Smoke and Mirrors - 43

After what seemed like an interminable wait, the door slowly opened. A regal male with dark hair laced with silver stood there, one eyebrow raised in question. “May I help you?” he asked. Mor stepped into his view and he smiled in amusement. “Have you come to try to reclaim that which you stole from me, young woman?”

“I didn’t steal it, Baesysti ,” she replied indignantly. “I merely moved it so that a creature bent on absconding with it couldn’t get it.”

The elf nodded slowly as if weighing the truth of her words. “Would you have taken it even if this creature had not found it?”

“Well…” She delicately shrugged one shoulder.

Sighing, the elf murmured a few words that Aidan recognized as a spell to drop the strong wards on the house. Then Baesysti  opened the door all the way and stepped back. “Please come in. I think we have things we need to talk about.”

“You may call me Baesysti or Kenton, whichever suits you,” the elf said once everyone was settled in the large but comfortable living room.

While Jared and the others introduced themselves, Aidan looked around the room and smiled. It was done in shades of gold and green and one wall was filled with plants of all sorts. Some stood in pots and planters, flowers and flowering bushes whose aromas mingled to fill the room with the scent of meadows in summer. There were also two trees whose roots were, he surmised, buried deep in the earth below the hardwood flooring. He pointed to one, asking Kenton, “What happens when they reach the ceiling?”

Kenton chuckled. “Then I open it so that they can continue growing upwards. I think in perhaps a hundred years or so they will be through the roof.”

“That will be interesting, if a bit damp when it rains,” Daniel commented.

“Magic, my dear boy. Magic will keep that from happening.” Including the others, Kenton asked if they wanted something to drink before they got down to business. When everyone declined he sat down on a large ottoman, crossing his legs. “May I ask exactly why you are here?”

“To make certain that you actually have Circe’s wand, and if so, that it’s somewhere safe,” Jared told him.

“You honestly expect me to answer that question? I know nothing about any of you, other than Aidan, and while he claims to distrust the court that does not mean he does, or that he couldn’t have some other agenda concerning the wand.”