Page 80 of Darkening Truth
“Yeah, I wasn’t allowed in here,” I reply as I look around. “If he’s got one stolen or rare book in here though, I think it’s pretty safe to assume that there are more here, so if you find any that you want, take them.”
“Seriously?” Rival asks with wide eyes.
“I think you just made his year,” Mayhem chuckles.
I grin, “Well, no one else is going to use them. Technically, this place is mine now, or maybe my uncles. Although if my uncle is a god and actually my father, then were they even related?”
“I doubt it,” Storm replies. “I would assume that you were put with Godfrey for some reason and that when Magnus realised how you were being treated, he found a way around having to keep his distance. He said that by the time that they realised what he’d done, he was already implanted in your life as your uncle.”
“I suppose that’s just one of those things that I’m going to have to try to remember to ask Magnus, and I guess Monty about,” I reply with a frown. Changing the subject, because I’m not quite sure how to deal with that yet, I continue, “Come on, this is going to take a while, we may as well get started.”
“Is there any way that we can make this easier?” Kill asks as we all head down one of the aisles of books and start to rummage through them.
“I don’t suppose he had a section specifically for super-rare stolen books?” Reaper asks hopefully, as he pulls out a book, checks the cover and then immediately puts it back, moving onto another one.
I shake my head, “Unfortunately, not. I would actually be surprised if he had a system in here at all.”
“He doesn’t,” Rival replies, sounding pained by the words. “There is no system whatsoever. Everything is just shoved on the shelves with no care. There’s no rhyme or reason to it.”
Loki claps him on the back, “It’ll be alright. Don’t worry, mate.”
I move over to where Rival is and open up a pocket in the Void, instructing it to stay with Rival.
“Here you go, this will fit as many books in it as you could possibly put in there, and they’ll be safe in there until you have somewhere that you can put them,” I explain. “Just let me know when you’re done, and I’ll close it back up.”
“You shouldn’t be able to do that with the Void,” Reaper points out, somewhat nonchalantly as he raises one of his eyebrows.
“I know,” I reply simply because I really don’t know what else to say to that. There is a lot that I can do with the Void that I shouldn’t be able to do. That no one else can do, or to my knowledge has been able to do ever.
“Remember that we are on a time crunch,” Zev reminds Rival with a smile.
Rival grins, “Got it.”
He starts pulling books off the shelves with speed, glancing at the covers and then either carefully putting them back, or placing them into the Void pocket that I opened for him. Sometimes I forget that although the twins each have elements that they prefer using, they are actually capable of using more than one, which I’m reminded of when Rival starts to use his air element tofloat multiple books out to him to check. He’s effectively given himself more hands and made the job ten times quicker.
I narrow my eyes slightly, “How many elements do you and Mayhem control?”
“All of them,” Mayhem answers before Rival can, which is a good job really because Rival is so absorbed in what he’s doing that I’m not sure he heard me ask in the first place.
“Wait, all of them? As in all seven of them?” I ask when his words catch up to me.
Mayhem stops what he’s doing and looks at me, “Yeah, you didn’t know that?”
I shake my head, “Absolutely not. It’s supposed to be impossible to have more than two elements.”
“You have more than two,” Zev points out. “You’ve got force fields or wards, which I rarely see you use, actually, air, and fire. Plus, you’re a Spell Weaver and you have an extremely strong affinity with the Void.”
I pull a face, “Good point. It just surprised me. I had no idea that the twins could control all seven elements.”
Rival shrugs but doesn’t take his eyes off of what he’s doing as he replies, “We don’t advertise it for obvious reasons. Although I genuinely thought that you knew. We also have elements that we prefer to use. I like fire mostly, and Mayhem likes water, but we like other elements and use them nearly as much. We just need to be careful who knows that we can use as many as we can.”
“No one other than the people in this room, and Hades and Khaos know,” Mayhem adds, going back to what he’s doing.
“We’re all stronger than we should be,” Storm adds.
“I realise that,” I reply. After a moment's pause, I add, “You know I don’t really know that much about you guys.”
“You know the important things, everything else will come in time,” Reaper replies.
