Page 77 of Knowing Trust

“No, I’m like this because I made a vow and my honor was kept,” she whispered. “Don’t take that from me, Tamsin.” She looked up at me with tears flowing out of her eyes. “Not when I’ve lost my ability to fly and have nothing left. Don’t take that from me.”

I worried when she broke down crying, sending a pulse of magic that I hoped the healers would feel. Sure enough, two came jogging into the room.

“She’s too low on the tank of energy,” one of the healers immediately told me, explaining her crying.

“Can I give her some?” I checked, glad when he nodded, so I gave Stefanie the amount the healer said I could. “She’ll need to start eating?” After they confirmed that, I told them to go ahead.

My magic reached more than the healers, and I saw several captains and lieutenants who had trained directly under her standing off to the side. I went to my bag and pulled out one of my credit cards, going right for Kerym since I recognized him.

“I know it’s midnight here, but it’s earlier in Vegas and that potato place is there and she loves that,” I told him, giving him my card. “Find her apple pie. Good stuff, not store-bought. That place in LA—I forgot. Rafe will know. He hit it up with Darby. Then switch to real Japanese food. It’s like noon or one there.

“She loves omurice, the omelet over rice thing. And she likes soba way more than ramen. Get her fresh soba from little hole-in-the-wall places. Oh, the mochi over fruit. I forgot what it’s called. She loves that stuff. Whatever else the healers say she needs, but get her food she’ll want to eat. Donuts. All the donuts.”

He took the card and moved his hand over mine. “We’ll handle it, Your Highness. We’ve got her.”

I turned to go back to her and found all of the dark fairy commanders standing there with tears in their eyes as well.

“The wing specialist will be back in the morning to check on her and talk to her directly, but he said—the wing can’t regrow,” Onas muttered. “The bottom was amputated off.”

I nodded, knowing it, having seen it myself.

After the healers finished with Stefanie, Talila and I helped her shower, careful of her wings that still had to be out. I completely understood why she demanded it even if it seemed too much or silly right then. Feeling the dried blood that wiping down couldn’t fully get kept you in the moment of your injury or how it happened.

And she couldn’t handle that right then.

Her eyes flashed shock when we helped her sit again and there were loaded potatoes and apple pie for her. She didn’t ask and just dug in as I sprayed leave-in conditioner in her hair and scrunched it with a towel before carefully brushing it out.

“Tell me how to help,” I begged her. “This is—I was broken too young to know how to help and not make it all about me. Just tell me what to do, Stefanie.”

“I don’t know the answer, Your Highness,” she admitted. She gestured to her food with her fork. “This was helpful. People caring and bringing my favorites was—”

“That was all the princess,” Onas snitched. “She already ordered people to go get a list for you before we could even. We’ll add what we know of fae food after the list she asked to be brought from Earth.”

“I already asked my aunt to make that dish you love,” one of the other commanders told her.

“I suspect Irma will have a spread for you in the morning as well,” Taeral added.

Right then Kerym came with the next round from Japan.

I just hoped Stefanie seeing how many cared for her was enough to help her make it through this.

21

I realized there might be something else I could do to help even if it was too early. Stefanie settled back to rest after she fueled up, the healers knocking her out even. The other Guardians were sent home for a few days of rest but were fine.

So the medical area was just full of us who loved her. I thanked the fairies on staff at the castle who brought in more chairs and a few couches from other areas. It was hard not to laugh when they gave warnings to the commanders that they were priceless couches and not to put their boots up on them or anything.

“It’s up over a hundred thousand and three hundred fairies you woke, Your Highness,” Shael told me as she sat down and closed her eyes. “People are still being checked in—the amount of food that had to hurry and be brought in was ghastly.”

I could only imagine. They all nodded off, but I couldn’t, taking a walk and shocked when I found Neldor sitting by where my mother was frozen, guards watching him like hawks. I left it alone and basically strolled around until it was time for the specialist to arrive.

He confirmed what we were all fearful of. Stefanie’s wing was too far damaged to fix even with magic. Magic couldn’t do everything and certainly couldn’t regrow a limb.

Stefanie thanked the healers, but I’d never seen her so lost. She looked… Nothing like Stefanie.

I made sure people were going to be staying with her and watching her. I told Shael to give her updates if she wanted—whatever. Then I snuck off to see if there was anything I could do for my idea, any way to help her.

I forgot there was normally a huge brunch with the Vogels that the Rothchilds normally joined. Hudson and I shared a shocked look that the other was there, but then I shook it off.

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