“The morning is close to gone.”
“You’re awake.” Fionn walked over to her, a broad smile on his face. “Bella is—”
“I already know,” she interrupted. “Rune told me. I’m so glad. That means we can get going.”
“I need to check outside to make sure it’s safe.” The air around Fionn took on a shimmery hue as he pulled magic.
“Why can’t we just leave from in here?”
He spun and looked hard at her. Enough illumination shone from his mage light for her to see an odd look on his face. “It’s almost impossible to travel from underground.”
“It is harder.” She stood and rose on her tiptoes to stretch. When she tried to run her fingers through her hair, they tangled in hopeless mats. “With two of us, I think we can manage it. I really pissed D’Chel off yesterday. Unless something more pressing came up, I’d bet my last dollar—if I still had one—he’s out there, hanging around and waiting for the first wisp of magic to surface.”
“You’ll have to show me how to help you.” Fionn was still eying her strangely.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
He bit his lower lip and dropped his gaze. “Because you seem to have more magic than any other human I’ve come across since this whole travesty began.”
She glanced away. What he’d said made her just as uncomfortable as it obviously made him. “Okay. Makes meeting up with the Old Ones that much more critical. They know things.”
He snorted. “They certainly do. And it’s a sure bet they’ve told us as little as possible to secure our cooperation. Have you ever wondered why we never heard of them before the dark gods stormed the gates?”
Her brows drew together. “Now that you mention it, we’d heard of them. I Googled ‘Lemurians’ for a high school project.”
“Yes, and everything you came up with said they weren’t real.”
She shrugged. “We didn’t know as much then as we do now.”
“Or maybe they’re linked to the dark in some way we don’t know about.”
She sucked in a breath. “Mmph. I suppose they could be. Both sides are into killing us off. It’s just the Old Ones seem so much more honest about it.”
“Oh, you liked the culling?” he inquired archly, voice liberally laced with sarcasm.
“Of course I didn’t like it.” She huffed. “How could anyone like seeing their friends and family drop into some vortex that was a one-way trip to hell?”
“The thing that blew me away was why no one organized against them.”
“Did you?” It was her turn to gaze appraisingly at him. She’d been so inexperienced and naive when everything happened, it never occurred to her to do anything other than follow orders.
He nodded, jaw set in a defiant line and chin tipped upward. “Yeah. I tried, but no one seemed interested. It was just weird. Like there’d been some sort of mass hypnosis.”
“It didn’t affect you?” She crossed her arms over her chest, still looking at him.
“Guess not.”
She shifted her gaze to Rune. “How did you become a Hunter’s bond mate? Was there something special you had to do?”
“I cannot tell you that.”
Both she and Fionn stared at the wolf. “Why not?” she demanded.
“It is a condition of the magic.”
She exchanged glances with Fionn. “Looks like a conspiracy to keep us in the dark.”
“No shit.” He bit off the words and looked cowed. “I’m actually embarrassed I never thought to ask Bella the same question. I simply accepted that she was mine and we were bound.”
“Maybe they did…something so you wouldn’t be curious.” She hurried on. “See, I didn’t start as a Hunter—or a Healer. Until Rune approached me, I assumed I didn’t have that type of magic.” Aislinn pressed her tongue against her teeth. “I’ve asked lots of questions these past few days. Mostly in my head, mind you.”
“I think we should trade all the information we have,” Fionn said slowly. “Together, maybe we’ll be able to figure things out.”
She wasn’t so sure about that. It seemed like far more puzzle pieces were missing than the two of them could provide, but at least it would be a start. And more than they had right now.
She walked over to where Bella sat on her perch. “May I touch you?”
The raven squawked sarcastically, clearly back to her irascible self. “You don’t have to ask. You saved my life. You and my bond mate together.”