“So, make something up,” Celix said. “I don’t have wings and have never gone through this, but if it helps you to think of putting them somewhere, then make something up. That should work, right?”
“Yeah, it should,” Kujo said. “Magic is about intention. If that’s what Sydney needs, then it should work.”
I needed a Bat Cave. But not the Bat Caves from the latest two thousand reboots. The fun Bat Caves when the bat suit had nipples or back in the spandex days when I’d watch reruns with Mom.
Huh. Foronce,my magic cooperated. I had my Bat Cave and a case for my wings. I pictured my wings there, and they justdisappeared.Nothing exploded and Kujo didn’t go flying across the room.
“Ha! Who’s your momma?”
“Not so fast, lil momma. Can you take them back out again?” Kujo asked.
I squared my shoulders. I could do this. I could controloneaspect of all this new magic flooding into my veins. I just needed to fetch my wings from the pretty glass case I left them in. I felt a tingling on my shoulder blades and then the additional weight as my wings appeared.
I grinned and put them away again. I couldn’t control that Lucifer was my father or that he’d been kidnapped before I was born. There wasn’t much I could do about the fact that the majority of his family was a bunch of nards.
But if I could control my wings, then eventually, I could control my volatile magic.
She was so adorable. Sydney was so happy with just putting her wings away and taking them back out again. I couldn’t wait to teach her to use them, but we were a ways away from that. They were here and no longer fragile, but she was going to have to exercise them before they were strong enough to carry her in the air.
There were other things we needed to worry about in the mean time. Wrathhog needed to teach her to control both reading thoughts and having her mind read. She was also helpingusprevent our minds from being read.
Which was important. Sydney could lock someone out of the secret passages at Lucifer’s now that she had magic and we could only discuss any developments around each other, but theFallen kept showing up uninvited. They didn’thaveto creep around dusty passageways when they could creep around in our thoughts.
Which Wrathhog obviously knew because she went straight to mind reading.
“So, what we did before is helping. If I try to read your thoughts, I can hear them, but they are muddled. I have to try harder. That goes for all of you. It’s a good thing. It’s going to be easier for me to teach you to block your thoughts from others than it’s going to be to teach Sydney to only hear thoughts when she wants to.”
“I don’t think I’m ever going to want to. There are some things you shouldneverlie about, but if someone asks your opinion about something harmless and giving your truth is going to cause harm, then I think it’s okay. You should be able to let someone think you like an outfit or haircuttheyclearly like without your thoughts betraying you. No one should have to hear it if someone is thinking nasty thoughts about their body.”
“Good answer. Every time I’ve had a little listen once I could control it, I regretted it. I’d say you should practice on these three since they are attached to you at the hip, but listening in when you’re starting a relationship with someone is instant death.”
Kujo visibly paled, but he couldn’t hide from me. I was picking up lust from himwaybefore she saved his life and exploded his entire family. He was fully on board the Sydney train now but was really shitty about talking about his feelings.
I had nothing to hide. I thought she was beautiful and perfect. I had no problem telling her or anyone else that either. The only time I had negative thoughts about her weren’t even about her. It was aboutmefucking this up.
“Ew, with a side of ketchup. You can love someone and be annoyed with a one time minor thing. No one needs to hear your thoughts about that.”
“I’m not talking about what. I’m the daughter of a Prince of Hell, but you’re the child of theKingof Hell. People will fake feelings for you to get close to you. It’s pretty devastating when you’ve caught feelings for someone and they are faking it.”
Except I wasn’t. Celix wasn’t either. The only person faking it was Kujo, and that was only because he was pretending he didn’t like her. I had no problem tattooing that on my ass.
“I get where that would suck, but I trust these guys. I don’t need to peek. I could see where itcouldbe useful for people I don’t trust. Right now, I can’t keep anything out, but I also can’t filter it, so it’s like being in the audience before a concert.”
Kujo looked less like he was about to poop his pants, but honestly, he should just say something. It was unbecoming of a half Fury to be afraid of some feelings.
We started with mental shields again because all of us being able to block our thoughts was paramount. For something so complicated, the process was pretty simple.
I was pretty sure no one was working as hard at this as Kujo and it had nothing to do with the fact that we didn’t need whoever took Lucifer reading his thoughts and figuring out he had another vision.
Iwanted to be Wrathhog when I grew up. She was a celebrity in Hell, but rad as shit. She was also an amazing teacher and endlessly patient. If I mouthed off, she mouthed off right back like a pro. It was nice having cousins. I hadn’t met the rest of my cousins, but this one was cool.
I could literally tell as her lessons were paying off because it didn’t sound like Kujo, Nero, and Celix were screaming in my head all at once. It would take time for me to learn to filter and then block the thoughts of anyone who didn’t have a working mental shield.
“That’s enough for now. You’ll get a headache if we keep going.”
“I want to keep going,” Kujo said.
What was that nard hiding and why did I think it was from me? Kujo was about the only one I wouldn’t mind peeping on and that was only because he’d gone from being a raging dick to nice to me. What was up with that? Then again, I probablyreallydidn’t want to know what that was all about.
