Drone

XI

XI

Early the next morning found Wasp in his private study, pouring over his books in his pajamas. The sun was barely up, certainly no one else from the party last night was. His people had either returned to their own homes or gone to sleep in one of the many guest rooms of the palace. Some had even just passed out on the various sofas and couches scattered throughout. Most likely they would all enjoy breakfast at his table before going back home.

If he knew Jean at all, she would be eager to begin building her own place. She had a vast amount of energy and had received tips and suggestions from the other workers on the design of her house last night. If she didn't have at least a basic idea of what she wanted when she woke up, Wasp would be surprised.

Though he wasn't expecting that for hours yet. She hadn't gone to bed until very early.

Wasp himself had retired not long after Phoebe. He had been to far too many of these parties to want to stay until the sun rose again. Besides, he had wanted to get up early for this.

His workroom was magically sealed so that no one but him could enter it, he had complete privacy. Like the rest of his palace, he had gone just a bit over the top in decorating the room.

It was large, easily the size of a middle class home, with two stories of books on every wall. In the center of the room burned a smokeless fire pit. The flames were always the same blue-green of his power and they rose halfway to the ceiling illuminating the entire room with an impossibly white light.

There was no carpeting or tile here, instead the floor was covered in a thick, dark green moss. The moss, and the earth it was anchored to, absorbed his power better than regular flooring. It was useful when he was experimenting with energy.

Hanging down from the ceiling, glittering from the light of his fire, were diamonds. They came in all sizes; no smaller than his fist and no bigger than his torso. They cast rainbows onto the ceiling. They too, were good for absorbing his power if he lost control of it. The moss, the dirt, and the diamonds were all parts of the earth. Earth itself was the greatest source of all energy and the equalizer of any that was manipulated by mages. Surrounding himself like he did with these things kept warps from his study.

The books on the bookshelves were his personal collection of diaries, journals, and manuscripts from various mages throughout the centuries. Most of them were handwritten. The others were from modern mages with access to computers. Almost everything ever known by mages were in those books.

Which was why Wasp was summoning them down from their shelves and looking through them.

During Jean's ceremony he had very nearly lost control. He had felt on the verge of losing everything. Jean hadn't been in any danger at all. It was Wasp and his hive that had been in danger. Binding to Jean's energy had been like reaching into a sinkhole. It just dipped into her, absorbing his power. It was the first time he had ever come close to severing the connection to his hive in order to protect them.

Jean hadn't realized she was doing it. She didn't even know anything strange had happened. It was only Wasp himself and the others around him who had sensed any danger.

It wasn't the first time he had encountered this either. Phoebe had done nearly the same thing to the mage lock on her door at Second Point. Going back to the door, there had been no trace of the spell he had cast at all. It was like it had never happened. Which meant that, whatever it was that Jean and Phoebe could do, it was genetic.

They were natural vacuums. They absorbed energy without even knowing they did it. It wasn't even that they could manipulate it. They just absorbed it into themselves. The reason Jean was such a vast well of energy was that she had been absorbing it her entire life without even knowing it.