Another groan. “Don’t remind me. And that’s what they were, then? Some sort of fae?”
Callum nods. “The Fair folk come in all shapes and sizes. Most fairly monstrous.”
After only having taken a brief foray into Faerie, I’m inclined to believe him.
“And I think you could have held your own with Esme, too,” he continues, more quietly. “Had she not taken the opportunity to flex her power against someone who was already injured.”
It feels like praise I haven’t earned, especially not after what a nightmare I’ve been toward him since the moment we met, but I find myself warmed by it, anyway.
He almost sounds… impressed.
Like even though he saw me at arguably the lowest and most vulnerable I’ve ever been today, he still sees something he admires.
“That was… not my finest moment,” I admit.
“It was notherfinest moment,” Callum insists. “No matter the nature of your past conflict, she handled it badly. And your sister should have—”
“Soleil did her best.”
Callum falls silent, shifting a bit uncomfortably.
“I know it’s probably hard to understand,” I explain, torn between the dual impulses to soothe over any discomfort he might feel for overstepping, and—inexplicably—to defend mysister. “But all of this is… complicated. Beyond complicated, really.”
“I think I can keep up, if you’d like to share.”
Would I like to share?
Have I ever shared?
The answer to both questions is probably no, but I’m having a hard time remembering why I shouldn’t.
Besides, maybe I owe him this. He put up with a hell of a lot today without blinking an eye. He could have left me the moment we got to the coven hall. He could have wiped his hands clean of me and gotten out of all that mess.
So maybe he deserves to know at least a little about what happened and why.
And maybe some part of me wants to tell him.
“I left the coven when I was eighteen.”
“And you never went back?”
He asks the question innocently, earnestly, and there’s no way he can know how deeply it cuts. There’s no way he can know how much shame it dredges up even now.
I’ve been away from the coven for almost a decade.
I’ve got my own life, my own priorities. I’ve never seriously regretted my choice to leave.
But somewhere inside me is still the young witch being told by the High Priestess that shesawsomething in me, that I was special, that the Goddess had seen fit to give me a gift that was now my responsibility to put to work for the good of the coven.
Even after all this time, it’s hard to remember I never owed them anything.
It’s hard not to feel the weight of the shame of walking away, of abandoning that responsibility, even though the grown-up, rational side of my brain knows it was never my burden to bear.
“No. I never went back.”
“But you miss it still.”
It’s not a question, the way he says it. It’s quiet and firm and absolute. Simple. Like the acknowledgment costs nothing and doesn’t cut all the way down to some soul-deep wound I’d rather bury and never face.
