Page 45 of Never Landing

By the next morning, he was using his laptop not to check his emails or hunt for other freelance jobs, but to arrange my schedule, which seemed, honestly, horrible. I didn’t want to keep track of times and dates and phone numbers. But the magic? I freaking loved the magic.

More than that, I loved watching the relief wash over people’s faces when something they’d been tolerating for ages wasfixed. Then, they’d smile.

I let Everett handle the money stuff too. I had no idea what was reasonable for people to pay for handiwork, and though some larger magic stripped my energy, it felt wrong charging people at all.

Everett assured me that was the way of things—a capitalist hellscape, he called it. I was very happy not to learn too much about it, though Dr. Hawking seemed to think I’d be better served looking after my own schedule.

Truth was, half the reason I didn’t want to do it was that Everett came with me to every appointment he arranged. Ilikedhaving him there.

It was like the magic came a little easier when I could look up into his eyes, sure that everything, finally, was how it should be.

Right then, he was standing at the front of the supermarket talking to Marsha about—well, I didn’t know, exactly. I was crouching in front of a refrigerator along the back wall, the front all glass, rattling furiously.

When I took off the metal grate on the lower part of the front, Ezra narrowed his eyes and leaned in too. “I don’t know how you make any sense of this,” he grumbled, looking at wires and fans.

I shrugged, reaching my hand in, palm up, fingers lightly curled as I collected the magic in my hand. I didn’t let everyone watch this part, but Ezra? He knew about the kids. I’d seen him fly, and his fresh produce was definitely some kind of magic, whether or not he recognized how strange it was to have everything in the store stay fresh and crisp and plump.

Still, when he watched the gold fly out, glistening and beautiful, curling through the components of the fridge, he swore.

“How the hell—” He sat back, his hands clapped down on top of his thighs.

I sat up too, head cocked, watching him. “You really can’t do this?”

Ezra shook his head.

“Can you still fly?”

Ezra’s eyes narrowed into a scowl, his lips pinched, like he was struggling to remember something.

“We did do that, didn’t we? Zipped around everywhere. Slept in trees like little Tarzans.”

I snorted. “Yeah. But you can’t anymore?”

Ezra shook his head. “Don’t think so. At least, I haven’t tried, but it...You just knew you could do all this?”

With a rough swallow, I nodded. “It feels natural. I just?—”

I didn’t know what to say. Knowing I still had magic and he didn’t have easy access to it made me feel like a freak, but Ezra just laughed, grabbing his earlobes and stretching them out, wiggling his ears all around.

“Look at yourself,” he said.

I turned to the glass surface of the fridge, frowning. But there I was, same face I’d gotten used to, pointed ears sticking out beneath a tumble of goldish-brown waves.

Ezra bumped against my arm. He looked...old. Not in a bad way or anything. In fact, I rather liked his sparkly eyes and the lines around his mouth that said he’d lived a life full of smiles.

“You were there the longest,” he said softly, staring at us both in the reflection. “Some part of you still belongs to the fae, I think, and you took something from them. But it’s okay to be different, Peter.” He gripped my hand, my fingers still tingling with the warm flicker of magic. “We like you as you are now, as you were yesterday, and as you’ll be tomorrow.”

Somehow, each of those ideas of me felt different, but that—that wasn’t terrifying like it had been. Dazed, I put the metal grate back in place and rose to my feet, drifting to Everett’s side.

I slipped my arm around his and leaned my cheek against his shoulder.

“All done?” he asked, his free hand settling on top of mine.

“Yup.”

“Don’t think the old thing’s ever been quieter. Thanks, Peter,” Ezra said, nodding at each of us. “Everett.”

Marsha paid us with a checkbook she kept under the tray in the cash register, and we made our way home, walking along the same sidewalks I’d trudged when I missed Everett too much to stay away from Cider Landing.

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