Florian blinked, unsure how to answer. It sounded like a trick question. “What do you mean?”
“I could see it when you made that light. You cast as if you were using fae magic, but the magic you used wasn’t fae at all. It was old magic.”
“What are you talking about?” he exclaimed, shaking his head. “No, I used fae magic. All I know how to use is fae magic.”
Elodie held up a hand, and his protests died in his throat—whether she had used her own magic to quiet him, or whether it was simply the intimidation of her presence that had silenced him, he couldn’t tell.
“Have you ever done something that other fae couldn’t do?” she pressed. “Something that surprised them, or that you picked up too quickly, too easily?”
“No,” he said quickly, though a sinking feeling started to trickle down his throat as he said it. “Well... Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Tell me.”
“I can... I can teleport, I guess,” he stammered. “I’ve taken me and Kade. But only to places we’ve been before.”
“That would be impossible with fae magic,” she said. “Not difficult, not challenging. Outright impossible. The rules of fae magic wouldn’t allow it.”
“But...” he started. Nothing else left his mouth. Had he really been using old magic this whole time? How? How had he not known?
“I’m more curious about this spirit, now,” Elodie murmured, stepping closer to him. “Perhaps this is a more powerful being than you thought, someone who was also well versed in old magic, and somehow you’re channeling that instinct.”
Florian barely heard her. Every scenario where he’d used magic was running through his head. Jerah had said that he’d been a quick learner, but he never suspected that he was using old magic--it wasn’t even a possibility to worry about. It hadn’t occurred to anyone, not a single fae or shifter, even when Kade had remarked about not knowing how he was able to teleport.
Quietly, he had thought it was because he was special, the prophesied prince, so of course he could do things other fae couldn’t. But now there was no prophecy, nothing that made him special. Old magic was supposed to be powerful and dangerous, and this whole time he’d been using it, so flippantly, so easily.
“I don’t understand,” he finally managed to croak out, and he realized with a burning sense of shame that he was on the verge of crying. “What does—what does this all mean?”
“I don’t know yet,” Elodie said. “We’ll find out.”
Florian nodded and weakly wiped at his eyes; but when he looked at Elodie again, she only observed him for a long moment, her head tilting—this time looking more like a bird of prey, analyzing him thoroughly with a piercing gaze.
“You’re upset,” she remarked, and despite himself Florian rolled his eyes.
“Yes,” he said.
“Because you didn’t know you were using old magic?”
“Because I feel like I don’t knowanythinganymore,” Florian snapped. He pressed a hand to his eyes in frustration. “I thought—I thought I knew what was going on, what I needed to do. But I don’t know. I didn’t know I was using old magic, and I still don’t know anything about the Arrows, and the whole reason I even came to the Veil in the first place turned out to be a lie.”
For a long moment Elodie was silent, her head still tilted slightly to the side. As she considered him, she looked less human now than ever before.
“Not a lie. A misunderstanding,” she corrected, and Florian let out an irritated huff of breath.
“Sure,” he said. “Still.”
“It’s not a bad thing to learn that you have more to learn,” Elodie continued. “And isn’t it better to know the truth than to continue to believe a falsehood?”
“Well, yes,” Florian relented. “I’m just... frustrated. It’s a lot.”
“You’ll need a clear mind in order to separate the spirit’s latent memories from your own. Tell me what you’re feeling,” Elodie said.
Florian shook his head. “Won’t I have a clearer mind if I don’t talk about it? I can focus on this.”
“Not unless you want your emotions to fester like a wound,” she retorted.
“I didn’t know this was going to be a therapy session,” Florian muttered. Something in her demeanor had changed—he couldn’t put a finger on what, exactly, but it made him feel on edge, like she was scrutinizing every part of him.
Her head tilted again, in the opposite direction this time. “You retreat into anger.”
