Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 125077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
“It’s never busy,” Ben admitted. “Sure. I’ll go and make some fries and bring you a couple of sodas.”
“And a burger.” Yes, I had recently eaten Eddie’s lovely breakfast, but I was eating for two and I had to fight two wolves for my share of bacon. I glanced at his menu. “Some onion rings sound nice, too.”
“You’re Fenrir’s mom.” Ben shook his head like he hadn’t expected that behavior from me. He should have. Casey should put a song in that musical called “Kelsey Eats the World.” Ben simply turned and walked into his kitchen.
“Evan, could you go over to the center and see if anyone knows why Alvis canceled his classes?”
Evan looked at me and then Jade as though trying to figure out why I wanted her alone. She finally nodded. “Whatever you want, boss.”
Evan strode across the square. I watched and noted the other “buildings” that surrounded us. There was a clothing store and a general store. There was something I suspected was a place for childcare.
“The stores don’t actually charge,” Jade said with a sigh. “It’s something they set up for the non-primals so it feels more like we’re in a real town and not a half-mile deep.”
“It wasn’t always like this?” I started for a booth in the back of the diner that looked like it had been plopped in from the fifties. There was a jukebox and a long bar where a couple of patrons sat sipping coffee and finishing up their late breakfasts.
Jade pulled her apron off and nodded to the other server, who gave her a salute that seemed to say she would take care of things. “By the time I got here everything was in place, but some of my friends came in a couple of years before me and they said it was very spare. Like the library was tight, you know. And there were conference rooms and stuff, but not a lot of fun. Which is weird because the primals aren’t what you would think. They like fun. The first time I went to a social hour I walked in and there was this tall bat dude playing foosball with a little troll, and the dwarves were betting on the outcome, and I felt like I was finally in a place I could breathe. Because it was weird but there was happiness here. I hadn’t seen happiness in a long time. You want me to talk about it, don’t you? Being held by Myrddin’s witches. I’m not sure I understand how it fits into Alvis’s murder.”
“It doesn’t.” She was a smart kid. “But I didn’t come here to solve a murder initially. I came here to investigate a prophecy, and it might have something to do with that.”
Jade settled in. “A prophecy? Like something the dark prophet said?”
“This particular prophecy comes from the outer planes.” I needed to treat Jade like the badass she was. She’d survived a lot, and she didn’t need hand holding, though if she did mine would be ready. I don’t think needing comfort is an admission of weakness. It’s strength. “It’s about defeating Myrddin.”
She straightened up, her gaze becoming serious. “What do you need to know?”
If she was acting, she was spectacular, but then she could have been trained. I didn’t like being so suspicious. Over the last couple of years, I’d grown to be less cynical. I wasn’t sure I could afford that now. Though I’d also learned to trust my instincts, and every one of them told me this girl was the real deal, that she was being genuine. “When you were in the…what did they call it?”
“An academy for young witches. That’s what they called it.” There wasn’t much emotion in her tone. I could understand that. It made me hate having to put her through this again. “It was truly a conversion camp.”
“Did he put all young witches in this camp?”
Her head shook. “There were several educational facilities. We all knew the academy I was assigned to was for what they called difficult ones. We were all either orphans or we’d done something our parents viewed as abnormal. That was only a few of us though. Most of us were older children of witches Myrddin had slaughtered. The younger ones were spelled to forget their moms and dads. It doesn’t work when you had too many memories. I was ten when he killed my mom. I spent five years there.”
“Was this place actually in the Council building…Coven House?”
“It was the Council building. I never would call it the Coven House, and no. The academy was in the country a few miles outside of a town called Rockwall. There was a place on a big lake that should have felt like a wide-open space, but somehow they made it small. The wards were there to keep us in and keep us quiet and docile.”