"What are you going to do about the shapeshifter?" he asked me.
"I have no idea. It's his turn to make a move, so I guess we'll see what he does next."
"Ooh. Update us," Kat smiled.
"Only if I can take some of your desserts home."
"They're all yours."
Kat helped me load my arms full of to-go boxes, then grabbed a few more and helped me carry them out to the passenger seat of my car.
Regardless of anything else, I wasn't alone.
sixteen
LIV
After a restless nightspent moving back and forth between my bed, my laptop, and my gym (sometimes a mixture of two at once), during which I seriously considered just agreeing to seal a bond with Niall so he would be there to keep me company, I headed over to the orchard in the morning
Gwen had texted me a diagram so I knew when each part of it would be ready for me. I was still debating if I should forgive Jonah's favor or not, but I had time to decide, so I wasn't thinking too hard about it.
The rain fell lightly as I squinted down at my phone's screen, attempting to block the drizzle with one hand while trying to orient myself to the map Gwen had sent over, so I could find the new trees.
I'd have a better idea of how long it was going to take me after I tried growing a few of them. I was seriously crossing my fingers that it would only take me a few weeks.
When I heard the crack of a tree falling, I abandoned the map I couldn't read and jogged in the direction of the noise.
It took me five minutes to find the dozen-man construction crew, and even though two of the guys looked like they'd shit themselves at the sight of me, it only took a calm man and women on the crew a few minutes to explain where they'd started removing the trees the day before. Apparently, there was another group in charge of planting new ones, too.
It took me half an hour to get to the outer edge of the orchard, where they'd started with the planting. I passed that crew on the way.
They marked the locations where they'd planted seeds with tiny flags, but I didn't think that would help me in the slightest.
After I spent a few minutes running through the sad, empty rows, I made it to the very back corner and sank to my knees next to the first seed. The dirt around it was soft and damp. It clung to my wet skin.
I pressed my hands to the ground, closed my eyes, and slowly sent a small amount of my energy toward the seed.
Targeted growth was a lot more challenging than just throwing a bolt of power at someone. It required an insane amount of focus and gave me headaches.
It had been a long time since I had tried to make one plant in specific grow to this extreme.
Guess it was targeted growth for me, too.
Yay.
It took me longer than I cared to admit, remembering what I'd been taught to do to the soil when I was a child being raised in a happy, lighthearted community of spring fae. No one had expected my parents, two of the weaker, quieter fae, to producesomeone as intensely strong as I was. They hadn't known what to do with me.
They'd raised me like all of the other spring fae with average power levels, and taught me to channel my extra energy into the land as we moved around, improving the plants everywhere we went.
While they'd done their best, and I loved them fiercely for it, I'd eventually gotten tired of the constant headaches and left in search of other people like me. Other ways to control my magic, too.
That had led to finding the other royals.
The entire community I left behind was killed by the humans, shortly after they found out about immortals. They'd hunted my people, and I hadn't been there to keep them safe.
I'd never been entirely free of the guilt that followed leaving them.
I could've protected them if I'd been there.
