Chapter 2

Gemma wasn’t sure what she should handle first.

The goat was here, and she could easily focus on that instead of the idea of a baby, but the baby felt more important. Humans didn’t like it when their children vanished and someone would likely be looking for a baby human more than a baby goat.

She pinched the bridge of her nose.

Barker stared up at her, eyes wide and twinkling. The goat belated several more times, sniffed at her shoe, and then turned away, unbothered by everything that had happened. She stared down at it, wondering if perhaps it was some figment of her imagination.

It bleated again.

“I will deal with this in a moment,” she said slowly, turning away from the scene. “Willow?”

“Yes?” Willow replied. “We’re right on track to finish, don’t you worry.”

Gemma turned to the Recovery team. “I’d like you to leave me alone with the three of them. I’d also like you to keep this to yourselves for the time being. I’ll fill out the necessary reports.”

The team looked at each other. She knew she was technically asking them to break the regulations. Every report had to include any and all anomalies. A goat– and a baby– would certainly qualify as an anomaly, but a report could cause an enormous amount of problems, not just for the sprites but for Gemma as well.

She needed more information before she acted.

“Alright,” their leader said. “It’s your job anyway. You’re the boss.”

Teach said nothing, only continued to mop furiously at the already spotless floor.

“Maybe you thought you saw a baby,” Willow said quickly, hurrying over to Willow. She put a hand on his shoulder, her grip so tight it seemed to almost crack the stone of Willow’s skin. “But really you didn’t see anything at all.”

“Then maybe it’s not really a goat at all,” Barker replied.

“Both of you, stop that,” Gemma ordered. The retrieval team was departing from a newly opened portal, leaving her alone with the three sprites.

Willow and Barker immediately fell silent at the bite in Gemma’s words.

She folded her hands behind her back, puffed up her chest, and tried to look like she was totally calm about the situation. While there were always complications in this line of work– nothing was ever easy– this was the biggest complication she’d ever faced. Gemma didn’t even know how to begin imagining how much paperwork this would need.

Willow would lose her job, that was a given. The other two might as well, as they were accomplices and hadn’t reported her immediately. Was there even a protocol for this? When was the last time someone had done something so insanely dangerous?

“Does the baby exist?” Gemma asked. She resisted the urge to pull the puffball off her pen and chuck it across the room. That was unbecoming behavior for a professional and she was, at her heart, a professional.

“Well. In theory,” Willow said.

“Let me see it.”

Either Gemma’s tone was too stern to ignore or Willow finally realized the severity of the situation, because though she grumbled a bit, she opened up the big drawer at the bottom of the cleaning cart and sure enough, there was a baby swaddled there.

To Willow’s credit, the baby looked pretty comfortable. It was certainly sleeping better than Gemma usually did. It had a tuft of black hair on its head and one little fist curled up on it’s chest.

“What is it?” Gemma asked.

“A baby,” Barker informed her, matter of factly.

Gemma heaved a sigh. “I’m aware. Is it a girl or what?”

“Ohhhh,” Willow said. “A girl.”

She carefully removed the baby from the drawer, though the bundle was almost as big as she was. The baby opened her eyes and looked around thoughtfully.

“Hand her over,” Gemma held out her arms. She was not overly fond of babies, but one of her colleagues, a bright and bubbly Faerie, had had a baby a few years ago, so she was at least aware of them in passing. Human babies were different from Faerie babies however. They required much more care. Also they were a lot bigger.

Willow hesitated.

“I’m giving you an order,” Gemma said, keeping her arms extended. “Let me see the baby. I want to ensure that she is unharmed.”

While the Bureau really didn’t intervene with human affairs, there were occasionally survivors and those survivors had to be dealt with accordingly. Mostly it involved a few memory erasure spells, and perhaps a very strong suggestion that they change their life for the better.

The baby had on a little pink outfit, but there were no identifying markers. Didn’t humans label their babies like their pets? Would there be a number to call if they were lost? Gemma didn’t see anything like that.

