k_a_webb | The World Walkers: Quiar: The Case of the Counterfeit Enchantments (part 9, 95th continuation) (Reply)

Lucille studied Kaito. He was someone she’d known for years, since Carver had decided they should be friends, but she’d never trusted Kaito the way she had Carver. They were times, that she regretted, when she’d been quite dismissive of Kaito, feeling as though he was nothing more than a follower, who become friends with Carver for no real reason at all. Yet she should have known better. Carver chose his friends carefully. When she thought back to conversations they’d had she was certain that he knew more than he was letting on and there had been times even then that she’d been tempted to ask questions she knew she shouldn’t ask, because she wasn’t ready for the answers. Even though she hadn’t been a Council Moonjumper in the truest sense of the phrase she had still believed in the Council, still believed that it was the same as it had been when Riordan had first created it, but she’d been naive then.

History had transformed the Council multiple times. It was like magic – it had evolved, but there had been times when it hadn’t evolved for the best, when the leaders had let the fae have too much control, and Lucille had come to understand how much of an effect that had on the Council when she became a member. Until she stepped onto Kniroch, until she learnt what she was, she hadn’t been ready to accept that the Council was much less than it should be. She sighed, before shaking her head. “You might be right – or it might simply be that the magic has evolved and no one knows about it yet.” Their eyes met. “Sometimes it’s easier to accept that you can’t do something without trying than it is to try and fail, even though the failure is down to the fact that magic simply doesn’t work the way you need it to.”

“There was a time, Lucy, when I couldn’t work out why Carver was friends with you. For a long time I thought it was because it was looking more and more likely you would become a member of the Council, instead of just working for them, and he believed that having you as an ally would mean he’d have more time to be able to warn certain people he knew were on Athare that someone had found out about them, but now… I realise I was jealous. You were the last to become friends with Carver and I didn’t want to accept you as a part of his life. In the end I had no choice, which made me resent you for being there, even though I should have realised that Carver didn’t become friends with people for no reason. If I’d dared to ask him he would have explained it to me, but I didn’t want him to show me how wrong I was about you, and yet you were one of the people I thought of when I was about to leave Athare.”

“Why?”

“It was obvious to me that you felt the same way, that you didn’t understand why Carver was friends with me, but you always treated me with respect. You could easily have shown your feelings, because that wouldn’t have taken any effort, yet you always made me comfortable in your presence, even though I didn’t want to be. I wanted it to be simple and it wasn’t.”

“Maybe it wasn’t meant to be simple. If it was we wouldn’t have thought about each other when we were apart, wondering why we hadn’t liked each other as Carver liked both of us, and if we hadn’t then when I met you again here we wouldn’t be in this position.” Lucille shrugged. “Everything happens for a reason, Kai, even though you don’t always know what that reason is until much later on, and I honestly believe that our distaste of each other was something that had a reason behind it.”

“Possibly more than one. If we’re thinking about past lives there every chance we knew each other before and there was a lingering feeling from that time.” Kaito smiled. “The more I learn about the Web the more it seems there is to learn. It’s something I love and hate about our home.”

Lucille nodded. “I feel the same way. Sometimes all I want is for the learning to be over, because I’ve done it all, I took the exams, and yet that wasn’t enough. The Council didn’t know everything I needed to know, so I learn every time I travel to one of the worlds, because I’m a true Moonjumper, because I’m in a position of trust that would never have been given to me if I I was just a Council Moonjumper. It doesn’t matter to anyone that I don’t feel like I earned it, as they feel I earned it just be being me, by breaking the First Rule every day… and occasionally that is enough. Other days I look at myself in the mirror and see the nine-year-old girl who started studying the Web, because that’s what I still am, really. All the hard work I did was for nothing, but if I hadn’t done it I wouldn’t be in a position where I could learn more about the Web.”

“Luckily I wasn’t a Moonjumper long enough for that to become an issue.” Kaito shrugged. “By the time I’d become used to the job I was doing a warrant was put out for my arrest and all I could do was flee Athare, in the hope that I would find safety on one of the other worlds. I was fortunate that people did accept me, even though some of them did know about the warrant, and some even protected me from the Council police, so that I had a chance to come to Quiar. If it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t be here now, to help you.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“For a little while I did wonder if you might have been the reason for the warrant, because I didn’t trust you, and then I saw Carver, who told me, angrily, that you would never have done anything like that, not even if I was you worst enemy.” Kaito sighed. “I knew he was right before he said anything. We might not have been friends, but our relationship would never have had an effect on the decisions you made, and you’d said before that you’d never tell the Council anything that might put someone in danger, but when I found myself in that position I couldn’t help wondering if you were being honest.”

“Kai, I don’t blame you for thinking that. If I’d been in that position I would have thought exactly the same thing about, and about Azure as well, until Carver put me straight, because I didn’t trust either of you back then. Obviously that’s changed and it changed long before we met again, because I realised that I’d been mistaken about you when we first met, that you were one of Carver’s friends for a reason, so I thought back to the times we’d been together, to the few times that we talked, to work out why I’d been so against you.” Lucille bit her lip. “I was jealous of you as well. You’d known Carver for much longer than I had and I wished it had been me, even though that was impossible. Sometimes I hated you for the friendship you had with him, for the connection there was, because it wasn’t the same for me.”

“Your relationship was always going to be different, Lucy. He fell in love with you long before he met you and that affect how he treated you, how he reacted to you, and what he told you, because he was always trying to keep you safe. I told him he shouldn’t. If you were going to be a proper part of things you needed to know the truth, rather than whatever distilled version he was telling you, but he was scared of putting you in danger, even though you were always going to be in danger. You were never going to accept the First Rule and we both know what that means.”

“If someone from the Council finds out there will be a warrant put out for my arrest, but I’m hoping if that does happen Kester will be able to tell me before it happens.”

Kaito nodded. “That’s exactly what he did for me, although I didn’t hear it from Kester himself. It was just someone who heard it from someone who did know Kester and because of that I accepted I was truly in danger, rather than just thinking it was a rumour.”

“From what Kester said he has connections to a lot of people, most of whom he doesn’t know personally, because that’s the best way he can keep them safe.” Lucille sighed. “I would hate to be in his position.”

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.