Healing Ties (Ties, Book 2) | ✓

Chapter 20

Danya drew in a deep breath and let it out as a sigh. "Hamish, could you find Simon for me? I think he was helping to fix some things today, but I'm sure they won't mind if I steal him back early given the circumstances."

"Sure." Hamish scooped Jasper up in his arms. "Let's go find your dad. Can you sniff him out for me?"

Jasper squirmed out of Hamish's arms. "I'm too big to be carried."

"Nah, you're not, because I'm really strong. I can pick up even the biggest of kids."

"I'm stronger than you!" Jasper insisted, then he dashed off on all fours.

"I don't think that's true..." Hamish said as he followed after him.

Danya watched them leave and then turned back to Fanner and smiled and shook his head. "Come on. I'll show you where we live. You can stay with us until we can find somewhere more permanent for you."

"Oh! Thank you. I hope I won't be in the way."

Danya frowned at him. "Fanner, I've been looking for you for almost a year now. You're not in the way."

Fanner didn't know what to say to that, how to process the concept that all this time when he had felt so alone and uncared for there had been someone out there trying to find him. His own brother. Was this what it felt like to have family?

Fanner followed Danya down a dirt path that led between the cabins. They weren't of uniform shape or size or even particularly lined up neatly. Some were painted in various colours and they all had their own decorative touches.

The cabin Danya led him up to had a low fence surrounding its garden beds covered in tiny, short fingered handprints in several different colours of paint. Jasper's work, clearly.

Inside the cabin was a small room with a single door leading off of it. It contained a table surrounded by four wooden chairs, some bedding on the floor, a chest, and a cupboard. There was a well worn plush dog sitting on the pile of bedding.

Danya guided Fanner to the bedding and they sat down together. Fanner picked up the plush dog and clutched it in his lap.

"Where have you been, Fanner?" Danya asked again. "I didn't bring you here right away because things were still a little chaotic. I didn't want to bring you into an unstable situation when you were still safe at Milaine House. Then about a year ago I finally decided it was time to bring you in. Maybe the situation won't stay safe and stable for long, but Fanner, something is going to happen and I want you with us when it does."

"Something?"

"The humans don't want to follow us over the border to confront us properly, but eventually they will. If we lose, perhaps we're driven further outside of human territory and won't be able to easily return. If we win... well, who knows, but you might have felt the ripples of that even if you weren't involved."

"Oh."

"Wherever you were..." Danya said. "We broke into the offices, you know. We looked through your file. It just abruptly ended when you disappeared. No sale documents. Nothing about a transfer. Not even documentation of your death. They still had a file on me and there was a note about me dying in there. There should have been something. What happened?"

Fanner shrugged. There was a small tear in the fabric of the dog and Fanner focussed on mending it with his magic so that he would have an excuse not to look at Danya. "Mr Burrows found out about my powers and he wanted to test them, but that sort of magic would be illegal so I suppose there was no official documentation of his experiments."