The Steele Wolf (The Iron Butterfly) (24 page)

Even though I would have loved to watch the rest of the interchange between them I needed to find out more information from her. “Fanny, do you remember who asked you to build the machine for you?”

Fanny turned to me and pondered my question for a moment. “No, I don’t. I’m sure I have his name written down with his order somewhere in my home.
 
I can find it for you. It was commissioned almost two years ago and he wasn’t happy with the final product during its test run.”

“Did it work?” Hemi asked.

“Of course, it worked perfectly,” Fanny harrumphed haughtily. “It did everything it was supposed to. He kept finding fault with it and in the end refused to buy, quoting that he wouldn’t invest in a lightning catcher made by a woman until he had inspected the blueprints for mechanical faults. Needless to say, that night my blueprints disappeared and so did the man.” Fanny sighed in frustration. “He spoke with an accent and I’m sure any name he gave me was probably false. If he had plans to do something illegal with my invention, he probably covered his tracks. But either way I’m sure with some digging I can find his name. I can swing by your home as soon as I find it.”

We reluctantly agreed and told Fanny where we were staying. She showed us out of her shielded chamber and took us back down the streets we had come down earlier and pointed us in the direction of the Jasai family home. Mixed emotions rolled off of me in waves as one moment I was excited that we had stumbled across the creator of the Iron Butterfly, or lightning catcher, but the next moment I was disappointed that we hadn’t found out who the leader of the Septori was. I was traveling at a fast and determined pace and had accidentally walked past the stairwell to Joss’ home. Hemi had already gone up the steps when I was immediately pinned from behind and pulled into an alley.

Strong fingers painfully dug into my arms and heated breath breathed down my neck. I tried to struggle but a furious voice spat at me. “DON’T.” Immediately my body froze as I recognized the angry voice of Kael. Not wishing to anger him more, I did as he said. He pulled me down another street and up a set of smaller stone steps until we were on a small balcony overlooking the drop off. Silently, I followed him and recognized that we were still on the Jesai property. When we were alone, he spun on me. “Where were you?” he growled, eyes flashing dangerously.

“I was injured and Hemi took me to find help. As you can see, I am fine now.” I twirled sarcastically with my hands up in the air showing off to him that I was uninjured. Kael grabbed my wrist to keep me from spinning and looked me over carefully from head to toe. His eyes that never missed anything stared at the bloody hole in my shirt. Kael moved his hand over my stomach to where I was previously injured and moved the cloth aside so assess the damage. Obviously there was none.

“No! Where were you?” He asked again. His chest was heaving and I could see that he hadn’t caught his breath from whatever previous activity he had been doing. “One moment I could feel our bond strong and as annoying as ever.
 
Then the next moment it disappeared, vanished. I couldn’t feel you anymore.” Kael’s blue eyes searched mine and I could see the worry and panic that he, for once, was unable to hide from me. The SwordBrother exterior was gone and replaced by a normal, unsure young man. My eyes softened in response and I reached up to cup his face.

“I’m fine,” I tried to reassure him. “Hemi found someone to heal me; we entered a shielded chamber deep within the city so she could heal me without being hindered by the mists.” I was about to say more but Kael still held a death grip on my wrist and in one smooth motion he pulled me into him and wrapped his arms around me and buried his face into my hair.

Shocked, I stood absolutely still and felt the wild beating of his heart and the deep breaths he was taking to try and calm down. Sure signs I thought caused by suffering the after effects of being out of boundaries of our bond. Gently I placed my cheek against his chest and rested my hand against his beating heart, taking in his familiar scent. It was the same scent that had chased away my nightmares at the way station. A wall that I had built up against Kael crumbled in that moment and I felt a stirring of attraction. I turned my face up to look along Kael’s strong jaw and he pulled back to stare deeply into my eyes.

We stood like that for a moment and then Kael, realizing what he was doing, stumbled back from me awkwardly. It was one of the few times in which I had known Kael that he had appeared ungraceful. I pressed my lips together to try and hide a smile.

