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I throw my car into park, cut the ignition, and then just sit for a long moment in silence. Eyes closed, with slow deep breaths, I draw my energy back into myself, pulling my cloaking all the way up.
It's not that I think they'll mind. It's habit. I already know at least Andy has some magic in him. He hid it well during his solo tour. If not for the mist and light in his eyes caught in the flash of professional cameras, I would never have picked up on it while also cloaked.
But cloaking is habit, especially when new people are involved. And while there may very well be magic lingering in Andy's aura, I can't make the same assumptions about the other band members. So with my magic carefully concealed, I draw myself up, out of the car, retrieve my bass from the back seat, and then head into the building.
I almost choke as I open the door. Even cloaked, ALL I can feel is magic, the kind that runs through the walls of a protected space. I almost can't even step over the threshold until Andy calls my name with a whoop of joy. I swallow hard, catch my breath, and let the magic embrace me.
I have to drop my cloaking simply to hold myself upright. There's ignorant, and then there's stupid, and then there's purposely broadcasting. I can't quite tell which applies here, but the sheer weight of combined magics is overwhelming. The others don't seem to notice, but it's likely they're used to it, maybe even comforted.
I close my eyes, just trying to find some form of grounding as the magic around me pulses. When I open my eyes again, I almost fall through the floor. My wings unfold against my will, claws hooking into carpet for balance. This is a hell of a lot more magic than I had anticipated.
Jinxx and Jake crack up, almost laughing themselves sick at my reaction. Behind the former, a pair of paper thin butterfly wings flutter with his laughter. Faerie wings, I correct myself. Dust scatters off the edges and seems to spark into fire when it touches the floor. Not fire. Energy. The kind Mages use to ward a space. It explains the sheer weight of magic in the walls. It's being constantly built up. Then he waves, and I catch the seven point star on his palm. The BLACK seven point star on his palm. Warlocked Mages, to my knowledge, aren't capable of this scale of perpetual protection. Yet here I am, standing in the middle of it.
In stark contrast, Jake seems utterly still. I've never seen wings both so massive and unmoving. The great expanses of pale feather stained red with what looks like blood do not move no matter how heavily the man they're attached to laughs. I know the Nephilium of Fallen Angels tend to have problems with their wings. But I've never seen them completely frozen like this. And bloodstained? It's unnerving, and I force myself to look away.
Which immediately proves to be a mistake, because the next person I see is CC. Person doesn't seem the right word to describe what I'm seeing. Instead of the image of CC I'm so familiar with, I'm met with a roughly hewn clay image of the man. None of the lines seem right. He stands and walks across the room, and I swear the ground under my feet rumbles, faintly. He cracks a smile my way, and it's almost like the corners of his mouth crumble to accommodate the movement.
I hear something from behind me. My ears are ringing so much, it takes a few minutes to make out the words.
"Lonny. Man, can you hear me? You're okay."
It's Andy's voice, deep, soothing. With his words, I feel a sense of safety wash over me. Calm. My lips part in an attempt to speak, but I can't get the words out.
"Yeah, it's a lot to take in. Just sit down, give it a minute."
I feel a chair at the back of my legs. It takes some coaxing for my wings to release their grip on the carpet. Once they release, I crumple into the chair, a wave of my own magic pulsing out around me to create a protective bubble. I don't know how far it reaches. I just know I've had my magic ripped from my cloaking and my whole body aches for it.
I look up at Andy again, and it's as if he's looking into me. I can't even hear his voice, but I'm able to make out the shapes of the words "Just breathe." Something pulls at my gut and I'm forced to inhale and exhale, almost as if receiving mouth-to-mouth. I realize Andy's eyes aren't blue. They don't have any one color. Without my cloaking, I see every color at once reflected in his irises, much like how sunlight refracts into every color of the spectrum through a crystal. Blue must be the default frequency, like the sky.
"What-" I try again, but the words die in my throat. I tear my eyes away from Andy and back to Jinxx as a sizzling sound fills my bubble. The sparks from his wing dust are eating away at my boundary, and I clench my wings in close to my body, snapping the edge of my magic in around me.
"Shit, sorry man." Jinxx's wings fold back against themselves, stilling so less dust can fall from them.
