some way. There must be something here that the wizard wants besides me.

“What if he just wants the power from the land and not the monsters? It could absolutely be that he has no idea about monsters and how the magic system works. If his whole goal is to siphon off the magic for him to use it would be more easily done without all of us getting in his way. Possibly, he thought by creating the madness it would bring all of you down to an animalistic nature. Animals are smart but not as intelligent as humans or monsters, making it easier to kill you all or at least the ones who would pose the biggest threat,” I offered.

All of them watched me silently as if surprised at what I’d said.

“Zia,” Rhun started, then turned me to look at him. “Why would you think he wants the power from our land? No one knows that, it’s one of our most guarded secrets as it’s the lifeblood of our existence.”

“He had my mother with him for who knows how long before she had me. If he made her believe he loved her and she was already heartbroken over losing her mates, she would have sought comfort from someone. I hate to think I was born out of a forced coupling, but I’m not sure manipulation makes it that much better. You want to trust the people you believe love you and I’ve seen time and time again how women will do whatever it takes to prove their love in return. We need to assume any secret that my mother knew he might know as well,” I explained.

Hisceas grunted his feelings on that matter and continued to stroke his chin. “What I don’t understand is he kept talking about how he hated this place. Never wanted to set foot on our land again. So how did he expect to get the magic if he wasn’t here to steal it?”

“That seems like one of the most important things we need to find out,” Milin said with a heavy sigh. “If he’s a wizard powerful enough to send his magic this far, could he take it from a distance as well? We need to understand the rules of wizard magic. How it’s different from our own, that’s the only way we’ll truly understand what’s going on.”

All our gazes shifted to Imp, who was currently plucking the gold stitching out of an embroidered pillow. Feeling the weight of our look he paused and glanced at us. “Hmm? What was that last part? It got boring, and this was shiny.”

I snorted, reaching over to snatch the pillow from him and hugged it to my chest. “We need to start going through all the books in your library.”

“Yes, yes, we already said we were going to do that,” Imp said, waving off my words. “I’ll need to cast another spell to bring all the books out of storage. Maybe there’s a way to cast one that will leave only books with any mention of wizards. I will need to research that as well.”

“Imp, my sly raven, we need to start going through books now. We have a week before whoever they were talking about is going to show up. Don’t you think it would be smart for us to get looking while you see if there’s a way to narrow down the search?” I asked.

He sighed like I’d just taken all the fun out of his day. “If we must then we must.”

“Wait,” Hisceas interjected. “Grieth, would you allow me to see that memory of the humans talking? Maybe Kezia will be able to understand what they were talking about.”

“You just want to sneak your way into my mind so you can figure out where I keep my real treasures, don’t you? The only person who will ever see that location will be Shiny, it’s hers now too, but not yours. We might share a mate but we don’t share everything,” Imp warned.

“I don’t care about that. All you have to do is think of that memory and it will come to the forefront of your mind and I can pluck it from there,” Hisceas explained. “Doing this prevents me from needing to look any deeper.”