and pulling my magic back.
Panicking on what I should do, I patted myself down to find my phone, freaking I’d dropped it in Faerie. Then I remembered I’d left it in the kitchen to charge and after a few failed attempts, managed to push to my feet. I stumbled up the stairs, ignoring Darby and Mel in the kitchen, and practically tore my phone from the charger, calling who I knew I should first.
“Tamsin, it’s not a good—” Geiger greeted.
“I found someone,” I shouted. “I found someone in Faerie, Geiger, and he is pissed and scary and I don’t know what to fucking do! I just ran. I don’t know if he can come through the portal, but he was—his power is more than mine and it hurt me to do. He was disoriented and has green eyes. What the fuck do I do now?”
“I’ll call my parents,” Mel said after several moments of everyone being dead quiet to digest that.
“Yes, good,” Geiger agreed. “I will be right there with Claudia and contact Dean White, Dr. Craftsman, and Katrina Calloway. All are powerful and can help. It was probably his being disoriented and magic flaring from being unlocked from the stasis part of that magic, Tamsin. This is wonderful news, sweet child. We’ll get answers and start with new plans. I’ll be right there.”
He hung up and I blinked at the phone, not anywhere near as excited, probably still in shock. I jumped when Darby touched me, proving that I was in shock.
“I can smell the pain you’re in,” he whispered. “What can I do?”
I shook my head but then snapped out of it enough to remember I could start healing myself. “I’ve got it, thanks.”
“What do you mean she found someone?” Mr. Rothchild bellowed from Mel’s phone.
“She did, Father, and we don’t know what to do. Geiger agreed we call you, Mother, King Xavier, and Queen Sasha, but just be warned, Tamsin said the guy was disoriented and he scared her, so she ran. That is all we know.” She glanced over at me. “You said he had green eyes? Black or dark hair?”
I had to think a moment. “Yeah, I think so. The eyes were—it hurt to wake him, and I was disoriented. I just focused on his super light green eyes and everything swirling in them. Yeah, I think black hair pulled back.”
“He’s a dark fairy then. A light fairy being what he saw first might be part of his wigging out,” Mel muttered. “It’s your choice if you come, Father, but we’d like the backup, and the Vogels wanted to know immediately if anything happened.”
“Yes, we’ll be there at once. They have a dinner, but something was canceled, so they actually have the rest of the day free. I will tell them at once and portal to Tamsin’s. Thank you for calling us immediately.”
I blinked around and realized I was sitting, glancing up at Darby.
“You were shaking and your knees were buckling,” he explained.
“Right, good, good,” I whispered, wiping away tears.
“This is good news, agra. You can finally get answers and have help.”
I bobbed my head. “I was ready to give up. I was thinking of giving up on all of them. This doesn’t feel good. I worked so hard to get here, I never actually thought of what comes next.”
“Neither did I,” Mel confessed. “It seemed safer to not plan that far ahead in case things didn’t ever pan out.”
I felt loads better when she admitted that, as if I wasn’t a horrible person for not staying all bright and shiny on this.
I also felt loads better when Dean White showed up. Others already had, but I tuned them out, going right for her and shocking her as much as the others. “It hurt my arm, and he’s more powerful than me. Even with the healing runes, I can’t move it. I don’t know what happened. I think Faerie felt my desperation and I was giving up, and just pulled it all out of me but—”
“Okay, it’s okay, Tamsin,” she murmured as she hugged me. I felt her strong healing and could also think better. “It also fried out your magic. You’re okay. We can talk later about how it happened, but I think you’re right that Faerie knew there was no more time left. Where is this man?”
“Far. Really far. I’ve been making a lot of progress. I used the fairy rune to run miles to him and then far back to the bike