“That’s enough until dinner,” Delmare told Stefan. “You’ve already had five.”
“I feel like dragons eat a lot,” I said. Ethan could really devour his meal, but Stefan always seemed to consume more than him by at least half.
“There was a serial killer who was a dragon that the police couldn’t identify,” Stefan informed us. “He never got caught because he ate the bodies of his victims whole as a dragon, then changed back into a person so he could flee the scene. He’d have never gotten caught if he didn’t turn himself in.”
I shuddered at the thought of a dragon shifter devouring people whole. “How can all of you eat so much in your shifter forms, then be fine when you change back into people? How does your stomach not explode? Does the food condense or something?” I asked.
“I don’t know how it works. Magic, I guess.”Stefan flicked his tail.
Delmare picked up a giant toothbrush, and nearly fell over. She carefully began brushing Stefan’s fangs, until they began to glisten.
“There’s a lot we still don’t know about shifter physiology, but we assume what we don’t know has to relate to illusion magic,” Ethan said. “We create our own reality, after all.”
Odette had moved on to braiding Theo’s mane. Theo’s bottom lip was hanging open as he slowly fell asleep. Odette poked it, but he didn’t wake up.
Finlay’s bath was done with. He moved into a stall, so Amantha could blow-dry his hair. Ethan and I headed to the yoga mats. He laid down on his back, and I began stretching out his legs, moving them in circles so he could have ample use of all his limbs.
“This feels much better,” Ethan said. “They have been stiff for awhile.”
“All those runs Professor Conri has us doing,” Finlay called out, and Ethan growled in agreement.
Arthur and Vara moved across from us, so they could do the same thing. Vara began massaging Arthur’s back, and he lunged into a stretch. “Doing okay, Emma?”
Why did everyone keep asking me that? Was it that obvious I was dying inside? “I guess.” My knee was starting to bother me, so I brought out my wings. I hovered above Ethan, pulling out his leg so I could stretch it to the fullest capability. He moaned in relief.
“You don’t have to lie. You can be honest,” Arthur said.
“If I was honest, it would disturb you to know how much this hurts. And I don’t want to burden anyone,” I said.
“It is hard, letting go of something you love,” Vara said. “But one thing to know is, something else will always come along to replace it.”
“I don’t want anything else to replace skating,” I confessed. I tried focusing on massaging Ethan’s hip instead of the awful feelings tumbling inside.
“No. But you will find another great love,” Vara said. “When one path ends, another begins. You aren’t just one thing. You’re a combination of many things, all little pieces that make yourself whole. If one piece vanishes, you don’t cease to be yourself. A different piece will enter in, to fill it. But you are alwaysyou. Emma. You don’t need to do or become anything more than that.”
Her words brought me a small sense of comfort, even if they did feel like a lecture right now. Skating had been my identity for such a long time. I had other parts of myself to lean on— the fae, the sorceress, being Ethan’s mate— but none of them could compare to what had been my world for so long. Maybe I didn’t know how to live without skating because I couldn’t remember a time when I had.
“I just wish I had a clear road ahead. I feel so purposeless.”
It was a strange way to feel— I was the Worldweaver. I had a destiny. But that wasn’t something I’d chosen for myself, but something that was forced upon me. Like skating, I wanted something that was wholly and truly mine. Something I didn’t have to share with Ethan, my friends, the fae world, or anyone else. Skating was like that for me, a piece of my old life that I’d been able to bring into this one. When people asked me what I was, the answer was always that I was a skater. What did I tell them now?
“Your purpose is who you are and what you choose to do, nothing less,” Vara said. “This notion that you have to be more is a fantasy. You are not your career, your destiny. You are simply... you.”
“This is why I love Vara. She can always deliver a good reality check,” Arthur said to me.
“Perhaps now isn’t the time,” Ethan growled, like he could sense I wasn’t ready for this. But I scratched his ears again, and he became quiet.
“We are reborn time and time again in our lives. We all go through phases of finding ourselves, before we lose ourselves once more. This is just another cycle of rebirth for you,” Vara said. “But it will pass, Emma. Trust me. And when it does, you’ll be happier than you ever have been. Even without what you lost.”
I wanted to ask Vara who made her the authority on these things— how she could know, how she couldpromiseme this pain would end?
But before I could, Finlay stepped out of his stall, his fur nearly dry, and said, “I’m starving. Why don’t we go out for a bite down at The Drunken Dragon?”
“Ugh. Just drinks for me,” Theo moaned.“I ate too many oats.”
“Itoldyou!” Odette scolded, shaking her finger.
We usually went to my mom’s restaurant to eat, but the last thing I wanted was her fussing over me— she was making the loss of my skating career a bigger deal than I wanted it to be, like it had happened to her personally. It was far from helpful. Going to the bar was much more inviting.
