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Eden’s gaze darts to Claudia before she continues. “I didn’t either. But Claudia believes you’re one of those healers, meant to live with wolves on the other side of the continent.”
Is this making sense to either of you yet?
No.
It is not, Lils.
My heart does a little flippity-flop at Barbas using my new name.
“I’m sorry, but this isn’t adding up to any of us,” I say and tap on the side of my head.
Claudia takes a stab at it this time. “If you lived in almost any other part of the country, this wouldn’t matter. You’d have healer potential, but with no elder to train you, that’s all it would ever be. Potential. But since you’re in Laurel Cove, the city with the highest population of supes, I suspect things went a little wonky.”
“Went a little wonky? That’s what you call ripping demons from human hosts and watching them burn to death on the earth plane? That’s how you explainneedingto have at least one demonic presence in my head at all times or I disassociate because it hurts too fucking much to bear?” I scoff at them, crossing my arms. “I’m sorry, ladies, you’ll have to do better than that.”
Claudia opens her mouth, but I already know what she’s going to say.
“And before you tell me you’re not going to explain the ‘ins and outs of esoteric magic to me,’ you better think long and hard about what I can do to you if you don’t.”
Barbas lets out a low whistle.Savage and magnificent.
Mal agrees.A true force to be reckoned with.
Claudia’s eyes bulge at my not-in-any-way-subtle threat, but Eden has a nice long cackle. “Good for you, Lily. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“It’s Lils, and I didn’t use to. But jam four demons in your head and see what happens to you.”
Claudia clears her throat and sips her tea. “What I was going to say is that the healers in Canada aren’t witches. They don’thavemagic. It is not a part of them. They channel it from the land. And their land happens to have a large population of wolves with magic of their own who need healers.”
I take a beat to process, letting the information settle in my brain.
Barbas gets it first.Ah, I see.
I’m not there yet, but don’t tell me. Let me get there,Mal says, so much excitement pouring off him and into me that I get a little jittery.
“So, you’re saying that if I were born there, I’d be a pack healer because that’s what they need and an elder healer would have spotted me. But since I was born here, with no elder healers and a large population of witches and vampires—”
“Wolf shifters too, don’t forget,” Eden adds.
“Right, wolf shifters who are different than the shifters in Canada somehow because they don’t need healers—I am somehow able to host four demons with no ill effects and also destroy their enemies by ripping them through the planes?”
Mal shoots electric elation through me.Ooooh! Got it!
What? Are you serious, Mal? None of this makes any sense.I glance from Eden to Claudia. “What am I missing here?”
Eden sets her teacup down. “Why don’t you ask”—she gestures to my head—“your friends what they think about all this?”
But I don’t have to.
They show me.
Not with my eyes, but in my mind.
A tall, crumbling building with square windows and balconies, painted in deep amber hues which looks identical to my condo building. Everything, from the number of floors to the awning over the front entrance, is the same.
What is this?
Barbas wraps me in a fresh wash of warmth as he explains.That’s our dormitory, Lils. Where we live. Where all demons who participate in the trials live.
