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I take the note out of my pocket once he’s gone. Meet me in Johnston’s Pass in Canida outside Morry’s Pub at 10 p.m. tonight.
The woman, her eyes still burning behind my lids, has me intrigued. Is it information she has for me or something else? I have a couple tasks to take care of first. I allow the heart-pumping thrill of a possible free future to stay with me all day.
I am quickly understanding how much work organizing a massive protest is and find admiration for the commoners who did it, making it look so seamless. Thraves doesn’t have many hybrids, but I know where to find the ones that exist. CIU has its own cafeteria as they are the less popular weirdos with non-harvesting jobs. I’m not sure if hybrid harvesters can’t harvest, just attempt to avoid it, or if it is some unspoken code to keep themselves hidden, but I know a couple crime scene techs that aren’t full harvester.
Jerry and Kini join me for lunch. I drink my cup of sweetened hyndra. Their trays include sandwiches and fruit. The CIU cafeteria doesn’t offer the same delights and delicacies as the higher levels in Crest.
Jerry unwraps his sandwich as we swap the normal conversational formalities, before I jump into the meat figuratively. “How would you feel if CIU didn’t have to be your life?”
Jerry doesn’t respond, as his mouth is full of sandwich.
Kini holds her sandwich in both hands as she swishes her lips in thought. “I like what I do.”
“Me too. It’s not always glamorous,” Jerry says without regrets, just stating facts after swallowing a large bite of layered meat sandwich.
Kini elbows him with a smile on her face. “It’s never glamorous, but it’s interesting. We know what happens in all the realms,” she finishes, then stuffs another bite into her mouth.
Jerry lowers his sandwich and picks at his fruit. “I’ve always been a science nerd,” he says in a tone that sounds guilty.
“You were taught to be science nerds. You’re both hybrids.” I nearly blurt the word, reining it in at the last second.
Kini’s eyes grow wide. “No!” she says sarcastically.
“Is that why you asked us here? You got a better job for us?” Jerry asks, then takes a large swallow of his drink.
I lift my shoulders. “Kind of. It’s not a job, but it’s something that can improve your lifestyle.”
“Spit it out,” Kini urges as she drags her spoon through fruit sauce.
“Hybrids, realm walkers. None of us get a fair shot at life. We aren’t purebloods,” I say, using air quotes to the word. “What if we can change that? Take Provence for ourselves. It was created by the same spell that made realm walkers. Rightfully its ours and realm walkers were hybrids first, making it yours too. We have a claim on it.”
Jerry spits out his drink and Kini wrinkles her forehead. “Ew,” she says, leaning away from Jerry.
She refocuses her attention. “What do you mean ‘claim’? Like an actual legal claim?”
I don’t know that yet. Jine is contacting a lawyer who is a friend of the family. He is one who’s troll enough to pass. “I’ll soon know that answer, but we have a moral claim.”
Jerry rolls a thumb over his chin, then pinches his nostrils shut with his fingers. “We can’t just take Provence.”
“No, but we can protest our unfair treatment in the realms and draw the leaders’ attention. Shake things up a bit then, when we have their undivided attention, we make our claim and requests. Think about it. A realm where hybrids aren’t treated differently and don’t have to hide their true natures.”
“It is tempting. I got nothing to lose except a small closet of an apartment, a smaller paycheck. I don’t even have a window!” Kini says, leaning back in her chair and flinging her arm over the side. Green fire dancing in her eyes and hair standing on end as if electrified.
Jerry shrugs. “I always liked you, Cyrus. You are more like us and nothing like your mother. I’m in.” I’m not the only person who doesn’t like my mother.
Two down and thousands more to go. I consider my blood issue and the aged vampire whose blood is speeding through my veins and decide now isn’t the time to ask them to test it. I’ve given them enough to think on for now. I’ll pull in the favor another time.
The rest of the daylight I spend talking with other hybrids I know from my various calls. It is a mental list. Most are receptive, others unsure. I’m not forcing anyone, but the word is out and underground where it needs to be. Anyone interested only need contact me. I’ll go to them.
Each realm has its own personality. Canida is mostly prairie lands, grass and flowers that blossomed out of lava flows, from the extinct volcano Naga, filling plains with sporadic large trees. Rivers weave and curve through the towns and underground water sources under pressure force water to the surface in areas without rivers and lakes. Many lycans are also farmers with the rich lava soil and grow hops for brewers. Johnston’s Pass is a quaint town in the foothills. A small area of the realm.
In the center of town are old buildings and businesses made with all types of wood. The town government has its own building. A smooth log structure and stores catering to the needs of lycans fill each side of the street.
The day traders do more than sell a few items. They take and fill large orders that are sent back to the realms and healing remedies, potions, jewelry, and electronics are sold in shops within every realm. If we can bring permanent stores to Provence, people can more easily order and find shelves stocked with items that fit their daily needs. It is more productive than day traders packing and unpacking daily, bringing only what they think they’ll sell for the day.
Morry’s Pub is a dive bar and probably a good place to find hybrids. I haven’t heard yet from the others and have no gauge as to how many hybrids we’ve rounded up. I don’t know if Jine’s heard anything from the lawyer, it’s been a day. I approach Morry’s and don’t see a female with a huge hat shading her face. I see a shapely young woman with bountiful curves standing outside the pub with a boot against the side of the building.
