A Rational Magic || ONC2022

Thirty-Two || Gateway Magic

"I cannot believe you're not dead!"

"That is the only thing anyone's said to me in the last... ten minutes?"

"Twenty-four," Anya says without missing a beat. "This is the fifth time someone's told you that."

"Why are you keeping track?"

Father looks so incredibly exasperated with the lot of us. Cira and Vaeri and Felaern probably don't have as much to be 'judged' for here, but the twins and me — and likely Ryo, who's not actually come round yet — are definitely deserving of a lecture.

Mercury and the kidnapped children? Well, given that none of them have had any choice in the matter here... he's not going to say anything to them.

"I don't think I'm letting you leave this house again, Kat."

"Well, I'd've advised myself against it anyway," I pointed out. "Adalia's not... you know?"

"Not holding back?" Vaeri suggests.

"So what's happening now?" Lani asks, looking slightly less comfortable than she did about five seconds ago. "Anya's explained what she thinks the best idea is, and I agree... but how do we get home?"

"I can set up a temporary Gateway," Father says. "That's pretty much half of my job, you know."

"Okay, but what if they need to come back?"

"Given that they clearly live near a Gateway—"

"We don't live in Terrenfell," Anya says before Felaern can finish his sentence. "We're only there for the summer."

"Yeah, we live in Heasebury," Lani adds.

"That... complicates things."

Of course it does.

"Could I have your bag for a moment, Anya?"

She hands it over to Father without a word, which doesn't seem much like Anya at all. But I guess we're all a little unlike ourselves at the moment.

I can't remember a moment of what happened after Lani turned up, and it's scaring me.

Nobody's actually bothered to explain what happened, at least not so I could hear. And I might be grateful for that, honestly... I don't really know.

All I know is that Adalia would have killed me.

And I don't want to think about it.

Father leaves the room without anyone else seeming to notice, and I try to pay more attention to the kids in the corner — Emily, Matilda, Blake and Ash, according to Lani — than anyone else.

I can't believe anyone could find a way to justify kidnapping anybody, ever, but none of them could know what they were getting into. None of them had any sort of choice in the matter.

Lani, at the very least, would have been able to understand that there was a risk involved in all of this. Maybe Mercury, but I don't think his involvement in any of this was particularly voluntary.

"I can't wait to go home," Emily says, resting her head on Matilda's shoulder. "Do you think our parents are worried?"

"I'm staying with my grandparents." Matilda shrugs, and Emily nudges her. "My parents won't know yet."