This time it was my turn to look over Kael. “Are you all right? Did you suffer this time from the bond?”

Kael straightened his shoulders and shook his head at me in the negative. “No, there was no pain. It was worse, far worse. A complete and utter sense of loss and hopelessness overcame me.” He stepped back and leaned against the balustrade, grabbing his head in frustration. “I felt as if my world had suddenly come to an end, and that I had failed. The feeling was so intense. I felt as if a giant hole had opened up and swallowed me and all I felt was numbness, nothing. No hope.” Kael looked up from the ground and I saw fear, true fear deep inside. He looked at me eyes pleading. “It stripped me of all of my SwordBrother senses. I’m nothing without my senses. I rushed to the house to look for you but you weren’t there. No one knew where you went.”

“Xiven knew what happened,” I answered thoughtfully. “He wasn’t injured as much as I was but maybe he went in search of a healer too?”

Kael shook his head. “Xiven has run away. His room was in shambles and his clothes are missing.”

“Why would he do that?” I stuttered.

“Because he tried to kill you?”

“No, I don’t believe that. It was an accident, we were sparring and he got carried away. What I can’t figure out was how he was able to access so much power here within the mists.” I chewed on my lip to ponder the thought before my eyes opened and I blurted out the information I had found out about Fanny and her inventions. Kael listened wide-eyed and angry throughout the whole conversation.

“So she thinks she has the name of the man who ordered this machine?” Kael started to pace. “How do you know that she is telling the truth? She could be lying to you to throw you off the scent and then escape while we are here discussing this.” He turned to me and grabbed my arm, pulling me down the stairs after him. “Show me where this house is; I will make her talk. If she knows anything she will tell me.” Kael was taking the steps two at a time and I stumbled when we reached the street level again. Violently, I shook my arm out of his grasp.

“NO!” I stood firm feet planted.

“What do you mean, ‘no’?” Kael turned and looked at me in confusion. “This could be the answer we were looking for in finding Tenya!”

“No, not like this.” Deep down I trusted Fanny, she spoke truth. I could tell that when she found out the man had twisted and misused her plans for the invention it hurt her deeply. I wasn’t about to punish her more by having Kael torture her into telling us information she doesn’t know. “I believe her, Kael. I trust that she will find out everything she can and help us if she is truly able.”

“You are crazy if you think she is going to help you. You can’t trust strangers.” Kael was angry and truthfully I couldn’t blame him.

“I trusted you, Kael! You were a stranger and you helped me escape the Raven’s prison. So does that mean I shouldn’t have trusted you either?”

Kael froze and he looked down at the ground. The wind from the various windmills in Skyfell blew his hair wildly in all directions and also blew away his whispered words so that they were barely audible. “No, you shouldn’t have.”

I turned my back on Kael and started to walk up the stairway that led to the Jesai’s home. Spinning once more on Kael I shot out, “She saved me. She could have let me die or kept me prisoner deep underground but she didn’t. She saved my life. I will give her the benefit of the doubt.”

Kael looked up from the bottom of the stairway to stare into my green eyes. “I hope you’re right, Thalia. Joss’ sister’s life depends on it.”

A cold chill spread through my bones and a flicker of doubt flooded my body. Shaking my head, I pushed all negative emotions and feelings away and found my inner strength. “I know I’m right. Fanny will come through.”

Just then a flurry of activity came from the streets as Joss, Mona, Nero and a large amount of servants came carrying crates of bread, fruits and other odds and ends. We had to move out of the way quickly or be trampled by the caravan of goods.

“Joss!” I called out and he turned to me. “What’s going on?”

Joss grinned his dazzling boyish smile at me. “Don’t tell me that you’ve forgotten already?” His carefree manner and the fact that there was a huge bustle of activity told me that he hadn’t been home all morning and more than likely didn’t know about the fight between me and Xiven, or his disappearance.

