Kitten and Allure

her catch up.
Instead, she naturally adjusts to remain a servant’s distance behind me. So, I slow down some more.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
I stop and look over my left shoulder, where she’s neatly tucked into my life.
“Waiting for you,” I tell her.
“Oh,” she manages, with a little smile and a quick shuffle to step next to me.
She still thinks she needs permission, and I don’t know how to fix that. Seth would.
She rolls her right shoulder and stretches her neck.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Considering ripping this bandage off,” she says.
“Wait for Killian,” I suggest, and she relaxes her shoulders with a sigh.
“Okay, just so you know, being a mortal is really starting to feel like a handicap.”
“That’s why you have us,” I say.
“Us? There’s only one of you right now,” she says.
“Are you trying to hurt my ego?”
“No, just simple math. Four Elorsins; take away Darkness, Chaos, and Alpha, one Elorsin.”
“Funny,” I admit.
I enjoy the way she makes my chest feel lighter and my breathing easier.
“I’ll get the door,” she says, bouncing up the stairs.
But as she reaches for the handle, her hand is stopped by a potion-made barrier.
“Seventeen steps,” I tell her.
With my next step forward the barrier moves, and she has the freedom to open the door.
The bounce is gone from her step.
“You first,” I say, motioning with my head for her to go inside and acting as the escort behind her.
I set the bags inside the door, making a list. Secure the building. Feed Kitten. Research. Solve bubble. Maybe even before the others return.
Before I have to tell Pax that her bubble is shrinking. That’s not going to be a pleasant conversation.
“Wait there,” I tell Kitten, digging through my bag for a small vial of Ward Potion.
“What’s that?” she asks.
“Ward for the door. It’ll give us another layer of protection, considering the domain’s securities have a loophole that’s already been exploited.”
“How long will it last?”
Good question. I look in the direction of the nearby border as I line up the equations. It should last weeks, but the border inhales magic. Though the Spring is its primary food source, and this little ward should be on the bottom of its list, I’m three Elorsins down creating it, using only one fourth of the power we usually do.
If the border is under threat, and that’s exactly what the reports are saying, chances are it will tap every non-living power source, then move on to us faster than usual, with or without the domain. Which is not something I can help, so it’s not something I want to think about.
“We’ll have until morning, at least,” I hedge, but I’m not willing to gamble our lives on anything beyond that.
“And then?”
“By then the others should be back and we can work on something stronger.” Together, a ward should last days – factoring in the border.
She watches me break the vial on the door, glass slicing into my palm and blood forming the final ingredient. Now I’m the only one who can cross any threshold in or out.
Next job – sustenance. Increased use of power requires an increase in food. I’m starving, and she should at least be hungry.

Seventeen Paces
Roarke grabs his tray of bread and drink then heads for the stairs. I follow – what else can I do?
The staircase is weird, with wide but shallow steps, plus a spiral. Which means we curve around to level out on the second floor with no direct view of the first floor. Also means all of the roofs are at odd angles. Her home is more weird and interesting than any other I’ve ever seen. The second story is a large open-plan bedroom. Big bed, huge double windows, and everything timber. Timber floor. Timber roof with big exposed beams. Timber walls. It’s a big space, for so little furniture, and my bubble should extend across most of it.
There are no paintings or pictures, only a blue rug that fills most of the floor for decoration. It matches the variety of blue pillows and blankets on her bed and more blankets than the average person needs. Clothes hang from a railing off the wall, and the bathroom in the corner doesn’t have a door or even a curtain. Eydis wasn’t ever expecting guests.
Roarke gives the room a quick glance then says, “Nope, next floor.”
“You’ve never been here before?” I ask.
“Not until yesterday.”
“Yesterday?”
“It should be past midnight by now,” he clarifies.
“But you knew how to get here? The path through the forest just stopped out in the middle of nowhere, and this cottage was basically invisible.”
“It’s a knowledge gate. The protections she has on this place only let wisdom find it and get through it. Usually limits entry to those at Master level, and not even all of them, plus a very select few Sabers – that’s the loophole.”
“Then why did it let me in?” Though it wasn’t pain free.
He looks over his shoulder at me and smiles. “Because you were in my company, and because we’re pack. It’ll let the other three in for the same reason – I’m in here, and we belong together.”
Pax has to use it, it has a literal meaning to him, but Roarke – Roarke just chose to use it and to include me in his world. My breath gets stuck on his words, and the emotions that have lumped up inside me. I try to look at the facts so my brain can move on and I can finish inhaling.
Only really smart people can get through the invisible magical gate in an equally invisible and magical barrier around this place. Which also explains why Roarke was the only solo Elorsin who could have made this trip. The brains win.
I picture the domain as being like a dome over the land, essentially another bubble. Silva seems to have a thing with big trees, castles named after colors, Sabers who are assholes, and bubbles. It’d be easy to assume that the only good