“No, why would I?” he asks.
Thank fuck he isn’t listening to whatever bullshit Ceelie and Annie are spreading in the pack.
I clap him on the back. “This is why we’re friends.”
“Because I don’t know anything?”
“Annie and Ceelie have been making the rounds in the pack. Good to know they haven’t poisoned your mind yet.”
“Okay, this is an instance I’m proud to be ignorant.” He groans and shakes his head. “Those two need to get a hobby. You know I’m never one for human activities but they do this thing called Extreme Ironing that looks quite challenging. I bet we could get them hooked if we put our minds to it. I don’t even think I could master it.”
“Extreme what?”
“Listen, I don’t have the time to enlighten you on the finer points of a well-ironed shirt.”
“I swear to Luna. I’m taking back what I said about us being friends.”
“Easy come, easy go.” Lucian waves his hand. “And besides, you can’t threaten me. You need me. Who else would put up with your whole brooding thing? Me. That’s who. Now what is going on with the healer?”
“She’s a witch.”
Lucian stops walking and looks at me, all traces of his earlier jokes gone. “What do you meanshe’s a witch?”
“Not just a witch but a fairy.”
“Oh hells. She’s a fairy? How do you know that?”
“That’s the thing. I don’t.” I hate saying it. I feel no better than Annie and Ceelie gossiping about Cordelia but something isn’t adding up. A fairy makes the most sense with what I’m working with.
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“First, I can’t smell her. She has no scent.”
“That’s interesting but that doesn’t make her a witch. I did hear she’s one of the orphans from Ronan,” he pauses and I understand why, we all do, “that she’s Amara’s daughter.”
We all know what it makes her if she’s Amara’s because it makes her equally Ronan’s.
“She is,” I say. “I took her to the Healer’s rooms today and she told me she was raised by a witch. That the witch taught her everything she knows about being a healer.”
Lucian raises an eyebrow. “Did she really say that or are you jumping to conclusions.”
I pause because now I can’t remember.”It doesn’t matter. I know she was raised by a witch. She said Jazzy was her teacher’s sister.”
Lucian’s eyes go wide. “Seven hells. The fey witch in Oak Fast?That Jazzy?” He looks nervous and I get it. Jazzy is powerful. Any shifter worth their salt knows to steer clear.
“One and the same. She was asking about meeting her.”
Because she’s going to leavemy brain screams at me.
“That doesn’t make her a spy,” Lucian says. “I’d rather she be connected to the fey and a witch than a spy.”
“How do you mean?”
“She was with Frostclaw, can you imagine being trapped with those monsters? She grew up there, and if a witch was the only kind face she had to lean on in a place like that…” he lets out a whistle and shakes his head. “I don’t think there’s any among us that would have not fallen in with the witch. Besides that, you know how the fey are. Did she even know the witch was a fairy? I bet you she didn’t.”
I hesitate. Cordelia’s face flashes into my mind. She looked confused when I told her Jazzy was a fairy.
“She’s fey?”