“So can I keep the goat?” Barker asked.

“Hush!” Willow hissed in response.

Gemma held the baby at arm’s length and examined it.

“I found her downstairs,” Willow began.

“We portaled wrong,” Barker added.

“Because we were too early,” Teach said, which was the first thing she’d said the entire time. The sprites must have realized how serious the situation was if she was getting involved.

“And she was down there,” Willow continued, as if no one else had said anything. “Her parents must have been one of them.”

Them of course, referred to the fourteen dead bodies. Gemma didn’t know why anyone, even a reckless and frankly stupid human, would bring a baby to a summoning, but humans did plenty that Gemma didn’t understand. They were always getting involved in things they shouldn’t have even considered.

Unless, of course, the baby was required. Gemma tried not to imagine that. Not much really bothered her, but the idea of a baby potentially being used in a summoning ritual did make her stomach turn.

“That doesn’t mean she belongs to you,” Gemma said. “Can’t you leave these things at human places of worship or something? I don’t know enough about human culture.”

And she didn’t want to know. That was why she enjoyed staying in the Void and didn’t try to blend in with the humans like plenty of other being did.

“Well I found her,” Willow put her hands on her hips, the sound of rock scraping against rock echoed around the room. “By all rights she’s mine.”

“What do you know about looking after human babies? You can’t even look after yourself. You are not allowed to bring living beings through the Void. You know that. I’ve told it to you. Many people have told it to you,” Gemma said, measuring out each word carefully.

It was easy to upset Willow and she didn’t really want to do that. At her heart, Willow was good, but she was still quite frustrating and whether or not she was good didn’t matter. There were rules for a reason.

“What happens to her if I leave her? Humans can’t defend themselves at this age.”

“Are you an expert in humans now?” Gemma raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps you should consider a new job if this is the case.”

Humans were not allowed in the Void for good reason. Not only was it dangerous for non-magical beings, but there were huge, ancient beings that didn’t even view humans as worth their time. It was far too dangerous. And Willow was right, this human was far too young to fend for itself.

“Gemmmmmmaaaaaa,” Willow whined.

“My stance and the stance of the Bureau is clear,” she replied. She was not going to be deterred by whining. If she wanted to hear it, she’d have children of her own. And it wasn’t going to work. “I’m saving you from a lot of trouble Willow, you should be thanking me. Take that baby and put it somewhere else. I don’t know. Find an adult human dwelling. They’ll know what to do.”

Everybody in the room knew that Willow was not capable of producing tears as there was no water in her body to do so. That didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try.

Something fluttered in Gemma’s heart. She wasn’t going to break the rules, that was true, but it seemed that the baby was an orphan now, that she would never truly know what happened to her parents.

Gemma understood that all too well.

But she shook that away. She was working, which meant there was no room for personal conflict.

“Did you name it?” Breach asked.

“The baby does not require a name,” Gemma said firmly. She returned the baby to the drawer, though that upset her quite a lot. A shrill cry pierced the air.

“I did name her,” Willow informed them all, puffing up her chest as if she were the proud parent of the bouncing baby girl. “I named her-”

Gemma held up a hand. “I don’t want to know. You need to deal with this and you need to deal with it quickly. Can you do that?”

“Lysandra,” Willo said. “That’s what I named her. I thought it was a nice name.”

It sounded a bit like a name a human would give some sort of demon, but Gemma didn’t care to argue about it right now. Whatever she wanted to call the baby didn’t matter because Willow was not keeping her, and would therefore never need to use it.

“Do not bring either of those things into the Void,” Gemma said. She pointed at the goat and then the baby, who was still wailing. None of the sprites seemed to know how to comfort her. “It’s dangerous. It’s more dangerous than you seem to understand.”

That would be the end of that, Gemma thought to herself. Willow wasn’t foolish enough to refuse a direct order.

Hopefully.