Page 47 of The Deer and the Dragon
“Honey, I know all about the worst the world has to offer. I have wards all over the building. I didn’t skimp on my security system. I’ve got a Glock under the register for hooligans, and for Heaven? I have Azrames.”
Fauna relaxed visibly. Her face softened as she squeezed Betty’s hand. “And enjoy those strawberries.”
We’d barely left the shop before I asked, “Were you talking about past lives? With selkies and knowing Betty and…”
“That’s your first question?” She frowned at me as we fell into step along the sidewalk.
I lifted a single shoulder. I had a million questions, but every chisel at the marble of my understanding would do wonders for shaping my worldview.
She cast a sidelong smirk at me with the ever-present look of thinly veiled impatience before saying, “Some humans are evolved enough to remember each walk. Betty has been around for a long time, and we’ve been friends for her past three or four cycles in the mortal realm. She’s the best.”
I tried to respond but had nothing to say. I had reached my capacity for new, earth-shattering information. I’d reached my philosophical fill.
We returned to the Mercedes, me in stunned silence, Fauna in a combination of flattery over her shameless flirtation and nostalgia given her reunion with an old friend. We slid into the car, but for once, she did not immediately beginsmashing buttons. Instead, she asked, “How long’s the drive to your parents’ house?”
My stomach dropped.
This was worse than summoning a demon.
This was worse than stepping on Legos, burning your tongue on your morning coffee, or learning your favorite TV show had been canceled after a cliffhanger. This was worse than a man in a white coat with a clipboard telling me that this had all been a long, vivid delusion.
She expected me to visit my mother.
Chapter Sixteen
I hadn’t so much as turned the keys in the ignition. I kept my hands wrapped around the steering wheel in stunned silence for what felt like an hour but was probably closer to six minutes. Fauna didn’t push me to get moving. I suspected she knew a thing or two about trauma. She allowed me to drive back to my apartment with the radio off, cross the lobby, wait on the bank of elevators, and cross the hall in silence. She subdued her chaos marvelously until we returned to my unit.
I stepped out of one shoe, then the other. My purse dropped to the living room floor as I sank wordlessly to the couch.
“Do you want me to help you pack?” she asked, voice gentle.
“I haven’t talked to my parents in four years,” I said quietly. I wondered if I looked as pale as I felt.
“There’s no reason it has to be a rush,” she said. “The Prince can wait.”
I looked at her miserably. “Is there any chance he’s still in the human realm? Maybe he’s chilling in the Maldives?”
Her expression softened. “Well, what’s stronger? Your feelings for Caliban or your hatred for your parents?”
I said nothing.
“We don’t have to leave the realm if you aren’t ready.”
“Yes, we do,” I said at last. My stomach was filled with stones. This was my fault. I’d ruined his life and mine. He was the best piece of me, and I wanted it back. “I won’t sleep until I undo what I’ve done. The morning after my attack, I woke up knowing I had to get him back. These past few months with him away have been worse than hell. If he can’t come back first, then I have to find him.”
Her usual cockiness was gone. Instead, a true kindness met me as she wrapped both hands around one of my forearms. “You won’t be going alone. I’ll be there with you the whole time. And I’m pretty hard to yell at, as I’m delightful.”
My chest weighed a thousand pounds. I shook my head solemnly. “My mom will see through you.”
Her smile faltered, and I saw the recognition behind her eyes. She knew I was right. Growing up, my parents, along with the church elders, had referred to the gift as the discernment of spirits. It was one of the fruits of the soul, according to biblical lore. While every believer was said to have a spiritual gift that furthered the kingdom of God, most of them were granted things like charity, generosity, the power to uplift, wisdom, understanding, or piety. The three rarest and most hotly contested gifts were scattered everywhere from the old book of Isaiah to the New Testament references in Corinthians. These abilities were said to be prophecy, the interpretation of tongues, and the discernment of spirits, though they were talents that God doled out with a careful hand.
These rare gifts had always sounded dangerously close to witchcraft, in my opinion. Looking at Fauna on the couch beside me, remembering the surprise on Azrames’s face, the anger on Silas’s, or the hunger on the Cheshire cat’s had me reconsidering the gift of spirits. I could almost feel Caliban’s fingers stroking my hair as I thought of all the times I’d told myself I was delusional, all the moments I’d denied what I’d seen, what I’d felt, what I’d known. The church would have told me I was meant to use the gift to see what is for thekingdom of Heaven and what is for the kingdom of Hell. An unscratchable place deep within my mind itched as I wondered how many humans with fae blood were simply trying to make sense of seeing through the veil and found their only validation within the church.
Finally, someone wouldn’t tell them they were crazy.
It was a place where people like Lisbeth Thorson were not only terribly sane but lauded as special, as chosen and celebrated with the knowledge that their ability could be put to work for the Lord.
It had been an easy rabbit hole for my mother to tumble down and an even harder crumbling, claustrophobic dirt pit for me to escape.
