Vesta gasped, then went into a series of convulsions that ripped her from Zeriel’s arms. He tried to get her back, but she landed with a thud on the floor, her limbs twitching as water began to pour from her nose and mouth. She was drowning.
“Ah, not again, dammit!” Zeriel spat, pale and tense as he watched her.
“This happened before, I take it?” Riza asked, her eyes wide with shock.
“Yeah. It’s a Hermessi possession,” I muttered. “They never ask before they take over.”
We waited for a moment, until Vesta finally stilled. She sat up, her upper body stiff like a plank. Water trickled down from her ears and nose, soaking into her GASP uniform. The dark blue turned almost black, as the fabric molded itself to her body. Zeriel watched her like a hawk, a mixture of concern, anger, and fear boiling in the blues of his eyes.
Vesta looked up at us. Her voice changed. It was low and raspy, as she gargled her words. “I’m sorry I had to do this.”
“Oh, that’s definitely not Vesta anymore,” Amelia breathed.
“Aya?” Taeral asked, tentatively.
Not-Vesta gave him a brief nod. “I can’t stay long. My siblings don’t know I’m here.”
“What the hell, Aya?!” Zeriel croaked. “You all promised not to possess fae like this!”
“I know. But I had to tell you something,” Aya replied. “My siblings were truthful when they said they didn’t know who’s behind the attacks. But, shortly after Vesta left us, I reached out to the others, in distant worlds.”
“That was fast,” I mumbled.
“We don’t perceive time like you,” Aya said. “Point is, we still don’t know who did it, specifically, but I have an inkling now. It’s definitely a fire Hermessi, but not from this world. Not from the Fire Star. Not from Eritopia. Not from any of the places where we’ve felt the fae perish.”
This whole thing got confusing, fast.
“Hold on. So, it is a Hermessi,” I concluded.
Suddenly, the world made sense again, in a way, as Aya gave us a confirmation. “Yes. You see, we can slip from our own worlds and go to others. We can break free now, ride the cosmic winds of stardust and eventually land on other planets. But such an endeavor strips us of our balance. Our strength is raw and violent. And, without our home balance, it’s destructive.”
“I don’t get it,” Riza replied, frowning. “A fire Hermessi from another world is doing this? How?!”
“Possession,” not-Vesta replied. “But possession gone horribly wrong.” She froze, then glanced to the side, her ears twitching as if she’d just heard something. “I must go.”
“No, wait!” Taeral barked. “Don’t leave us like this! Which fire Hermessi are we dealing with?! How do we find it? How do we stop it or send it back to its world or whatever?!”
“What this fire Hermessi did was a violation of our way of life,” not-Vesta replied. “My siblings are already looking into it, but I doubt we’ll find him before others die. The only other thing I can tell you is to go to Cerix. It’s the only world we know of to have kept a solid record of our existence. Their worship was strong up until a few centuries ago, and it recently reignited with the Blackout. Surely, their archives will give you more insight on how to find this rogue Hermessi and stop him. I must go.”
“Wait, Aya, no—” Taeral tried to stop her, but there was nothing he could do.
Vesta passed out again. Water gushed out through her skin and spread across the diamond floor. Zeriel gently coaxed Vesta back to consciousness, pulling her into his arms and covering her face in kisses.
“Dammit!” Taeral cursed under his breath.
“Why was she here incognito?” Eva asked, raising an eyebrow. “Was she hiding from her siblings, maybe? Don’t they want us to know about this?”
Riza sighed. “Maybe it’s embarrassing to them. They literally just told us they had nothing to do with it, and they were proven wrong the very next minute.”
“This is ridiculous,” Varga snapped. “Where the hell is Cerix? How will any archives tell us who that fire Hermessi is, or how to find him? Jeez, Aya!”
Amelia checked her tablet again, biting the inside of her cheek as she flipped through a large quantity of astronomy data from GASP. “There’s no record of Cerix anywhere. It’s undiscovered, as far as GASP is concerned.”
Raphael took a few steps back, quietly processing the new information. “I take it we’re partially screwed?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “At least we’re back to the original lead of Hermessi involvement. They won’t tell us who it is, though. You heard Aya. They might not even find him. Who knows how many Hermessi there are in the universe? All the worlds out there… Ugh.”
“Aya was trying to help us,” Vesta said, her breathing back to normal. Her teeth clattered, but not from the cold. It was probably due to the shock, the adrenaline surging through her after the unexpected possession. “But I get the feeling she was hiding something. She didn’t just push me into the back seat, this time. She locked me in the damn trunk.”
It felt as though we’d taken one step forward, then two steps left and three more back. On one hand, we knew for a fact that this was caused by a Hermessi. Not all of them, just one, a rogue of sorts. But we didn’t have a single clue as to how to find him, where to find him, or how to stop him. Furthermore, according to Vesta, the Hermessi that had helped us get to this point was hiding something else.
I wondered if Aya did, in fact, know who it was. Even if she did, we couldn’t do anything about it. We had no power over the natural elements. No way of coercing them into helping us. Which brought me back to the original issue: even if we did find this rogue fire Hermessi, how the hell did we stop him?
Eva
Strava had no more information to give us, so we left Vesta with Zeriel and went back to Calliope. Draven and Serena waited for us on Luceria’s platform—both of them looking justifiably worried. Serena rushed to hug me as soon as she saw me step through the portal. She was pretty spry for someone who’d just given birth, but then again, she did have Viola, a Daughter of Eritopia, close by to help with the healing process.
“Thank you for doing this,” she whispered in my ear.
I couldn’t help but smile. “I’m not doing much right now.”
She and I had come a long way since we’d first met. My mom had played a part in the initial friction, with her ideas of an arranged marriage with Draven. I should’ve known better than to get involved in that, but I was her daughter, and, for a long time, I’d followed her lead and survived, thanks to her. But times had changed. And, even though I did fancy Draven for a short while, I understood where his heart belonged. Thadeus, one of his Druids, had caught my eye after we defeated Azazel, but it didn’t last. We were too different, and my idea of life changed dramatically over the following months. My mom and I drifted apart, as well. She wanted me to prepare for the Ladyship, as she considered herself ready to retire. But I wound up spending more time with Serena. In the end, I turned vamp and became a GASP agent—the complete opposite of what my mother had wanted for me.
Looking back now, however, I didn’t regret the choice. I said goodbye to daylight and food, but I gained great strength, new insights, and amazing friends. Ironically, Draven and Serena were the closest I’d ever come to having siblings of my own. My mother had no intention of giving birth again. For years, she’d said I was more than enough. All that pressure aside, I was in a better place. But this whole fire fae thing irked me. Innocent people were dying, and it didn’t sit well with me. It brought back memories of what my father, whom I only referred to as Azazel, had done to the Eritopians.
“You’ll get to the bottom of this, I’m sure,” Serena replied, gently squeezing my shoulders.
“We’ve made some progress,” Varga added.