Lights from the pub sign shine against the blonde braids weaved in her hair. Our eyes meet as I approach. I inspect every centimeter of her. She is beautiful in a way no pureblood can be. The blonde of her hair contrasts against the darker tones of her skin. Until this moment, I considered Marilisa the most attractive woman I’ve met, but this woman is something different and exceptional.
“You Cyrus?” she asks like she already knows the answer. I suspect she does since she handed me the note. Surely, she remembers my face.
I nod. “You are?”
“Ryel.” She drops her boot from the wall and walks past me. “I hear you’re looking for hybrids.”
I spin on my heel, studying the curves in her pants. “I am. We are.”
She walks across the dead street, wet and puddled from an earlier rain shower, and sits on a bench. “Do we get extra points if we belong to more realms?”
I like her already and I don’t even know her. Stopping in front of her I say, “Not yet, but something can be arranged.”
“How about skills? What do we get for that?”
This isn’t a contest, but I like her spunk and play along. “Depends on your skill set,” I answer.
She smiles, a little devious, a little confidant. Water hits the back of my head and trickles down my neck and below the collar of my shirt. I know its not an awning, nor is it raining.
“What was that for?” I ask, as I wipe my hand over the water on my neck, flicking it away.
“Turn around.”
When I do, water rises from the street and spins in the air away from us, then into the sky before breaking up and falling to the ground as chunks of ice.
“Interesting.” No, it’s more than interesting. I’ve never seen anything like it. She can mold matter into different phases. I don’t need displays of skills to ask a hybrid to join the protest. Nor do they need to show off their magic. She wants to show it off, create drama.
She pats the bench and waits for me to sit next to her. “I’m a hybrid of all seven realms, including Drakonia. My mother was pregnant with me when my father died. She didn’t know he took a second life and couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw him in Provence with his new family. I guess they aren’t new. I’m nineteen years. He’s a piece of —”
I don’t finish her sentence and move the conversation in a less morbid direction. “How many realms have you visited?”
She shrugs. “Let me count.” She taps her fingers and shifts her golden-green eyes to the sky. “Yup! One. Canida. That’s a really stupid question. Do I look like I fit anywhere?” She shakes her head in dismay.
She is fiery like dragon’s breath. “OK. How’s your pain tolerance?”
“I’m a wolf who can change my coat colors. Yeah, it’s a wolf thing. That’s why we stayed here. I shift into a decent sized wolf. I can handle pain!” She stands. “What’s your plan?”
“Let’s put you to the test.”
I know I should have explained my intentions, but I’m captivated so I don’t. Six realms later I’m flabbergasted. She opens the curtains to Sier, Aradia, Drakonia, and Navarin. The curtains she can’t open she can still see and walk into. Besides manipulating water, fur coats, and shifting into a wolf, she can manipulate air, land, and lightning. She is the most incredible thing I’ve ever met. She may even be more incredible than me.
My heart palpitates as she stands on one of Sier’s highest peaks and summons lightning, followed by a flurry of snow. She grabs my heart by the aorta and is holding the reins. Is it possible this display is to show her power and might, or is it something else? She’s different, her magic is different. Hybrids are like that, but most can’t do all that she does.
We end our adventure in Provence. The moon shines like a light bulb in the darkness. Enthralled by her, I haven’t yet asked the one question that should be burning inside me. “How did you know we were looking for hybrids?”
She rolls her neck and stares towards the static stars. “Sometimes I explore the realms with my mind and you caught my attention.”
It takes my mind only a moment to understand the implication of her words. She can see and hear through my shield. Impossible. Or is it? Did she overhear us plotting in Provence? Is that how she knows? She is extraordinary from birth. No spell or curse but a natural, supernatural connection.
“What’s the painful part?” she asks, twisting blades of grass between her fingers.
Oh. Yeah, that part. She’ll figure that out in twenty-four hours or so. Mesmerized by her abilities, I hadn’t thought that far. She’s been to Provence, so she already has one passport. This is a moment I size up better as blunt. “When six passports ink on your chest like the one you got when you entered and exited Canida for the first time.”
She pulls her fingers from the grass and thrusts her hands to her sides and balls her fists. “I was a baby. My father was an elf/fae hybrid. I don’t remember that. You couldn’t have said something earlier?!”
Sure, I could have, should have, but that’s water under a shaky bridge now. Guilt plants a seed in my belly that sprouts and grows with each second of silence between us.
“How long?” she asks after the long pause, arms planted around her chest. My guilt a full-blown tree that reaches the sky.
“Twenty-four to forty-eight hours, give or take. Heat helps.”
“Great! I’ll shock myself with lightning.”
I think I haven’t spent enough time in Canida over the years. That’s where she’s been, and I haven’t. I grab her hand, she doesn’t stop me. “I have a place. It won’t help the pain but it’s private.” I can’t believe I’m offering the one place no one else knows about. My secret private room in the inbetween. A place I molded from the matter of the realms.
She winds her fingers around mine. “My mom is a bartender at Morry’s. She won’t be home when it happens. It can’t be worse than shifting the first time, when every bone in my body rearranged. You owe me one thing.”
“What’s that?” I ask, ready to do anything for her.
“I don’t want to only join the protest but help organize and lead it.”
“Deal.” She is one of us and, according to her, knows plenty more hybrids – an asset worth more than all the precious metals in Verboten. A realm walker, but better. She is a natural born realm walker.