Gwen poked Julian in a way that made him squeak as she squeezed past him into the room. “If you’re trying to glamour yourself as a door, you’re failing.”
“Ha.” Julian huffed a laugh and rolled his eyes. “I’m too stunned by this news to simply waltz into the room likesomefolk might.”
“I can be stunned and not lose my motor skills,” Gwen replied with a shrug. “Speaking of which...” She turned to me. “Exciting discoveries are being made, hmm?”
“That’s one way to put it.” I shook my head. Pushing up from the table before they could see the tears blurring my vision, I mumbled, “Excuse me for a minute.”
I took the tunnel to the library but stopped halfway to sink down against the stone wall in the darkest part where the tunnel curved. I wrapped my arms around my legs, pressing my face into them.
A light touch on my arm made me startle.
“Is everything all right?” Soren asked when I looked up.
His concern made my eyes fill up all over again, and I nodded. I didn’t want him to see me like this. “I just need a second.”
Instead of leaving, he frowned.
Despite his formal clothing and stiff posture, he maneuvered himself into a sitting position beside me. “Something upset you.”
I sighed. “It just all makes sense now.”
He leaned forward. “What makes sense?”
Swiping at one of the tears that had escaped, I sniffed. I’d never really said how I felt out loud before. It was strange to tell him. The words came slow, like they were being pulled out of me. “I never felt like I belonged anywhere, you know? And now it makes sense... because I don’t.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
I shrugged. “I might have fae blood, but I obviously would never pass for a fae and have no idea how to survive here. And now I know why I never fit in back home, because I don’t belong there either.” Aware of how pitiful I sounded, I couldn’t meet his eyes.
He didn’t let me wallow though. “Being both human and fae gives you a foothold in both worlds, Brynn.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“Quite literally impossible,” he snapped.
The harsh tone startled me into looking up.
His lowered brows and stern expression softened as he sighed and leaned back against the wall. “You have sisters, do you not?”
I frowned at the mention of Rissa and Olive, because he’d met them, so why would he ask that? “Yeah.”
“Do you believe they also do not belong?”
I saw where he was going with this. Twisting my lips, I snorted softly. But he waited for an answer, so finally, I whispered, “No.”
Olive was the queen bee in her class, and Rissa had a small but tight group of close friends.
Soren tapped one finger on his knee as he watched my face. “Since the day we met, you’ve seemed concerned with what others think of you. How do you not realize that their opinions don’t matter? That you’re perfect just the way you are?”
Swallowing, I avoided his gaze.
I couldn’t pinpoint how, but that had to be fae misdirection, because it wasn’t true.
He pushed off the wall to stand, dusting off his pants, though the stone floor wasn’t really dirty. Turning to the kitchen, he murmured, “I’ll fill them in on what we’ve learned about your family, and you can rejoin us when you’re ready.”
I nodded.
After I’d wiped my face and spent another minute drawing in one deep breath after another, I made my way back down the tunnel and slipped into the kitchen as Soren was saying, “We need Ivywren’s blood, if we have it?”
