Page 65 of Magic Betrayed

“Ari?”

She was still drawing—her mouth twisted a little and her tongue sticking out with the intensity of her effort—but she tilted her head and looked at me quizzically.

“Was there anyone there with magic?”

She nodded solemnly and seemed to shrink back into her seat.

I went cold all over at the change in her expression.

“Who was it, Bug?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was he a prisoner, like you?”

She shrugged. “He sleeps a lot. Screams sometimes. And I heard him crying. So I told him it would be okay. That you would come and save us. He said…” She paused. Thinking. “He said I had to go away. He didn’t want to hurt me.”

That didn’t sound like another prisoner. Or did it? Nothing about this was adding up quite right, but I had to remember that all of it was being filtered through Ari’s six-year-old eyes. In many ways, she was far too old for her age, and in others, a total innocent. She’d seen almost nothing of the world, had few memories outside the fae prison, and had never made a friend. Her first toys were the Lego bricks we’d bought her at a thrift store…

Oh. Oh, heck yes.

“Kira,” I breathed. “Have someone go to our apartment and bring back the tub of Lego bricks.”

My sprite might not be able to draw what we needed, but she was startlingly good at building things.

“We’re about to help Ari build us a house.”

* * *

As predicted,Ari took to the project with squeals of delight, and was soon stretched out on the floor of The Portal with piles of bricks spread around her in every direction. In short order, she had Shane, Rath, Callum, and Seamus down there with her, taking her orders and sorting through the piles for whatever she asked for.

The foundation had just been laid when Faris walked in through the door from the kitchen and took one look around the room.

“What in the…”

Kira’s hand clapped over his mouth before he finished that sentence.

“I’m sure what you meant to say is, ‘Hi, Ari, welcome back.’” Her glare practically dared him to disobey.

It took him another moment to realize who was at the center of the chaos, and when he did, my boss had the grace to look somewhat embarrassed. And also deeply relieved.

“How did you find her?” he asked me quietly.

“She teleported out,” I told him, and saw his skepticism quickly rival my own. “How is everything with the city government?”

He muttered something about bureaucracy and vengeance. “We managed to reach an agreement with the health department. They’ll allow us to reopen in one week, provided we pass their ‘safety inspection’ and I agree to pay an utterly unreasonable fine.” He shrugged, but I could tell he was relieved it hadn’t been worse.

Kira caught him up on everything we’d discovered so far, while I moved across the room to join the brick builders, taking a seat on the floor next to Callum. I had no gift for building myself, but I loved to watch Ari, so I sat cross-legged, elbows on my knees and chin in my hands as she directed her crew with a natural confidence I couldn’t help but envy.

As I sat there, still worried, but also oddly hopeful, I felt my eyes begin to droop. Apparently, I had yet to recover from the swift healing I’d done the day before.

“There’s that couch in Faris’s office,” Callum reminded me. “If you need to sleep.”

I shook my head. Now that we’d found Ari, I didn’t want to leave her. I knew she was safe, but some irrational voice in my head insisted that I couldn’t take my eyes off her or she might disappear again.

Though with Ari, that voice was probably less irrational than usual.

“I can’t. I know you’ll protect her, but…” I didn’t think I could explain it.

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