Chapter 26
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On a scale of shoulders to smitten…
“I’m going to blackmail Castor,” Zahra says, scrolling on my phone while sitting atop my giant teddy bear.
“Wow. This is incredible. Signal in Faerie. We all need this. Desperately. Especially Ollie and Brittny. They’ve all but fully left the human world behind, so it’s a pain to reach them.
” Her aurora eyes fix on me. “How can I blackmail your mate into getting this enchantment put on all our phones?”
Hugging a heated stuffed penguin to my stomach, I say, “I don’t think you need to blackmail him.
And it’s also not an enchantment on the phone.
He tried that first, but it didn’t work.
He’s got little crystal Wi-Fi extenders of some kind placed about.
Last night, he finally figured out how to get the signal to cling to each medium so I’d be able to watch your streams in my room instead of only on the bench by the trod. ”
Zahra lifts her attention, takes in my cage, and says, “Speaking about your…‘room’.”
For a hint of morale amidst my suffering, I say, “Yes, I know. It’s very romantic.”
The pinched concern in Zahra’s eyes almost makes me forget the dread that’s been building in my stomach ever since I took the opportunity to look up what a decidual cast is.
While Castor situated things with Zahra and made plans to head to Cael’s and find Frelsi, I scrolled through the horrors of what is due to befall me.
I am terrified.
If anything could make me hate my mother, this would be it.
Yet I still don’t. I’m angry. Furious. Afraid…
But it is so hard to hate the person I’ve spent my entire life up until now relying on.
It’s far easier to hate myself and whatever dumb luck put me in line for what I’ve learned is an unbelievably rare complication.
I’d love to hate her. I’d love to cut her out of my head completely, remove any scrap of seeing her in me. I’d love to reject her, like a soulmate, and condemn her to an indifference so visceral I forget that she even exists.
I’d love to live in a world where I am fae and have always been fae and was born from a place of origin, not the pathetic “parents” that I got. No absent father. No self-centered mother. No abuse to hang over me. No lessons better left unlearned.
I want to be free.
Free of it all.
Free of every negative thought they branded into my flesh.
Free of every question asking whether or not I’m good enough.
Free of every doubt.
Free to know I’m worthy of love.
Free…like a bird.
“Okay. I’m done oohing and ahhing having the internet in the middle of a magical faerie palace.” Zahra interrupts my thoughts, locks my phone, and sets it aside. “Apart from medical ugh, what happened between yesterday and today?”
The memories skim through my brain, chasing out my mother. Last night’s bliss settles in my chest, warm, combating the uncomfortable stir in my gut. I say, “Castor agreed to teach me magic.”
Zahra’s lips part, and she leaves my giant bear to float over my bed. “Really?”
I nod.
Her eyes narrow. “Just like that?”
I replay the more complicated course of events, then firmly decide to echo, “Just like that.”
“What an odd and out-of-character change of heart…”
I press my lips together and refuse to meet her faerie eyes. “Mmhm.”
She pokes me in the cheek. “So…if it was just like that, with no other details to share, why are you blushing?”
“Oh, no reason. Maybe I have a fever. I read how that might be a symptom.”
Sly, Zahra says, “What did you do, DaniBird?”
“How dare you accuse a sick person of misbehavior.” I whip my innocent, red, face away—then I flinch.
Zahra drops her teasing. “Are you okay?”
Swallowing hard, I lift my hand to my chest, where a steady and solid pain disconnected from me twinges. “I am… I don’t know if Castor is, though.”
Zahra arches a brow and looks me over. “You can already feel the soul bond?”
“Yeah, I’ve been practicing since I got back from Willow and Zylus’s yesterday. It’s getting easier to pick up the sensations.”
Zahra’s colorful lashes flutter. “Huh. But you’re still human.
I couldn’t feel even a whisper of that darned thing while I was still human.
” She folds her arms and drifts to the floor beside my hanging bed.
“To be fair, I also wasn’t learning magic before I was fully fae, either.
Any idea what you are yet? Must be crazy powerful. ”
“I think I’m something that has to do with fire.”
Zahra’s lips quirk. “That’s cute. Castor likes arson.”
I find a smile amid the rising anguish. “He’s really cute.”
