Chapter 20

Sebastian 

The next few days, Sebastian and Skye spend time together watching movies, reading, or just cuddling. Eventually, the day that Thomas and Ellie had planned to come and visit arrives. Sebastian goes with Skye to wait for their arrival. When they arrive, they get out of their car. Ellie goes to the back of the car and opens the door and out comes two girls.

“W…who are t…they?” Skye asks, shyly.

Ellie sighs and answers, “These are my daughters, Lily and Lilac. They were being particularly argumentative today, and so I brought them with us.” She looks apologetically towards Sebastian. “I would’ve told you if I knew that they were coming today.”

“It’s okay,” Sebastian reassures her, “Gray and Theo can play with them.”

Ellie looks stumped. “Your son is named Gray too?”

Skye gives her a confused look. “What are you talking about?”

“My oldest child’s name is Gray too.”

“O…oh, I forgot y…you h…have m…more t…than two children.”

Ellie laughs. “That’s okay, I mix up their names sometimes.”

“Er, follow me,” Sebastian says. He guides them to a building that is used for training. “This is our gym. We use it for training. I’m not exactly sure how strong it is against magic, so please try to not destroy it.”

“Okay,” Ellie says.

Sebastian sighs and turns to Thomas. “Are you staying here or do you want to come with me?”

“I’ll stay here,” he answers, “I’ll make sure she won’t cause trouble.” Sebastian nods and motions to Lily and Lilac to follow him. They leave the building.

Skye

“Thomas!” Ellie scolds him, “I don’t purposely go around causing trouble!”

“I know that!” he argues back, “I just want you to be safe, that’s all!”

She sighs and turns to find Skye. “Okay,” she says, “what spell do you want to try first?”

“I d…don’t k…know,” Skye answers, “w…which o…one i…is the e…easiest?”

“Probably wind or water spells.”

“W…wind s…spells, p…please.”

“Imagine how wind looks or sounds, perhaps thinking of how the wind is during a storm will help more, then say Zephyr’s breath!” A big gust of wind comes through the room, knocking objects over and flinging equipment around the room.

“O…okay, I’ll try.” Skye closes her eyes and imagines the wind blowing the leaves off of trees, and how loud the wind gets during storms, then she stutters out, “Z…Zephyr’s b…breath!”

A small gust of air comes from nowhere and blows a few objects in the room around. “Good job you did it!”

“I d…did i…it!”

“Do you want to try a different spell?”

Skye hesitates. “O…okay.”

“Okay, so the process is the same for every spell, just imagine whatever the spell is and then cast the spell by saying the name. For this spell I’m about to teach you, imagine water, and then say gentle ripple.” A blast of water shoots out from Ellie’s fingers and hits the wall, creating a dent. “Oops…” She turns to Skye. “He won’t be angry about that will he? I can fix it if I need to?”

“There’s spells for that?”

“Yeah, there’s spells for almost anything.”

“Er…g…gentle r…ripple.” A small stream of water comes from Skye’s fingers. She looks disappointed. “It didn’t look like yours.”

“It’s not supposed to. The more you practice the stronger your spell will become. Eventually, you’ll be able to cast spells without having to say the name.”

“R…really?” She nods and faces the wall before casting an earth spell. A spear made of the earth goes flying into the wall. “H…how long d…does it t…take to be a…able to do that?”

“It depends on the person really, it didn’t take me too long, I have a lot of excess mana.”

“S…so do I! D…does t…that m…mean i…it won’t t…take m…me long?”

“Not necessarily, like I said the more you practice the better you get.”

“O…okay! I’ll p…practice!”

Ellie nods and continues her lesson on different types of magic. After two hours, she wraps it up. “Did you have fun?” Thomas asks her.

“Yeah,” she answers, “I like Skye.”

“Erm,” Skye says, “d…do you w…want to s…stay for dinner?”

Ellie looks at her brother, her eyes pleading for him to say yes. “Okay,” he says, “it’ll be good to have a home cooked meal that isn’t made by one of us.”

“F…follow me.” She guides them back to her home. “A…Alice? A…are you h…here?”

Alice comes into the room. “Oh, Skye, you’re back!” she says.

“Were the girls good?” Ellie asks softly.

“Yes, they got along with the boys great!” Alice answers. Ellie looks relieved.

“A…are you m…making d…dinner?” Skye asks.

“Yes, it’s almost ready. The alpha should be here soon.”

“O…okay, i…is it a…alright if T…Thomas and E…Ellie e…eat with u…us?”

“Of course, I made extra just in case.”

“O…oh, thank y…you, A…Alice.”

Skye goes into the living room, where the children are. “Mama!” Gray and Theo greet her, running over to her.

“Hello, d…did you l…like playing w…with Lily and L…Lilac?”

“Yeah!”

Thomas and Ellie follow Skye into the room, and Lily and Lilac run up to them. “Mama! Uncle Thomas!” they say, excitedly.

“Hello,” Ellie says softly, “did you have fun?”

“Uh huh!” Lily answers.

“Yeah!” Lilac replies.

“Are you hungry?”

“Yeah!”

A door opens and shuts. “S…Sebby’s home,” Skye states.

“Skylar?” he calls out, “Where are you?”

“I’m in t…the l…living r…room!” He comes into the room and sees Thomas, Ellie, and the twins are still there. “Erm, I i…invited them t…to s…stay for d…dinner.”

“Oh, that’s great!”

Alice comes into the room and tells everything, “Dinner’s ready.”

They all shuffle out to the dining room, where everyone sits down. Once everyone is seated and served, they begin to eat. Ellie looks uncertainty at her food. “I…is everything o…okay, E…Ellie?”

“She’s okay,” Thomas reassures her, “she just has a hard time trusting everyone making her food besides me and our friends. It has to do with some of the torture she endured on our first case.”

“Oh, t…that’s awful.”

“It is, but we live with it.” He proceeds to show his sister that the food is safe to eat. Shortly afterwards she begins to nibble on the food.

Thomas and Sebestian begin to converse about Skye and Ellie. Skye occasionally chimes in, Ellie is so busy focusing on her food that she doesn’t seem to notice that the conversation is partly on her.

“Ellie,” Thomas asks softly, “is the food okay? You haven’t eaten much.”

Ellie jolts upward, startled by his voice. “I…it’s okay,” she says, “I’m just not very hungry.” He looks at her worriedly, but doesn’t say anything else.

When everyone has finished their food they make their way to the living room again. Thomas and Sebastian continue to talk about Skye and Ellie, Skye does her best to join the conversation. Ellie, on the other hand makes no attempt to join in on the conversation and at some point falls asleep, curled up on the couch.

After about an hour, Thomas excuses himself and his sister. “I think it’s about time we left,” he says, looking fondly at his sister.

“Alright, perhaps we can do this again sometime?” Sebastian says.

“Yeah, I’ll talk to Ellie about it when she wakes up. Er, let me give you our numbers. He writes his and Ellie’s phone numbers on a napkin and hands it to Sebastian.

“Um,” Skye whispers, “is s…she o…okay?” She looks at Ellie, seemingly concerned.

“Yeah, she’s okay. She’s just really introverted. She tends to just shut down whenever she’s had too much interaction with people.”

“O…oh.”

“Don’t worry, you didn’t do anything wrong, it’s just the way she’s always been. We’ll meet up again sometime soon.” Skye nods and Thomas gently picks his sister up before ushering Lily and Lilac out of the house.