How dare you?!
The fireball burst brighter into a violent orange hue. I’d angered the Fire Hermessi. Good.
“The thought has crossed our minds, and you could easily understand why,” I retorted. “If you or the other Hermessi had anything to do with this, we’d like to know. We’d like to understand. It’s not like we could do anything about it, right?” I added, trying a different approach. “We’re all aware of how powerful and endless you all are. But some kind of explanation would be much appreciated.”
Vesta, you must believe us, we’re as surprised as you are, Aya said. We felt the fire fae passing, but we have no knowledge as to how or why that happened. The only thing we do know is that, whatever it was that took them, it was powerful enough for us to feel their deaths.
The worst part was that I believed her. Aya felt sincere.
All our Hermessi brethren have felt it. All over the universe. Every single planet that holds us sensed the passing of your fae, the Earth Hermessi added. We do not know what caused it, but, now that you’ve told us about your incidents, we have a bit more information to go on.
You said that the fire fae spoke of an end to the world? the Air Hermessi asked.
“Yes. They cut so-called protection symbols into their skin. You know, the kind they teach about in your temples. But I don’t know what good those were since, in the end, they exploded.”
The best we can do, Vesta, is look into it from a distance, Aya said. We do not control the fae, but we can try and maybe listen in. Would it help?
The fireball hummed. Are we looking to help them?
It’s the least we can do. They activated us, remember? They helped us awaken to our full potential, Aya replied.
“It would help, thank you,” I mumbled.
I could almost see Aya smiling at me. It was hard to make sense of that impression, given that she’d taken the shape of a river, but, still, I knew it. I had her full attention.
I will send word once I hear something, she said.
This was a damn dead end, and I’d managed to piss off the Fire Hermessi while I was at it, too! But, then again, that left me with another, equally upsetting question. As I felt the distance growing between me and the Hermessi again, I said it out loud—mostly to myself.
“If the Hermessi aren’t behind this, then who’s doing it?”
I got no answer. By the time the darkness spat me back into the ocean, I’d lost all sense of the Hermessi. They were long gone, now. I only had seconds left as the water pulled me toward consciousness to think about the implications.
It had felt a tad better suspecting the Hermessi, in a way. At least we’d had a lead to follow. Something to cling to.
Now, we were left with nothing. Just more questions.
Herakles
When Vesta came to, she didn’t have good news—or, at least, what we would’ve considered good news: a clear suspect behind the fire fae exploding and killing others in the process. Panting, Vesta took a couple of minutes to recover. Her consciousness had left her body, momentarily, and it needed a bit of time to readjust to its physical container. Zeriel held her close, his lips pressed against her pale blond hair.
“I found the Hermessi,” she finally said. “All four.”
“And? Did you get to talk to them?” Taeral asked, visibly anxious. Not that I could blame the poor fella. His people had been the ones to die, so far.
Vesta nodded. “Yeah, but… they were adamant that they had nothing to do with it. They don’t know how it happened, or who is responsible, either. But they did feel the fae deaths.”
“And how certain are we that they weren’t lying?” Riza replied.
Clearly, she wasn’t happy with another dead end. A shadow fluttered across her amethyst eyes—I’d recognize it anywhere. Doubt. She didn’t trust the Hermessi, and, somehow, I understood that. However, if the Hermessi denied their involvement, how could we possibly prove that they were misleading us? How did one go about building a case against the natural elements?
“I don’t know. I sort of felt it. They seemed genuine when they said they didn’t know who was behind the attacks,” Vesta said, then lowered her head. “Dammit, I forgot how creepy this whole reaching-out-to-the-Hermessi thing can be. Can’t shake off the goosebumps.”
She shuddered, then hid her face in Zeriel’s chest. He tightened his embrace, cradling her in his arms. Taeral scoffed. Varga put a hand on his shoulder, in a bid to reassure him.
“We’ll figure something out,” the Nevertide prince said. “We knew this wasn’t going to be easy.”
“If it’s not the Hermessi, then who the hell could it be, to have this much power? To throw a fae’s own abilities for such a deadly loop?” Raphael asked, crossing his arms. “I had all my money on the Hermessi, if I’m honest. They’ve got the juice, but I do trust Vesta’s instincts, too. If she felt them to be genuine, they had to be.”
Riza paced the room a couple of times, while Amelia quietly looked for information on her tablet. I wasn’t sure what she was searching for, specifically, but I figured she’d let us know once she found it. Amelia didn’t strike me as the kind who would get us riled up for nothing.
“Whoever or whatever it is, it turns fire against the fire fae,” Eva reiterated. “What if the Hermessi aren’t the only ones with, as per Raphael’s words, the juice to do this? Could this be some kind of dark magic, maybe?”
Varga shook his head, his gaze fixed on Vesta and Zeriel. “We’d have heard something by now. The black witches are long gone. The Sanctuary is safe and clean. If anything evil slipped from the Supernatural dimension and into the In-Between, we’d be the first to know.”
“And swamp witches are out of the question, too,” Taeral replied. “Lumi is good, Kailani, too. The other apprentices have all been vetted and, on top of that, I know for a fact that the Word would not condone such violence from its conduits. Lumi told us once that the swamp witch’s soul must be clean and pure, devoid of hate and ill intent.”
“How about a cult, then?” Riza suggested.
That got our full attention. Our heads turned—mine with quite a snap, in fact. It took me a second to focus, though. The jinni had a way of capturing my attention, it seemed. My stomach tightened whenever she looked at me. It was time to take a page out of the Varga playbook and keep it cool. Still, I lost myself in those purplish pink eyes. Good grief, who, in the grand scale of things, had come up with such a mesmerizing color?
“A cult,” I repeated after her.
“A cult,” she replied, a smile playing on her lips. “What if there are certain fire fae who are learning to take their abilities to this other, insane level? Maybe they’re trying to make a statement by destroying themselves like this.”
“I get where you’re coming from,” Taeral replied, “but we’d still have to understand how this other level even exists. I’ve said it before, and it’s deeply embedded in the science of fae, generally speaking. Our abilities should not turn against us—because that’s what happened with these incidents. Fire wouldn’t burn a fire fae. It just wouldn’t.”
“Clearly, Cuz, it does,” Riza shot back. “That’s indisputable.”
