“Zahra streams tonight.”
“She can cancel it.”
“I would never ask her to do something like that.”
I hum, bending to kiss my love’s forehead. “I know, sweet girl.Youwouldn’t. ButImost certainly would.”
Chapter 26
~~~~~~~~~~~~
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.EspeciallyOllie 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 adecidual castis. 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 medicalugh, 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…”