“He’s something, that’s for sure. I’m not ready to confirm cute as the best word for it. Xios is cute. Castor is…” Her voice trails, then she snaps. “A goober.”
“A sweet, and also cute, goober.”
“He keeps you in a cage in his bedroom,” she deadpans.
To protect me at night. And he lets me out whenever I want. And, lo, the door is wide open right now. Dreamily, I croon, “For romance.”
She sighs. “You’ve really fallen all the way under his spell, haven’t you?”
If I weren’t on the precipice of agony and worried about the unsettle tripping along my mate’s soul bond, I might be so inclined to giggle.
“He makes me breakfast in bed. And it’s often shaped like little animals.
And he’s lowkey kinda hot, too. Like. Have you seen the way he ties back his sleeves when he’s cleaning?
” I melt, a bit. “He uses his teeth to tighten the knot, Zahr. His teeth.”
“Oh yeah, no, for sure. The man is super attractive. But have you met a faerie that isn’t?
I haven’t. All the fae menfolk are pretty in various ways.
I’m pretty sure the scale is just how much shoulder you want.
” She lifts her hands and wiggles the left one.
“Over here, Xios. Shoulders are purely functional and relatively broad in a graceful anime lead kinda way.” She wiggles her right hand. “This, is Pollux.”
“Oh, one hundred percent. That man is terribly large. I wouldn’t have believed he was a doctor if he hadn’t whipped out a whole hand-held ultrasound from his medical bag.
It was crazy. He just straight up materialized by Castor’s bed in a black lab coat as though it was normal, then he told me to drink some random fruity concoction that made me feel roughly fifty percent better, then he diagnosed me.
” Then, he smacked Castor upside the head and judged our blossoming romance.
“I think I have to admit it; I stan Dr. Pollux.”
Zahra stares at me, then looks toward the glass ceiling. “Right. Doctor. That’s what he is. I keep forgetting.”
“Is he not a doctor?”
“Technically he is? It’s just hard not to think of him as a mad scientist with the way that Kass so often and so casually mentions his experiments blowing up.”
“Oh.” Note to self: perhaps more caution should be exhibited prior to drinking random fruity beverages that men in black lab coats hand to me.
“The point is,” Zahra gets us back on task, “shoulder girth. They’re all hot, but how much shoulder do you want?”
I jut my lip and consider. The consideration doesn’t take long. “Castor levels of shoulder, please.”
Zahra plants her hands at her hips. “Yeah, you’re whipped.”
Sticking my nose in the air, I say, “Just like the cream Castor homemakes for my pancakes and pairs with a dozen strawberry hearts.”
Zahra snorts. “Maybe it’s a mutual whipping, then. That’s a relief. I think.”
Another twinge of pain hits me alongside another flurry of Castor’s emotions, and I try to disappear into the heat of my warm stuffed penguin.
Unfortunately, I think it’s gone too cold, if ever it was even remotely warm enough.
“Ugh,” I mutter. “I’m worried about Castor.
This was stupid. I shouldn’t have asked. ”
“Hey, don’t stress yourself out. Whatever you asked for was perfectly acceptable. What is he doing though? He didn’t tell me.”
“He didn’t?”
“Nope.” She settles herself at the foot of my bed. “He just said you were in a crisis and I needed to clear my schedule on your behalf.”
“O-oh. I’m sorry.”
She lifts a shoulder. “I would have cleared my schedule with an explanation, too. This royally sucks, Dani. I’m grateful that I can support you through it. I wish there were more I could do.”
Heat builds in my chest, and I almost thank her before I remember that she’s purple. Fae. And I shouldn’t.
She circles back. “So, what is Castor up to?”
Sinking as well as I can beneath the remaining heat dregs of my penguin, I say, “He’s looking for Frel, my dark pixie.”
Zahra’s brows shoot up. “Your dark pixie? The little wild thing I met when Castor and I dropped you both off at Willow’s earlier this week?”
“Yeah, she’s been missing since then.”
Tone lowering as her expression levels, Zahra murmurs, “Since Willow brought you to…”
I wet my lips and nod. “She got distracted in Cael’s palace, so Castor is probably with Cael…right now.”
“Oh.” Zahra grimaces, then she swears.