Wood Sprites

Which reminded Louise that they should take some of their most portable spell-casting supplies. It looped her back to the realization that they would have to abandon everything left of their parents.

37: Mouse Cage

An hour later, everything came crashing down on them.

There was a knock after someone tried the door and found it locked.

“Hide!” Louise whispered to the babies, waving the mice to take cover. She could feel the danger looming outside the door. They had run out of time. The mice darted under the furniture.

What should I do? A dozen possibilities flashed through Louise’s mind, followed by dozens of possible outcomes, some horrifying. She glanced frantically around the room. Between the babies and Joy “helping,” the twins had barely started with packing. Jillian had insisted that they scan the cave maps and the mansion’s blueprints before returning them to the secret room. It meant that everything that Louise didn’t want the elves to see was sitting out, waiting to be packed.

Tesla stood up; the babies had fled out of the mice robots to inhabit him again.

“Sit!” Louise hissed as one possibility became terrifyingly probable. “Do not fight! You promised!”

“Why do we have to listen to you?” Chuck Norris Pink grumbled in Nikola’s Christopher Robin lilt, but this time Louise recognized the true speaker.

“We won’t fight,” Nikola stated and Tesla sat. “Because we promised.”

“But we don’t like it,” one or both of the Jawbreakers complained.

The person knocked again. Louder. Impatient.

Joy wasn’t anywhere in sight. Hopefully she was inside Tesla or the secret room. There was no more time left to look for her. Louise snatched up items blindly from the “to pack” pile and started to shove them into her pockets. No, they were going to check her pockets. She pulled up her left pant leg and slid what would fit into her socks. At least their tablets had secure passwords; there was no way to take them with them and keep them hidden. The babies, though, were vulnerable inside of Tesla’s storage compartment.

There was a murmur of voices beyond the door and soon someone was going to be breaking down the door if they didn’t unlock it. Louise rushed across the room, turned the lock and flung open the door.

Louise had expected Anna. It was Celine, gazing down at Louise with dark suspicion. Behind her was a small herd of the male drivers who doubled as bodyguards. Louise managed a look of surprise on her face even as she realized that the fact Anna wasn’t there meant real danger for the twins. There were too many adults for the children to put up a fight and have any hope of winning.

“Where’s our grandmother?” Louise hated that she couldn’t keep fear out of her voice. Jillian could have done it.

“Why did you lock the door?” Celine attempted to brush past her.

Louise held her ground the best she could since the female was nearly two feet taller than her. She wanted to keep the door between the secret elves and everything dear to her. “Where’s Anna?”

Celine put a hand on Louise’s shoulder and shoved her back. “She’s in the hospital.”

“What?” the twins and the babies all cried.

“She was fine yesterday!” Louise shouted to cover the babies’ slip. “What did you do to her?”

“Humans get old and die,” Celine snapped and then alarm flashed across her face as she realized that she had all but admitted she wasn’t human. “She collapsed yesterday afternoon while she was at a business meeting. Someone there called an ambulance instead of her drivers.”

And what did Celine think the drivers would have done? Brought Anna back to the house to die instead of to the hospital?

Louise clung to her anger despite the fact she knew that Ming needed Anna. If she let her rage slip away, all Louise would be left with was the knowledge that they were alone in the house, surrounded by powerful enemies.

“Come with me.” Celine reached for Louise seconds after the girl slid backwards, leaving the female snatching at air.

“Where to?” Louise asked in as steady a voice as she could muster.

“We don’t have to listen to you.” Jillian thumped her baseball into her ball glove.

“No!” Louise cried out as everything unraveled. She jumped forward and took the slap that Celine aimed at Jillian, turning with the force so it looked more real, just like Mr. Howe taught them in the stage-fighting classes. Even then, the hit was hard enough to make everything go black for a moment.

When Louise could see again, Jillian was pulling her backwards, shouting, “Don’t hurt her! Don’t hurt her, you witch!”

Tesla was standing a foot closer than before, whimpering softly.

“Shhh.” Louise tried to calm all her siblings, making a “sit” motion with one hand at the babies while holding the other up to keep Celine’s attention. She could feel blood trickling warmly down from her nose and taste it her mouth. “I’m okay. Don’t cry.”

Celine watched them closely with a slight pleased smile. “Hurt one, hurt them both. Good to know.”