Timothy’s eyes narrow at my silence.“You are, aren’t you?You know something about her.”
I hesitated, but I needed to learn more about his family.“Not her…but people like her.”I point at his arm.“Sorcerers wear the marking of a dragon.”The blue was from the Eastern Brotherhood, but there were also Southern, Northern, and Western.“If your mother had one, then she was?—”
“I have one, and I’m not a sorcerer.I don’t even know what that is.”
I tilted my head and studied him.“Are you sure you don’t know?”
His frown deepened.“In stories, they can use magic.But magic…magic isn’t real.”
“You might have said the same thing about monsters not so long ago.”
He shuddered.“No, I have feared monsters my whole life.”
I stepped closer even though I should have stayed back.“And why is that?”
He pulled his sleeve down.“It’s not right that you scare kids.”
“It’s necessary.Children can access magic—magic that sorcerers then use.If a child comes through to my world, they destroy and kill.”I glanced away, trying not to think about what it might feel like to explode into glitter.The pain would be over in an instant.Or at least I hoped it would be.
“Use it to do what?”
“Whatever they want.Some act alone and seek wealth and power, others, like the Eastern Brotherhood, work as a group to achieve something.I don’t know what your mother was working on.”
“Did monsters kill her?”His voice is little more than a whisper.
“I doubt it.What have you been told?”
“That she left…that my night terrors became too much for her.”
I closed the gap between us and grabbed his hands.“Your night terrors, your fear of monsters, is not what made her leave.The monsters were trying to protect you, to cut you off from magic.She needed you to believe, so she could use the magic you touched in my world.”
“Why couldn’t she access it herself?”
“She probably could, but touching magic and using it are two different things.Using a child as the conduit is safe.Without a conduit…” Am I telling him too much?“It is dangerous for the mind.”
I didn’t want him to think that he should start playing with magic.It was dangerous, and I didn’t want to report him.
His frown deepens.“How is scaring children protecting them?”
How do I explain it in a way he’ll understand when he doesn’t know anything about my world, and the damage children and sorcerers have done to it?My tail swished with frustration.“Fear breaks the connection.Maybe your mother left because you were no longer useful.”
“Asshole.”He throws the dildo at me, and I catch the slippery dick with one hand.
“I’m sorry she left you, and that you carry that hurt, but she is dangerous.”Timothy also looks dangerous with his lips pressed into a thin line and narrow eyes.“We keep a registry; I might be able to tell you more if you tell me her name.”
He hesitated and then shrugged.“Susanne Trapper.”
I repeated the name to make sure I wouldn’t forget.“I will try to have something for you when I return.”
Though I wasn’t sure how to fulfill that promise.
Chapter17
Farrow
I madeit to the end of my shift with no sign of magic.But Timothy’s questions bothered me because his family was mixed up in sorcery, and when he was a child, he was used for his connection, even if he doesn’t remember.
In the locker room, I’m torn between getting changed and going home and going to the library where the records are kept, but how do I explain knowing about Timothy or his mother?
