I turned and glared at him, though a small part of my brain nagged at me. I shouldn't be mean, it said.
Too bad the bigger part of me was so angry my hands shook. "And you!" I grabbed a towel and began cleaning up the bigger pieces of the mug. It had broken into a few big pieces, so it was easy to deal with. "You, what did Cathy see?" I gave no room for him to answer before continuing. "Or should I say, what did she think she saw? Am I going crazy? Is she?"
"No," Bran said firmly. "You're not going crazy, and neither is Cathy. I promise."
Cathy. "Oh, crap." I put the towel down and ran my hand through my hair. "I need to go talk to her."
"Andromeda, wait," Bran called. I stopped short halfway out of the kitchen and whirled around. Bran's two paramedic friends stood behind him, almost protectively.
As my chest heaved with fury, all three looked a little bit like naughty boys who'd been busted for stealing cookies. "What did she see?" I growled.
Bran exchanged a look with the larger of the other two men, then stepped forward. "Come into the living room. Sit down, and we'll show you."
Magic. Magic was real. Real! And Franklin had been using it to do something to me. "Why did he want to hurt me?" I growled as I stalked into the living room.
There was no way I could sit down right now. I was too angry, too hurt, too... everything. I paced back and forth while Bran and his friends watched me.
The smaller man stepped into the kitchen and returned a few seconds later with a bottle of water, cold from my fridge. "Here," he said, holding it out to me. "You need to drink something."
I snatched it from him and downed half the bottle before coming up for air. "Thanks." That did feel better. Until the memories crowded in again and I remembered Franklin and Eldora performing their freaky magic on me. "Why?" I cried. "Why did they do that?"
Whirling around, I fixed my stare onto Bran. "Did you know? Do you know?"
He nodded slowly. "Yes, I'm the one who made sure you'd remember. They'd been layering memory spells on you for years."
"Ten," I said bitterly. "Ten years. But what was the point of giving me headaches and then making me forget that they were the cause?" Clenching my fists at my side, I paced back and forth as the men sat on the couch looking up at me with wide eyes.
"Well, first," Bran said. "Let me show you what Cathy saw."
He swallowed, then the air in front of him shimmered and he—he changed. His skin turned gray, and his ears elongated and pointed. His hair stayed close to the same, but somehow was fuller, wilder.
"Holy sh—" I cut off as the other two men changed. The big one got a little bit bigger, and his skin was a darker gray than Bran's. Almost black. He grinned at me and his bright green eyes twinkled under a short shock of blond hair that had a blue tint to it. I would've thought it was the lighting, but no. It was definitely slightly blue.
In contrast, the smaller one seemed to shrink a bit more. The reason for his limp became obvious. One of his feet twisted inward. His hair was as dark as Bran's was light, but also long and even springier, like a lion’s mane. He had blue eyes the color of the sea. His features didn't change that much. He was still beautiful, like a classic painting.
They were gorgeous, all three of them, with a wild vitality that drew me. "How?"
Their transformation had taken all of the wind out of my sails. They were monsters, just as Cathy had said. All three of them. There was no other word for it. Monsters.
"We're goblins."
Or there was another word, okay. Goblins. "H—How?" I asked again, sinking into my recliner, though I stayed on the edge. Not because I was scared. Somehow I knew these men wouldn't hurt me.
"That's a long story," Bran said through his plump lips and sharp teeth. Holy guacamole, those teeth looked deadly. "We can resume the glamour if that helps?"
I shook my head. "No. No more lies. I want to know everything."
Bran nodded and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "Andromeda, we need your help. And I believe we can help you."
"What was Franklin doing to me?" I asked. "Let's start there."
Bran sighed. "Franklin and the other woman you mentioned were stealing your magic."
My magic. This was going to be good. "Elaborate?"
"You have some of the strongest magic I've felt since arriving on Gaius."
Arriving on Gaius. I set aside the fact that he'd said I have magic for a second and blinked at him. "You're not from Earth? Is that what you mean by Gaius?" I asked, feeling a bit like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole.
