“Yes, take it outside if you must brawl,” Balar agreed.
“No,nobrawling at all!”
A disappointed chorus shook the rafters, and the scene quickly devolved into laughter and arguing. Fruit mash wasnearly thrown, and a bit ended up in a few manes, but Imogen managed to salvage most of it and get it into the jars.
Soren slid to stand beside her, happy to return to his place of silent observer. Imogen threw him a grateful grin as she washed and he dried, all to the tune of four hungry, irate mantii finding anything to argue about.
He appreciated Imogen’s quiet strength. They understood each other, Soren and Imogen, and it was why he’d been able to speak with her more than even his brothers. He also appreciated her candor over Maeve Brádaigh.
If my kigara had been like Imogen, maybe, maybe…
But the goddess had never been kind to Soren—he could hardly expect her to start now.
5
After insisting the molting season must be going long and urging Sorcha not to speak of it, Maeve had half-convinced herself that the feather didn’t matter. For three nights, she went to sleep staring at that magnificent feather, laid upon the top of her chest of drawers, and for three mornings woke to the same sight.
By the fourth, she was convinced that this Mister Soren was clearly avoiding her.
There were signs of his presence at the school. Briseis commented on the third day that the tasks she’d asked him to do had been completed, although she too hadn’t seen him sincethat day.
Maeve smiled through her disquiet. “He’ll come back to us when he’s ready,” was what she told Briseis, and, “Sometimes feathered beings lose one here and there, it’s nothing to be concerned about,” was what she told her students.
She wasn’t sure at first she’d convinced them, especially when several pairs of eyes cut to Kiri for confirmation.
Clapping her hands, she redirected their focus to the multiplication tables they were learning. Poor Kiri—it wasn’t his fault that his brother had made a spectacle of himself.
She told herself not to care, not to mind the looks, and eventually, as they neared a week without hide nor hair of the missing manticore, the students at least seemed to forget. It was why she loved children and working with them.
Children didn’t care who you were. They didn’t care about your past or what you may have done. Their joy was boundless, their forgiveness vast. Maeve certainly had many things to figure out still—what she would do with herself in both the near and far future, where she fit now within her own family—but at the school, even full of feathers and green faces, she felt right at home.
The children welcomed her, and that was enough for Maeve.
And so, as the eighth day dawned, Maeve skipped down the stairs, lighter for having given up her worries about all this feather nonsense. If it meant something, surely Mister Soren would’ve said by now. Maybe he was shy. Maybe he didn’t like her—in which case, good riddance. She’d no time for people with poor taste.
“You’re bright and cheery today,” her mother noted as Maeve ate her breakfast quickly.
“It’s a beautiful day,” Maeve sing-songed.
“Did something good happen?” asked Blaire over her own bowl.
Maeve’s smile turned brittle, but it held. No, nothing good had happened for Maeve in quite some time. She’d just chosen not to care this morning.
“Can your company not be enough?”
Blaire’s lips thinned, her gaze falling to her breakfast.
Maeve’s smile fell with it.
Their mother patted her shoulder. “Don’t tease,” Aoife chided.
I wasn’t teasing.At least, she hadn’t meant to. Not really.
She didn’t mind Blaire’s company—her younger sister wasthe dreamy sort, her soul full of poetry and color and romantic ideas. Blaire could wile away a whole day staring at a flower or following a bee. It meant she was a fairly quiet type, which suited Maeve just fine.
She’s always been sensitive.Any little thing could hurt Blaire’s feelings—it was exhausting. Maeve didn’t usually watch her tongue. What others might take for teasing, Maeve considered honesty. She didn’t lie, even if she delivered something with batted eyelashes. It was taking time and effort to remember that she couldn’t just sayanythingto Blaire.
Breakfast was finished in silence until Maeve bid her mother and sister farewell.