"What the fuck?" My lungs burn. The muscles in my wings ache from clenching up and in so hard. "What the fuck???"
"You're safe." The deep, soothing tone of Andy's voice seeps into my bones. "We don't mean you any harm."
I find myself nodding to him, not trusting my voice to work properly. The dome of my own magic begins to cave from the sheer weight of energy around me as I take it all in. Somewhere in the back of my mind is the hollow itch of familiarity. Something about these four men is significant, but my thoughts are spinning too wild for me to pinpoint just what it could be. But then the boundary crumbles and my magic dissipates with a sickening creak and then the clatter of shattering glass.
But then silence creeps through the room. Jinxx has his hands out to either corner of the room and with a slow sweep downward, my magic settles across the floor like a fog, heavy haze catching and refracting the light of the sparks of magic that pour from Jinxx's palms and wings.
My muscles relax. My wings slip from around my body to crumple like discarded overcoats on either side of me. I look up into Andy's eyes, my voice still unable to ask the millions of questions spiraling through my head.
I briefly catch a scrap of conversation from across the room. Jinxx's patient murmur of "-color?" Followed by a response from Jake in a cadence so hurried I only catch the word "blue," though I've no idea what it means. The tone of the first guitarist's response assures me that he doesn't understand either, but Jake's response this time is minutely slower, "neutral," his head tilting towards Andy with an injunction of "affected."
"What are you?" I finally ask.
The eerie silence in the room snaps with my words and suddenly I can hear everything. The sizzle of magic off Jinxx's wings. The crumbling of earth under CC's feet. The hammering of Andy's heart.
Jake steps forward, kneeling to be level with me. His wings do not fold. They simply drift down, cutting through the floor as if they're nothing more than a projection. I realize they must be trapped in another plane, unable to manifest materially. "We will not harm you, Prince. You are safe here."
I shudder at the honorific. One I've not heard in some time. Certainly not in this lifetime. Not even in the past ten lifetimes. Which confirms my suspicion that I am looking at beings of old mythology. Perhaps even older than I, some of them.
I feel something in the back of my mind click into place. "I am not the one you are missing."
A sharp, sour bolt of energy sparks through the walls. That was apparently not the thing to say. I turn my head, looking into kaleidoscope eyes.
"The Deviant has strayed from us. We do not wish for you to replace him. It is not a position that can been filled." Andy's voice has taken on an unnatural quality. It rumbles with a thrum of energy that ripples against the wards of the walls and the bounces back in. I realise the wards are as much to keep unwanted energies and beings out as they are to keep His Voice in.
"Ashley."
Another sharp sizzle of energy bounces off the walls. "As I said. He has strayed from us."
I try not to read too deep into the way Andy bristles. There's anger, and then there's heartbreak. And the love between the Deviant and the Prophet was once legendary. I recall another life, eons ago, in which I'd once sought a love like theirs. Something beyond romantic, beyond brothers. Something strong enough to warrant binding my soul to another's for eternity after eternity.
The room goes cold, and I'm struck with the realization that the binding was not just between the two. "I'm not looking to replace him."
"Good," Andy clips, and the word seems to echo endlessly off the wards. "We are just looking for a good fit. I think you'll do quite nicely, Prince."
I swallow hard at the honorific. Somehow it feels even heavier than the first time he used it. Like he knew something I didn't about myself. Like he was reading it through my eyes and off my wings.
"You did not simply stumble across me, did you?" I finally find the nerve to ask.
The corners of that sharp, assured smirk curl into something more akin to a true smile.
"That's the funny thing about him," Jinxx cuts in. "Andy says the right person will come, and two days later here you are."
"The rumors are true, then?" I ask. "The Speaker really does warp reality? It's not propaganda of slighted gods?"
The smile Andy offers me is haunting, sending ice through my bones. "It is a relief to know you're not completely unaware," he says, slowly, carefully choosing his words.
I lift my chin, shooting a smirk back at him. "I've been around long enough to know there is truth to the old stories."
Those kaleidoscope eyes seem to darken, projecting as a muddled gray green brown. "Sometimes too much truth to just be stories," Andy replies, voice controlled and cryptic.
I tilt my head in turn, carefully folding my wings to my back, shoulders finally relaxing. "So. When do I start?"