Santana shook her head. “She said she’d meet us there.” A smile turned up the corners of her lips. “I think she and Garrett were having a little pre-Gathering party of their own.”
“The scandal!” I flashed a grin. “Come on, let’s see what all the fuss is about. I can’t wait to mingle with a bunch of folks I don’t know and shock them with my surname. If only the Council gave points for the number of people you can freak out in an evening.”
Wade frowned. “Don’t mention points. I’ll be surprised if we don’t lose the ones we managed to gain by the end of the year. Leonidas and his merry men will crucify us if we don’t get these kids back.”
“Hey, think of it this way: if Katherine kills us all, we won’t have to worry about the points system ever again,” I said.
“Silver linings, eh?” Santana chimed in.
With that, we left the Aquarium and headed toward the Main Assembly Hall. A huge crowd of people had amassed in the time we’d been away, and the rumble of their chatter hit us in a wave as we pushed through the double doors. Their emotions were twice as loud to me, bombarding me head-on. I paused for a second to gather my Empath powers, forcing them to dull the sensations to a background throb of mixed emotion. Nicely done, Merlin. Looks like you’re getting the hang of this, Suppressor or no Suppressor.
“Dios mio, did someone crank up the heating?” Santana whispered, mopping her brow with the back of her sleeve. “I’m roasting in here. Does it feel hot to you? Are you hot?”
I glanced at her. “It is pretty toasty. Probably all the people. You okay? Do you want to go back outside and grab some fresh air?” I was hoping she’d say yes so I wouldn’t have to speak to anyone, but she shook her head.
“No, I’ll be fine. I just need about three gallons of water and I’ll be okay. I’m sweating buckets.”
“These uniforms aren’t exactly helping,” I conceded. “They look cool, for sure, but the fabric isn’t exactly breathable. I feel like I put on a plastic suit.”
“You’re damn right. Ugh, I’m already drenched,” she muttered. “I’m going to be absolutely rancid by the end of the night.”
I laughed. “Lucky Raffe.”
Raffe flushed red. “I’d like her even if she was a puddle of goop on the floor.”
“I might be if I don’t find some freaking air conditioning,” she replied, planting a tender kiss on his cheek.
The expressions on my friends’ faces changed as the families started to move to their own sections of the room. They were looking for familiar folks in the crowd, meerkatting over my head to see if they could find their parents. A swell of mixed emotions flowed through me—the nerves and excitement of my friends, combined with my own envy. I wished there was a friendly face in the crowd for me.
Santana was the first to abandon ship, hurtling through the crowd toward a buxom, middle-aged Latina with graying hair that lay in a braid, all the way down her back. She was waving frantically. Wade disappeared through the throng without so much as a “see you later.” Part of me felt disappointed; I’d have liked to have been introduced to Wade’s family. Although, maybe it was a little soon. I hadn’t even told the guy I liked him, so I doubted meeting his parents was a good idea. I could imagine how that introduction would go: “Ah, Mom, Dad, this is Harley Merlin—yes, those Merlins. Yes, the one who killed all those people, although he actually didn’t mean to; he was under a curse at the time. She doesn’t have any psychopathic tendencies, so you don’t have to worry there.”
Tatyana ran off third, dragging Dylan by the arm to meet her parents. Well, so much for our bond of parentless solidarity.
I turned to Raffe, who was the only one still standing with me. He seemed more anxious than anyone. Instead of scouring the room with excitement, he was casually glancing across the heads of the congregation with a mixture of resentment and hesitation. The Leonidas Effect.
“You okay there, Raffe?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Not looking forward to seeing my father again, to be honest. I’m going to bet we’re at each other’s throats within the hour,” he said. “These things just feel pointless to me. I see my father every time the Mage Council gets summoned, which seems to be all the time right now. He’s always watching me. I hate it. I wish I could just blow this whole thing off.”
“Amen to that.” I smiled at him. “Your father doesn’t seem to trust me at all. I think he wishes I’d never been brought here in the first place. Either that, or he’d have preferred me to be at his coven, where he could keep an eye on me. Same as you, probably?”
Raffe laughed. “My father doesn’t trust anyone, so I wouldn’t be too worried about that. He’d have us all rounded up and put in one big enclosure if he could. For someone on the Mage Council, he doesn’t like magicals that much—he despises their power. I think it scares him, though he’d never admit it to me.”