I opened my mouth to explain what had occurred but Joss interrupted me.

“Tonight’s our engagement celebration!”

Chapter 24

I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach. Where had the time gone? Somewhere deep inside I had secretly hoped to be farther along in our search and possibly had even found his sister by now so that we could drop the whole charade of being engaged and go back to the way things were. But a week had passed and here we were on the day that I had been dreading.

Grabbing Joss’ sleeve I pulled him aside. “Joss, are you seriously still thinking of going through with this? We are supposed to be faking so we can find your sister.”

The mask of joy fell from Joss’ face and a sterner, more serious one replaced it. “Thalia, we are, don’t doubt that. But if you could see what this is doing to my parents you would understand. They need this. They need a moment, no matter how brief, to forget their grief and find happiness.
 
Even if it is a lie.”

Joss’ face looked pained and that’s when I realized how much of his hurt he was hiding from me, his family, everyone. He was doing it to spare his family pain, by pretending to be the same old carefree Joss that they knew and loved.

“Joss, I don’t th—”

“Can you do this for my parents, for me?” The silent ache that I saw deep inside him silenced any forthcoming arguments and all I could do was nod my head in agreement. He reached out and cupped my cheek, placing a quick kiss on my forehead. “That’s my girl.”

What was wrong with me? I must be the only girl my age not dreaming about finding a lifemate and starting a family. Maybe everything that had happened to me in the last year has made me more wary of happy endings and true love. Learning my mother was murdered when I was a child, being kidnapped the same day that Fenri asked to be my lifemate, and being tortured and almost killed on numerous occasions could definitely skew a young girl’s heart and mind.

Sighing in defeat, I grabbed a crate of fruit and followed Joss up the stairs. It was only when I saw that I was carrying passion fruit that I felt a pang of remorse that I never got to say goodbye to Avina and Berry or tell them why I had left to follow my father. Concentrating on them must have somehow conjured them because when I entered the Jesai family’s main hall I heard two screams fill the air. Shocked, I dropped the crate and watched as the passion fruit rolled across the floor to stop right in front of Avina’s boot.

“Thalia!” she screamed and ran to hug me.

“What? How?”

“Joss sent a messenger to the castle to get us,” Berry spoke up, coming to give me a hug as well once Avina had disentangled herself from me. “Although he never told us why.”

“Yes, Thalia, is everything all right?” Avina stopped flittering about the room and paused.

“Why, umm yes, I mean no.” I stumbled over the right words to say. But Joss came to my rescue and wrapped his arms around me, placing his chin on my head.

“Why, of course it is. We couldn’t have an engagement celebration without Thalia’s friends here, now could we?” More screams filled the rooms as they both jumped up and down in excitement, congratulating me.

“You’re going to let me make the dress for the ceremony, right?” Berry trilled joyously.

Avina and Berry chattered together and not much could be understood between the two as their excited, buzzy babble faded to the background. I saw Mona on her hands and knees picking up the passion fruit I had spilled. Her back was to me but it was stiff in anger. Apologetically, I quickly dropped to the floor and started to help pick up my mess that I had created. Gently, I touched her shoulder to hand her my fruit to put in her basket. But she stood up abruptly, turned on me and I saw hate burning there.

“Don’t touch me!” She snarled and whirled out of the room, her dark braid swinging after her. Mona must know about what happened to her brother, or she is jealous about the celebration tonight.
 
I scanned the room for Joss and saw him and Hemi deep in conversation and I could see the pale look on Joss’ face. Hemi must have just told him the events of this morning. Joss’ worried glance towards me that dropped to my torn shirt confirmed it.

“Girls, we have much to discuss but I think it would be better if we went to my room first,” I said.” The whole way up the stairs they couldn’t stop talking. They found everything fascinating.

“Can you believe the giant bird that flew the Skycage up to the city? I positively thought it was going to eat me for dinner. I have never been more scared in my life,” Berry gushed once we had entered my room.