Page 106 of Hidden Kingdoms

Her eyes were a darker shade of blue, but the face looking at me was the image of her sister, golden hair plaited down her back, the braids a little dishevelled as though she had been in them a while.

“What’s your name then?” I asked as she watched me carefully.

“Myla.”

“Hello, Myla.” Her focus lingered on the bed, on the threadbare teddy that was half tucked under a blanket.

“Are you looking for Rina?” she said in that small, high voice that seemed universal for children.

“I am,” I answered carefully.

“Rina said when she got back, she would help me build my fort.” Those big eyes blinked up at me, confusion pulling her fair eyebrows together. The expression pulling at my heart, too.

“She did?” I asked, as her eyes flicked down to the daggers strapped to my hips. Not in fear, I realised, but in curiosity.

The girl nodded as she looked back up at me. “But she hasn’t come back.”

I waited, sensing she wasn’t done yet. My magik continued its sweep of the room, pushing and poking at everything it could find. An outdated laptop on a desk.

“We always make forts when she comes home from school.”

“Did Marina tell you she was going anywhere new?”

“No.”She shook her head. “I tried to make one, for when she comes home, but I’m not good at it.”

“You’re not?”

“No. I’m too small. Rina could reach up high.”

She assessed me then, her child eyes surveying me head-to-toe. “You look like you can reach up high.”

“You’re right, I can.” I huffed out a quiet laugh as I watched the thoughts churn in her mind.

“Then you can help me finish this one.” It was more of a demand than a request, and bemused by the little Fae, I followed after her, letting my magik continue in my absence.

Her room was a mess of blankets and pillows and toys and teddies. An orange sheet was shoved into my hands as she kicked away whatever was in her path.

It needs to be high,was all the direction I got as she made a start of her own section of fort, one corner already precariously jammed in a drawer.

I opened up the sheet, eyes flying wide at the small burns that littered it. All roughly the same size and shape of the little Fae’s hands who had just commandeered my fort making services.

“Did you do this, Myla?” I held up a particularly scorched patch.

“Yep,” she said, after giving it a quick glance. “Mum lets me use the old ones for my forts.”

Maybe Marina won’t be the only Anomaly in this family then.

“Does it happen a lot?”

“Just sometimes.” Myla shrugged, and I made a note to keep a tail on the family. If someone had stolen Marina for her power level, then Myla was well on her way down that same path.

“Did Marina ever tell you about her friends at school, Myla?”

“Sometimes,” Myla answered as she dragged a corner of a sheet over to the wardrobe, trying to secure it in the doors.

“What did she tell you?”

She was quiet for a while as she fought with the fabric, determination stamped over her face.

---