“Yeah, that’s super weird.”
“At the very least, he’d prefer it if we were all Mediocre. Take you, for example. That much power in young hands freaks him out completely. He’d probably be all for you being permanently stuck with the Suppressor, if it meant holding you back. Obviously, he can’t dictate that, since it has nothing to do with him. But he can control me. He’s been scared of me my whole life.”
“Why’s that?”
Was I finally going to get some answers about Raffe’s… issues?
“For one, he blames me for my mother’s death,” he said sadly. “She died in childbirth with me, and I’ve got no siblings as a result. They wanted a whole bunch of children, but I screwed up their plans for that.”
“I’m so sorry, Raffe. I had no idea.” I wanted to reach out and hug him or something, but it didn’t feel appropriate. Nevertheless, my heart ached for him. I couldn’t even begin to imagine the torment that must have plagued him throughout his life, knowing that. I had some measure of it in my own life, but the revelations had only come to me recently. He’d lived with it since he was a baby. That couldn’t have been easy.
He shrugged. “At least that’s what my father has always told me. Whether he just wanted to rub salt into the wound, I don’t know. He’s hard to read.”
“Must run in the family,” I said, trying to lighten his mood, as I felt a flurry of sadness drift off him. It came to me in a clear ripple, unadulterated by whatever was usually going on inside him. It pleased me, to feel his emotions so definitively. He was opening up to me more as a friend.
Raffe rolled his eyes. “Speak of the devil.”
I turned to see Leonidas approaching us, his eyes narrowing once he saw us together.
“Well, well, well, I did not expect this. Although, I suppose you two would make quite the pair,” Leonidas said as he stopped in front of us. He didn’t sound too happy, and I wasn’t entirely sure what he was insinuating.
“What, you think me and Raffe are—no, you’ve got the wrong end of the stick,” I replied, flashing Raffe a wink. “I’m happily single, thank you very much.” Yep, and methinks you’re protesting way too much!
He cleared his throat. “Santana and I are the ones in a romantic… situation.”
Leonidas’s frown deepened. “What possible interest could a girl from somewhere as powerful as the Catemaco Coven have in my son?”
I half expected Raffe to lunge for his father, but he didn’t. Instead, he stayed frozen to the spot, a flood of resignation hitting me as it came off him. The realization prompted a pang of sadness to wrench at my heart. He, too, didn’t think he was good enough for Santana. His reaction gave him away. Where he should have been defiant and angry, he was quiet and stoic. Oh, Raffe, of course you’re good enough! Don’t listen to that old bastard. What does he know about it?
“Well, you’re wrong,” I said bluntly.
Leonidas looked at me in surprise. “Excuse me?”
“You’re wrong. She does, and I’ll prove it.” I searched the crowd for Santana and waved for her to come over. She frowned for a moment, before whispering something to her mother. A moment later, she appeared at my side.
“What’s up?” she asked. “Ay dios mio, it is boiling over here! Can’t they put some fans on or something? I’m melting, I’m melting!” She waved her arms, Wizard of Oz style, and collapsed into a fit of giggles. Glancing at her, she looked weirdly woozy on her feet, as if drunk. The dopey smile on her face did nothing to help her case. I hadn’t seen her drink anything, but there was no other explanation for the way she was acting.
“We were just discussing your relationship with Raffe. Leonidas here doesn’t believe the two of you could be an item, but I beg to differ.”
Santana glanced at Raffe in shock, before sidling up to him and toying with his curls. “What are we to each other, Raffe? You tell your dear old papi, but you don’t tell me? I’d love to know, because I don’t have a clue what’s going on.” She fanned her face furiously. “Jeez, it’s hot, though. Is that you, Raffe, making me all hot under the collar?” She clung to his shoulder and giggled uncontrollably.
Leonidas looked on, apparently pretty uncomfortable with the situation and Santana’s odd behavior. A sheen of sweat slicked her face, but her lips were a funny shade of blue, as if she were cold instead of boiling hot. A trickle of perspiration made its way down the side of her jaw, before dripping to the floor. Man, she really must be warm. She looks like she’s just hit the gym for an hour.
“You may have had one too many glasses of champagne, Miss Catemaco,” Leonidas said coldly. “Perhaps you should get a drink of water before you embarrass yourself entirely.”
“Me? I’m not embarrassed. I feel so good… and so hot. Ugh, so friggin’ hot.”