Unfortunately, it was no less awkward.
“Where are your wings?” he asked, looking pointedly from the pale blue wings folded against Ollie’s back, then to Elyria and Jocelyn.
“The Lady Victor has hers hidden with magic,” Jocelyn said matter-of-factly.
“And yours?” pressed the boy.
Elyria stilled as she caught Ollie’s eye.
Jocelyn’s smile was sad. “There is nothing for me to hide.”
A girl of perhaps ten summers, with wide brown eyes and a smattering of freckles, looked between the three fae, her young face creased with concern. “What do you mean?”
Elyria finally broke from her stupor. “I don’t think that now is the time for that story,” she said gently.
“It’s all right. They’re just curious.” Jocelyn crouched, her lumbering form seeming somehow diminutive in the presence of the children’s honest questions. “What is your name?” she asked.
“Farrah,” said the girl.
“Well, Farrah, a long, long time ago, I fought in a war. And in war,lots of people get hurt. I was one of them.”
Farrah sucked in a short breath. “Your wings were hurt?”
Jocelyn nodded, pain flickering across her face. “Asanguinagicultist cut them from me entirely.”
Gasps filled the room. One little boy began to cry, and Tenny immediately swept in to comfort him, though her own horror was etched on her face as she did.
Farrah herself seemed on the verge of tears when she asked, “And you can’t get them back?”
Pain swam in Jocelyn’s eyes. “Alas, no. By the time the smoke of the battle cleared, it was far too late for that. But don’t mourn for me. It happened a very long time ago. I have a full life. And I have this.” Her fingers darted into a small pouch at her waist, emerging with a few seeds pinched between her thumb and forefinger. She placed them in her palm, then blew. The gasps that followed were no longer horror-stricken, but filled with wonder as the seeds sprouted, lengthened, and grew, until Jocelyn’s hand was wrapped around a small bouquet of flowers.
“That’s amazing,” said Farrah as Jocelyn handed her a single stem, distributing the rest of them amongst the children. “One day, when I get a mana token of my own, I’m going to learn how to do that,” she said proudly.
Elyria snuck a look at Cedric and saw a lifetime’s worth of emotion flit across his face. She didn’t know how she could tell what he was feeling with such certainty, but it was as though she felt it all—the horror and the pity and the wonder and the sadness that lingered behind truth. That the wielding of mana did not grant humans Arcanian magic, and even if it did, people like Farrah and Jack and Leia and the children of the Walk would likely never have the chance to try.
The pang in Elyria’s chest had softened back into a gentletug, pulling at her heartstrings like someone was twanging a harp, and she found herself wondering—not for the first time—exactly what that meant.
She didn’t get to examine it more closely though. Not as Farrah’s attention landed on Elyria, and she asked in that brutally honest way that children do, “But you’re using magic to hide your wings right now?”
“I am,” Elyria replied warily.
“Will you show us?”
“Well...” She didn’t want to disappoint any of these children, but she also wasn’t about to show off her wings after Jocelyn’s vulnerable admission. The more time she spent in Kingshelm, in fact, the more she was inclined to agree with Dentarius and Kit’s original decisions to try and downplay the delegation’s more magical traits. It wasn’t particularly kind, she decided, to throw her magic in the faces of those who might never wield any of their own.
The children did not seem to care.
“Yes, show us!”
“We want to see your magic!”
“Oh, please, please, my lady!”
It was the way little Leia’s cherubic voice wrapped around the wordpleasethat finally had Elyria acquiescing. “All right, all right,” she said, after a look to Jocelyn, who nodded encouragingly.
Victorious cheers erupted as Elyria unmasked her wings, flaring them out before folding them neatly against her back as she finally moved out from the doorway. She took a seat in a worn chair toward the back of the room, noting the crease of Cedric’s brow as he watched her, but he made no move to intervene.
Tenny simply seemed intrigued, her gaze flitting between Elyria and Cedric as if she were trying to decipher a riddle.
