Page 117 of Fated or Knot

“I guess I wasn’t subtle.” And I also didn’t realize he watched me this closely.

What was it Marius had said when his feral side had seemed to read my mind? Oh, yeah.

“I know my mate better than she thinks.”

It seemed all of my males were way ahead of me in that regard, but I was going to do better. In more ways than one.

“Subtle,” Fal scoffed. “Also, after all this, I doubt you’ll be able to rest. Why don’t I send a message to Thalas and we get your training sorted? I want you free by this afternoon for your reward—I mean,punishmentfor being a tricksy li’l thing.” He gave an obvious wink.

Once I shook off the queasy, headachy feeling still clinging to my body, I thought I might like the kind of punishment he wassuggesting. I started to nod, then winced. “Okay,” I said aloud instead.

By the time I’d had a light, bland breakfast and was crutching to Thalas’s workshop, I had all the evidence I needed that I wasn’t in for fun punishment after all. All three of my alphas walked with me in a protective triangle and three different moods. Tormund walked ahead of me, not looking back once. His expression had been one of betrayal, not excitement, when Fal told him about my newfound abilities in their language. I didn’t blame him. He did struggle with Theli more than his brothers.

I had also noticed the moment Marius learned the same thing, as his growl was low and a little dangerous behind me. I didn’t look back, afraid what kind of anger I’d see pointed at me. Hopefully the hushed conversation they were having was Fal talking him down rather than them exchanging another volley of insults.

Suffice it to say, today was terrible, and it was my own fault. I had two more apologies to make and some unknown magic in me to master before it activated outside and I floated away without a ceiling to save me.

To my relief, Thalas was as calm and friendly a presence as ever, barely batting a lash when I spoke in sluggish Serian throughout our visit. He slowed the cadence of his words for me too as we discussed this morning’s event.

“You even used wind magic when we released you from thatolcanus. I thought it was a backlash effect,” the king mused. “Kellam was a wind sprite. It seems you took after him a bit.”

I melted a bit at the thought. Maybe I was more Unseelie than I’d ever thought, but I still had something from my father other than my pixie wings.

However, I did end up apologizing to Thalas quite a bit when he revealed that my unleashed wind magic had resulted in a tipped-over table and the shattering of dozens of his various knickknacks. He’d waved me off quickly and whispered, “Want to know a secret?”

I nodded and leaned in. “I don’t know what most of those things even do,” he said. “They came with the workshop. I think they’ve been hanging out for generations for exactly that reason.”

I laughed in disbelief. “What?”

“They might be priceless, but I don’t know what they’re for,” he said, shrugging. “So, they’re actually useless.”

“You could put them in a box or something?” I suggested.

“Then I’ll definitely never find them again!”

From there, he’d disappeared to one of the upper-level balconies and returned with a thesaurus of magic abilities. He started at the back to look up wind sprites, and we spent a couple hours seeing what kind of wind I could, and couldn’t, summon in a flash of essence. I forgot about making the princes upset with me, filled with chagrin when I failed back-to-back spells.

I started thinking of this morning’s magic as a fluke, or even some kind of freak accident. That was before Thalas announced that we were going to try the last spell in the wind sprite repertoire, called vortex. He eased backward and nudged a few things out of the way before teaching me the hand motion and twist I needed to give my essence.

I mimicked him and muttered under my breath. A sudden force of air shoved under my feet, sending me up twelve feet in the air before I could draw breath to scream. My crutches clattered to the ground, dropped halfway. This time, though, I was aware enough to flap my wings, loosing an alarming amount of pixie dust as I floated in place.

Thalas looked up at me, adjusting his glasses as he did. “Interesting,” he mused. “You definitely have access to one wind sprite spell.”

“Little bird? Come down,” Tormund said nervously. In Serian, he didn’t struggle to saylittle, and I already missed the quirk. He was directly under me with his arms out and getting covered in purple sparkles for his trouble.

Well, I didn’t have much choice in the matter. I hadn’t grown back enough scales to reliably fly and was worried I’d just shed most of my progress catching myself from crashing. I floated downward with all the grace I could muster until Tormund pulled me from the air by catching my hips.

“Don’t scare me like that,” the big male mumbled.

I was of a completely different mind about what’d happened. “Did you see that?” I practically squealed. “I have wind magic!”

“Oh, I saw it, all right,” he sighed. He made a brief attempt to remove the tousle the wind had left my hair in. Our eyes met for a moment and I smiled at him shyly. He petted my hair one last time and said with affection, in Theli, “Li’l bird.” My heart leapt with hope.

“It’ll take some practice, but you may be quite happy to have the vortex spell for emergencies,” Thalas put in, interrupting our moment. He handed me my crutches. “We’ll work on control today and practice some other time, when you’re not in danger of breaking your cast.”

“Couldn’t that come off now?” I asked as innocently as I could.

“Nay.”

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