It took me a minute, but then… “Did youweaponizethe weather?”
“I didn’t do it first,” he snapped, like that somehow mattered.
I wasn’t going to say it out loud, but there were times when I could understand why their father had locked these little idiots in separate corners of their world. Brutal and extreme, sure, but time apart didn’t seem completely wrong.
Flurry was giving me a look that seemed to be telling me to shut up. I grinned at him, loving him a little more because he knew me so well.
Loving him…
Oh, my god.
I cupped his face in my hands and made him look up at me. “I know I said you don’t have to say it, but now I think maybe you do.”
He blinked at me, his eyes so big and blue. “Say what?”
“I love you.”
I felt him shiver, and then he took my hands and held on tight.
“I love you, too.”
The ground beneath our feet shook like an earthquake. We both turned to stare at the barrier as shards fell from it like giant pieces of glass. As the graduating class ran around avoiding the shards while also trying to touch them, I refocused on Flurry.
“Will that happen every time?” he asked with clear concern.
I shrugged. “Maybe if you say it enough times, you’ll shake the whole barrier down.”
Instead of laughing at all, he put his hands on his hips and stared at Spring. “Hydris had better be required to do his part. It shouldn’t all be on me.” He gestured in the opposite direction. “Solaris, too. And Incendis most of all. That shithead has always?—”
I covered Flurry’s mouth and pulled him into a hug. “Easy there, babe. Let’s not try torebuildthe barrier, okay?”
He grumbled behind my hand before looking up at me, rolling his eyes, and sighing. I moved my hand away only for both of us to jump when someone sobbed.
I turned to find Giselle smiling while also crying into a hanky. She was smacking her husband’s chest, too, before holding out her hand like she wanted him to put something in it.
He clicked his tongue at her and pushed her handaway. “Yes, yes, you’ve won again, but I don’t have any money with me at the moment.”
I snorted a laugh, realizing she’d won another bet and wanted him to pay up. “Love?” I asked her.
She nodded, looking all red and puffy but very happy.
“Wait,” Flurry said. “I had to fall in love?”
I gave Flurry a squeeze. “I think there might’ve been a lot of things that needed to change before the curse would start to break.” I smiled a little, hoping he didn’t take offense.
But he sighed and nodded instead. “I am not the same as I was.”
“You’re better.”
He looked up at me and blushed. The ground shook again, and while I chuckled, he flew up high enough to look down at me. “I don’t want it to do that every time!”
Every time he looked at me with love in his heart. I couldn’t agree with him because my whole body went all mushy for him. I knew the grin on my face was love-struck goofy but I couldn’t help it.
Flurry chuckled like he thought I was ridiculous but he wrapped his arms around my shoulders and his wings vanished, letting me hold him, so I didn’t mind.
“Oh, look,” Badru said, “people!”
I turned to see several people on the Spring side walking over to the barrier. I couldn’t be sure, but they might’ve been some of the same folks who’d been there when I went into the lake. Setting Flurry down, I held his hand and walked closer. There was a missing shard of the barrier about twenty feet up that might let them hear me.
