Distractions

Forty-Eight: Family Dinner

Everest blindly scrambled for the notebook and pen she had left on the coffee table. She flipped to the last page to make sure it was blank. She frantically scribbled down the thought that woke her up before crawling back into bed, reminding herself to talk to her boyfriends about it tomorrow.

...

"What were you writing?" Magnus asked, sounding amused.

Everest looked up from the coffee pot to see Magnus holding up a notebook page covered in scribbles. The only word she could make out was 'wards.'

"Oh!" she exclaimed, turning away from the machine. "I had an absolute epiphany last night."

Alec looked over at her from where he was making breakfast for them all. "Do tell."

"Okay so, basically, wards and I don't always get along. Like Ragnor's made me really warm and all I could hear was fire. Then Valentine's ship made me colder than I've ever been in my life. And Iris's wards made me feel like I was choking. Basically, anytime that I was inside wards that were designed to keep people in or out, or by people who don't know me, I've had a reaction. And I don't know why that is, but it makes sense because I've never been affected by your wards, Magnus, not until Valentine and you switched bodies and he set up wards to keep people out. So, yeah, that was my epiphany," she rambled.

Her boyfriends stared at her for a few moments before Magnus hummed. He set the notebook down, reached around her to hit the button on the coffee maker, and then settled against the island. "That makes sense, in a convoluted sort of way."

"Right," Alec said, turning off the stove. "I'm gonna pretend that that made sense to me."

Magnus laughed. "I think the gist of it is that wards affect Everest in interesting ways if they're set up for a specific reason, but there's only so much connection between the ward setups. I'd have to study each one specifically in order to understand which component was the common factor."

"What do you think causes it?" Alec asked, plating french toast for all of them.

"If I had to guess," Magnus said, visibly thinking, "then I'd say it's probably the demon blood."

"Oh. I had forgotten about that," Alec mused.

"Me too honestly," Everest said. She really had. It hadn't come up in a long time. "It makes sense though. The demon blood is probably part of what the wards are trying to keep out."

Magnus shrugged as he took his plate. "That's my best guess at least. We won't ever really know though, since those wards are long since destroyed."

Everest shrugged and accepted her plate. "We can discuss theory more after breakfast, yeah?"

"Works for me," Alec said, shrugging and sitting on the couch.

...

"There you are," Magnus said as he entered the armory where Everest, Alec, and Izzy were. "Good news, the core is off the ley line grid and free of demonic corruption."

"That's good news. Thank you," Alec said flatly.

Everest winced. That made it sound like they were all mad at Magnus, which was so far from the case.

"All righty, then. I'll make myself scarce," Magnus said, giving them all a weird look.

Izzy sighed. "We just got a fire message from Mom saying she's 'dropping by ' for an impromptu 'family dinner.'"

"Those are a lot of air quotes," Magnus said.

"Mom doesn't just drop by for anything," Alec said.

"Yeah, we're thinking it has to do with her and Dad. They're finally making their divorce official."