he’d just realized he still had a body that needed basic essentials like sleep and food. “You guys were eating breakfast. Let’s talk in the kitchen.”
He conferred briefly with his team of analysts, then we all trooped back up to the kitchen.
“Aren’t you worried about people eavesdropping?” Kai asked quietly as we settled in around the large, comfortable table.
“Who cares?”
Kingston shrugged, digging into the leftovers of our breakfast feast with gusto. His parents were out of the house, but I’d seen a few people I didn’t recognize moving around the massive mansion and grounds—all members of the large staff it must take to maintain this place, I assumed. They didn’t talk to us and we didn’t talk to them, and even though we’d just escaped from the underworld, for some reason they were the ones who reminded me of ghosts.
“Do the rest of the house staff know? You know, about the…” I leaned forward a bit, flapping my hands in an imitation of dragon wings.
Kingston shook his head, shooting Jayce a grateful look as the hellhound pushed a serving plate with several pancakes on it toward him.
“No. They don’t know about any of it. No one but my trusted team does, not even my folks. I’m not worried about it though. If we fail, they’re going to find out real quick anyway. If we win, and someone asks about it later I’ll just tell them we were playing an RPG or collaborating on a book or something. But I can’t think on an empty stomach, and I haven’t eaten since—hell, I don’t even know what day it is.”
That was a good point. The reporter we’d seen interviewing the homeless man could only deny the truth for so long if it sprang out of a massive portal and tried to kill her. Alternatively, if we succeeded in stopping Gavriel, that dragon sighting would eventually become just a funny anecdote she told at parties when someone asked her about her weirdest interview.
“Do you think the banishment mark shows up in a different color on the map?” Hannah asked as we all returned to our half-eaten breakfasts.
She rubbed her wrist absently, and I resisted the urge to do the same. The marks that’d been burned into our skin had healed a lot quicker than they would if we’d actually be branded by molten metal, but mine still itched occasionally.
“It would make sense,” Kingston said. “But I haven’t seen anything.”
Kai swallowed a bite of food and scowled. “I guess you wouldn’t though. Pretty sure we’re the only banished idiots stupid enough to try getting close to one of the big portals.”
Kingston grunted and nodded as he bit into a piece of toast.
“I really think we should call Dru.” Jayce rested his elbows on the table. “We know enough to at least get him on board, and I don’t think he’d go to the other Custodians.”
“I think Piper’s right,” Hannah said, shaking her head. “We need more.”
Before I could add anything to the conversation, Kingston’s head suddenly shot up. His eyes widened. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask what was wrong when I heard it. A dull thud from the other side of the house.
Someone had just come in the front door.
We all jumped up, alert and ready to fight, but I blinked when I heard a man and woman talking animatedly.
“Oh, Sebastian, you’re missing the whole point of the play!”
“What I’m missing, Lenora, is the point of flying to Paris to watch a play which will be in Quebec next month.”
“For the cast, darling, the cast.”
Kingston stood frozen, turning paler and paler. “Fuck. They’re not supposed to be back until next week,” he hissed.
“Who are they?” Hannah whispered.
“My—”
“Kingston?”
The man stepped into the kitchen before Kingston could finish his sentence. The explanation was no longer necessary though. Same height, same build, same brilliant green eyes. They could have been twins if it weren’t for the thirty-year age difference.
“What about Kingston? What are—oh!”
His mother, or the woman I assumed was his mother anyway, came into the kitchen a half-step behind his father. Kingston shared her hair color and her aristocratic brow, although he definitely took after his father.
She blinked, coming to a halt. Then her eyes widened and she paled four shades, her mouth dropping open as she stared at her son.