Page 167 of Hidden Kingdoms

“I don’t need looking after, but yes, if that’s how you need to look at it.” Blair’s face remained a blank mask as she kept her unnerving focus on me.

“What about your family?”

“No, I have no family. I come from nowhere. I just am.”

I had no idea what the fuck that meant, but I had a feeling that was all I would be getting on the matter.

Silence settled over us, its heaviness compounding my aching head, nudging me to do something about it, but I didn’t know how to break this moment.

“Kaius likes you, doesn't he?” Was how it finally broke.

“I think so,” I replied, still unsure just what the fuck was going on here.

She hummed softly in answer staring at me, the time between blinks a little unnerving.

“Should he not?” I questioned.

“Well, you can’t really do much, can you?”

Ouch.

“Thank you… for that.” I shifted on the bed, twisting the remaining bangles around my wrist as I scrambled for a way out of this awkward situation, but feeling an intense need to keep her in my line of sight. Part of me knew that despite its outward appearance, what was in front of me wasn’t something you could run from.

Before I could find a way, a pressure pressed into my mind, a needle-sharp jab of something so alien, so unlike anything I’d ever felt before I recoiled from it. It was a void, a vast space that belonged at the beginning of time and at the end of worlds, and it was currently combing through my being. Digging through all I was with that tiniest of breaches. I could taste the edge of agony it contained, though none of it spilled over into me as I sat frozen under its touch, my heart racing uncomfortably.

Lazily, it brushed against places I didn’t even know existed, its darkness illuminating them with the contrast of their intentions. As panic rose through my body, as I clumsily threw energy towards that punctured part of me, it left. I was under no illusion that it did so from anything more than its own will.

And if I had still been under any such delusion that what sat on my bed was a child, it evaporated fast as I sucked down a breath, my hangover doing me no favours as my magik swirled in alarm.

The encounter showed me my control over the influx of magik that coursed through me was very much left wanting, and despite Bastian’s declaration that I receive training, I wasn’t holding my breath.

“It’s all there,” Blair said more to herself than to me, the smallest frown creasing her young face as if she hadn’t just psychically attacked me.

“Just what the fuck was that?” I asked, my voice coming out in a strangled whisper.

“The Fire Prince would never think to call on me, so I came myself. To see what Kaius sees, and to tell you I won’t miss another one. It’s unusual to me to look into a mind and leave it as I found it, but yours was interesting.”

“I have a block,” I offered stupidly, still reeling from the intrusion and nowhere near ready to unpack the other things she had said.

“I saw,” was all she offered in return, unfolding from the bed and sliding off, her feet silently hitting the floor.

Unnerved by what she had just done, I couldn’t help but ask, “What else did you see?”

“Things.”

Things. Of course.

“And will you tell him, Bastian?”

“Why would I do that?” Her face a blank mask void of expression.

“Well… because he’s the Prince.”

“I don’t care for such things as Princes. I’m only here because Kaius is. Where he goes, I go.” With that, she turned for the door, leaving me gaping after her and wondering what the fuck had just happened. The soft creak of the door opened and closed, the only indication she had moved through the rooms.

Slumping back on the bed, I ran my hands over my face, the dull headache knocking against the jumble of thoughts I was racing through. Knowing that sleep could provide the escape I needed, I let it pull me away, hoping that once I woke, things would make a little more sense.

The nap hadn’t done much to shine any light on my current situation, but after waking an hour or so later and finding breakfast had been left on the table, thankfully the aftereffects of my night out had ebbed away.

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