A Castle Of Crystal

15. Anger

By the time I returned to the apartment Jude was home and I'd figured a lot of things out. The sudden interruption upon introduction at the club, the hint of an accent when she swore, she'd even said it herself that both her parents were gone; not to mention the hair, the height, and the goddamned sunglasses. The kicker for me though was what Asher had mentioned: she had a device like mine. The same green flash from the iPod when she stuffed it in her pocket before killing the Nox Mortus matched the one she tossed onto the table. Sister's gone a little batshit, brother-in-law, if that didn't sound like Freya and Asher I didn't know what did.

"Hey, you alright—?"

"Astrid is Nova."

"Whoa, what?!"

"She had a merkaba around her neck and I connected a lot of dots about her that didnt quite make sense," I quipped, reaching for Scylla's horn, "we're going to her house and I'm going to wait her out."

"Well hold on a sec, if Nova is Astrid doesn't that mean Jules knows about this?"

I froze in my steps and shook a finger at him before I checked the time. Eleven thirty, lunch break. I pressed my ear to the phone while I got ready and I definitely had some choice words for the both of them.

"Hey, Kane! I was just heading out—"

"When were you going to tell me Nova was staying at your house?" I cut her off, a telling silence hanging on the line between us before she softly spoke again.

"How did you figure it out?"

"Well considering she pickpocketed me and I got a half-decent guesstimate of how tall she was it didn't take me long after I saw the merkaba on her neck."

"Look, there's a lot going on I don't think you know about—"

"Jules I've been looking for her this whole fucking week. I get it you're friends, probably keeping her secrets for her, but I almost got caught by the Guard trying to get to her house. Could've saved me a lot of time and energy."

"You what?! Kane how the hell—?!"

"Asher saved my ass. Now I need you to tell me right now if she's more likely to have gone back to your house or if she's in Alchemilla."

There was another pause before she let out a sigh, "she goes back to Alchemilla during the day here. Stays with me at night."

"Perfect, thank you," I huffed, "I— I'm sorry, I don't mean to be angry but I've been trying to fix this all week."

"Nova wanted to leave you out of it because she felt like you were better off living a normal life."

"Well I wasn't and I'm not." My throat tightened. "I'll talk to you later, I need to go take care of this."

"Yeesh, there's one way to make sure you don't get laid."

"I can and will strangle you, don't fucking test me right now." I threw him the radio before I dropped my wallet and the stone on the table, slipping Scylla into her usual pocket and taking a deep breath. "Here I was just starting to think she was fucking cute too, I should've known..."

"You always have been a weird one, dude. Go get your girlfriend back."

I flipped him off, pulling my merkaba out and gripping it tightly before the scene changed. It was no longer bright and gray but starlight permeated the darkness around me and the light from inside Nova's home made for a dim glow. The moment I went to knock on the door I realized I could hear shouting from the back yard and slipped around the side of the building, attempting to get a good look at the scene before my jaw dropped.