“I take it you’re not willing to give a blood donation in order to see the place yourself?” I asked.
“Things that require a blood tax, Calliope, have a tendency to be highly selective about whose blood they desire. Even vampires—though lore and legend would have us believe they are far more indiscriminate.”
Bas finished his questioning and excused himself, saying he wanted to spend the rest of the afternoon studying the Old One. He voiced a plan to come and go from the one working portal while testing for ways to access the other three without the use of blood.
Malvyn and Maritza left three hours later. A black dress of lightweight wool, basted together with long stitches of white thread, hung from the dressmaker’s dummy. Maritza insisted the dining table was off-limits to food for the duration of Project Dress Calliope.
Harper and Thatcher were home by five with Leilani in tow, and together with Sallie and Azura had voted to prepare a spaghetti dinner for everyone who wanted to eat. The pervasive warmth generated by all of us being in this together made it hard to be nervous about my imminent dinner with Odilon.
“What can we do to help, Mom?” Harper asked from his corner of the couch, a plate of dessert balanced on his knee. Leilani had left a pan of her swoon-worthy lemon poppyseed cake. I didn’t think it would last the night, given the way Christoph was attacking it. Sallie and Azura had each claimed two slices before heading to the bunkhouse.
“I don’t know,” I said, pressing the last few crumbs onto my plate with the back of my fork before lifting the bite to my tongue and licking the utensil clean. “I do know, however, that I shouldn’t even waste my breath saying there’s nothing you can do, and you should stay home where it’s safe.”
“Glad you figured that out,” said Thatcher, messing up my hair before he gathered my plate. “Because you haven’t heard about our weekend or our superpowers. Right, Harp?”
They bumped fists as Thatcher passed to the kitchen with a stack of dirty dessert plates and forks.
“Superpowers?” I looked to Christoph. “My boys have superpowers? What haven’t you told me?”
“Your Thatcher is a natural tracker, Calli-lass.”
“And?”
“Harper, do you want to tell her?”
“I’d rather show you, Mom,” Harper said. He placed himself in the only clear spot on the floor, right where the living room, dining area, and hallway entrance converged. Turning his back to me and his brother, he peeled off his T-shirt and showed us his back. His wings were in their infancy, a network of milky white ridges and knobs to either side of his spine, all of it covered by translucent skin.
Harper took a deep breath and swept his arms away from his body. Within a minute, a faint glimmer covered his entire back and the armature of his wings disappeared.
“How did you do that?” I asked, on my way off the couch to examine my son’s body close-up. “This is incredible.”
Christoph cleared his throat. “It would appear that your son has inherited strong genes from both sides of the family, Calliope.”
“What are you saying?” Dread dropped a familiar weight into my belly.
“Harper has the Fae ability to create glamour.”
Chapter 15
I had to duck around Harper, grab a kitchen stool, and sit. There was no way I was going to rain on his parade of talent. We would figure out how to make his wings—and his ability to hide them underneath a coating of magical illusion—positive things.
I took his hands and straightened his fingers. “Can you shoot blades out of your fingernails?” I asked.
“No, not yet,” he said, earnest concentration on his face. “Gramps thinks I might be able to manifest falcon claws rather than blades, which I would be totally cool with, Mom.”
“Who else knows about this?” I darted a questioning gaze to Christoph, then returned my attention to Harper. His brother joined us, leaning against the kitchen island and crossing his arms.
“Only us, Mom,” he said. “Me, Harp, Wes, Leilani, and Gramps.”
“What about Sallie and Azura?”
Thatcher shrugged. Christoph joined us. “I thought it best to keep this development to ourselves, which is not to say I view the girls as outside the inner circle. This is simply something I have never seen before and Wes and I—as the adults accompanying a group containing minors—made the executive decision to show you first.”
“I trust Sallie and I think she would take badly to being left out.” I blew out a fast breath. “Any thoughts on Azura? Did she share her story with any of you? Because I’m assuming she might be with us for a while.”
“Her parents see her as a reject, too, Mom,” said Harper. “She has all the physical characteristics of the Fae and none of the fighting abilities.”
“Not even deadly snowballs?” I joked.
The boys laughed. Harper added, “After this weekend, I’d say she’s got potential. She’s just frustrated because she can’t figure out how to do more.”
“Let me think about this. I’m inclined to include the two of them in as much as possible.” I looked to all three of my guys. “Sallie considers us her family now. And I think she’s been through enough trauma and being separated out.”
“I agree, Mom,” said Thatcher, “and Gramps, can you explain to Mom about my other superpower? I’m not sure I totally understand it yet.”
“It was Thatcher who first noticed Harper’s glamouring, Calli-lass. Wes and I ran Thatcher through some fairly standard tests for magical abilities. Not only is he a tracker, he shows signs of being an empath. Which means that, with training, he will be able to discern the true intentions, the true colors as it were, of those he is close to at any given time. Right now, he can
