Page 18 of The Human’s Heart

Phia still looked personally offended. Actually, she looked even more offended than a moment before. As if she’d made the video herself or something. “How do you know they aren’t a different type of being? Maybe there’s something out there that looks like witch magic but isn’t.”

Now Zay was exasperated. That surprised me. He usually had more patience than a saint. He said, “Like what? I’ve never seen anyone use magic that looks like witch magic, let alone use two or three different affinities.”

“I’m sure there are plenty of rare species out there that none of us knows about. Just because your family has a ton of different species in it doesn’t mean you know everything about everyone.”

Phia’s look of disapproval ran deep, and I could feel how uncomfortable it was making my viramore.

Zaos said, “Of course I don’t know everything. I’m sorry, Phia. You’re right. Maybe there’s someone out there that has magic like that.”

She stared at him for a long moment before she huffed, stood, and walked away.

Kian sent Zay a small glare, and my viramore held up his hands in defeat. “I didn’t mean to upset her.”

Kian sighed. “I know.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “And I agree with you. That can’t be real, but…” He trailed off with a shrug. “She had a really shitty day at work, so she wasn’t in the best mood before we got here. I know she’s being… well, just… please give her a chance, okay?”

“Of course, Key. You know we will,” Zay said quietly. “I’m sorry I upset her.”

“I think this was more about her work thing than some stupid video. Don’t worry.” He shot Zay a small smile. “I’m gonna go check on her.” He got up, knocked on the table a couple of times, and headed after her down the hall to the guest bedroom.

I looked at Zaos. “Sooooo…”

He sighed. “Yeah, that was… not cool. I thought we were just having a discussion about it. I never meant to make her upset.”

Reaching over, I rubbed his back. “It’s alright. I know you didn’t mean to upset her.”

“Why does she care so much? It wasn’t her video.”

I shrugged. “No idea.” After a moment, I added, “Well, maybe she was feeling a little left out. I mean, we weren’t trying to leave her out, and she didn’t seem eager to jump into the conversation when we tried to include her, but… she could’ve been jealous that we know Key so well or something, and then when she pulled out something for everyone, you… well, you told the truth, but… yeah.”

He blew out a long breath, rubbed his hand over his face, and sank down in his chair. “Shit. You’re right. I totally fucked that up.”

“You’re fine, Zay. I’m sure she’ll be okay in a little while. I didn’t say that to make you feel bad.”

He sent me a tired smile. “I know. This night has just been really weird.”

I couldn’t disagree with him there.

It took two hours for Phia to finally emerge from the bedroom. Zaos apologized, but she brushed him off and acted like he was an annoying fly on the wall or something, as if he wasn’t even there.

It hurt my viramore’s feelings, which made me glare at her myself. But she either didn’t notice or she was ignoring me as well. I didn’t really care. She was being ridiculous, rude, and immature, and I didn’t like it.

And to top it off, Kian was acting weird. Almost subdued. I could tell he was holding things back and not saying what he thought, which wasn’t like him at all. Normally, we couldn’t get him to shut up.

It was worrying me.

And it was definitely worrying Zaos.

His worry was bleeding into mine and vice versa, so both our worries kept amping up and up and up.

So I took a deep breath and tried to release as much of the emotion as I could because this was only making matters worse.

Luckily, my viramore was awesome and realized what I was doing, so he joined in, doing the same.

After a minute or two, we both felt calmer. The worry was still there, but not nearly as strong as it’d been. Our worries rubbed off on each other, but so did everything else, including our calmness. I’d definitely take it.

“Ready for our movie?” I asked as I walked into the kitchen to grab the two giant bowls of popcorn.

“Yessss,” Kian said, grinning at me as he took one of the bowls. “Can’t wait.”