Reaching Answers (Artemis University #8) - Erin R Flynn Page 0,69
expected it.
Kind of like I expected him to say and do a lot when I was at school keeping up public appearances. I didn’t really care. I focused on the five fairies and everything we’d been working on.
And Cluym was right… It didn’t matter one bit to me that they were dark fairies.
We were all just fucking people and we all needed to remember that more often.
15
When I arrived at school tired and drained, I was eternally grateful that Izzy had handled getting my books and even unpacking my room. She simply gave me a hug and told me she was proud of me. It might have seemed silly but it meant a lot. I think she saw something in my aura I needed to talk about.
So I did. I told her what they’d tried to tell me about my mother.
“Why don’t—you stopped telling me stuff, Tams,” she rasped. “Do you think I’ll bail like Mel?”
“No, it never crossed my mind,” I promised, giving a guilty look at her covered wrist. The one that had the magical tat that locked her mind with my secrets. “I hate to hurt you when I update that thing. It hurts you, Izzy.”
“You idiot,” she sighed and then shocked the shit out of me by smacking me several times. “You’ve been hurting me by not talking to me anymore. I thought I’ve been… We can’t not talk. We’re family now. You promised we were. You’re all I have now too, Tams. I don’t care if they call you as theirs. I did first. I called you like shotgun and licked you like the cookies I want later.”
I couldn’t even hide my shock at her outburst. The second I recovered, I pulled her in my arms, hugging her as she broke down crying. “We’re family, Izzy. I don’t care what they say I am. You can be my witchy advisor or—we’ll figure out something. We ride or die in this family. That doesn’t change because—it’s not fucking changing, just like they’re not getting me to stop cussing.”
She laughed even as she cried. Yeah, there was no chance of that and the fairies kept being shocked at my potty mouth.
They could fucking stuff it. They were just words, and people took it all way too seriously sometimes.
“I’m sorry I didn’t think to ask you how you’re doing with this,” I whispered, disappointed in myself.
“You’ve been drowning, Tams,” she forgave. “I didn’t mean to let it all out like that. I—things have been scary for me too.”
“No, we should check in more. I just…” There was no good way to say I hurt so much that I hadn’t been able to see or worry about anyone else really.
She leaned away and tucked my hair behind my ear. “You’re just like every other fairy, Tams.” She shook her head when I went to argue. “You were locked in the darkness too. It might not have been the same stuff they were, but you were too. Just think about what I’m saying, okay? Give yourself a break and hear one of us that you’re a superhero to us.”
“I’m not. I’m not enough for what they all need.”
“You’re more than what all of us deserve.” She leaned in and kissed my forehead. “You were stuck in the darkness, but refused to be trapped in it like they all were. You were too strong to be trapped in it. You fought not only what you were stuck in, but to free all of us who were too. If that doesn’t make you a super, super-sized hero, then there’s no such thing.”
“Thanks, Izzy,” I whispered, touched beyond words because I knew she meant it.
“That’s what I’m here for.” She rolled up her sleeve and offered me her wrist. “Update me and there’s a message for you on your bed that you need to handle. You got this.”
I nodded, thinking she meant the strength to do something that hurt her, but she meant the message. It was from Craftsman saying he got an aura muting charm from Calloway that she charged to my account because I would kick her if I let him pay for something so expensive. So he was warning me about that.
And delicately letting me know we didn’t have to use the mistress charm. Except an aura muting charm would still get him busted as there were people who watched him. People would notice him suddenly wearing one and would want to know why.