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“Of course blackberry green,” she said. “It’s your favorite. I wouldn’t imagine serving you anything else.”
Tears burst from my eyes, a snotty, throating howl from my chest. The suddenness of it shocked me, and yet, it shouldn’t have. My dreams, the life I’d worked so hard to build—it was all over.
Mom patted my hand, led me to the stone table by the counter, and left me to sit. It was just like when I was seven and skinned my knee. We’d discuss what had happened over tea, giving me a chance to calm myself down for a rational analysis of the situation. But this time, I didn’t want rational discussion. I didn’t want to be here.
I rubbed my eyes and tried to pull myself together. I couldn’t. My reality was too awful. Everything I’d dedicated my life to had been ripped away from me in an instant.
Mom slid over a cup of my favorite drink, exactly how I took it, with a dollop of honey. The warm, slightly bitter tea lit up both my taste buds and a sense of nostalgia. More tears welled in my eyes.
Mom sat beside me, her gaze set on her own cup, though I knew better than to believe her attention wasn’t on me. She was giving me time to get myself together, only that was never going to happen.
“I can’t go back,” I said, my throat tight. “It’s over.”
She waited, stirring her cup with a tiny spoon.
Molly Fernsby was a world-renowned healer. She’d done so much good over her many years that it was impossible to live up to the positive mark she’d made on the world. The library was my good thing. It was myonlything.
“I never wanted to do anything with my life beyond the library,” I said. “I ruined it. I ruined everything.”
She set down her spoon, put her hand on mine, and turned toward me, finally looking me in the eye. My tears fell harder.
In a soft voice, she said, “Tell me what happened.”
“Everything went wrong when I died,” I said. “Coming back, I expected to pick up where I left off, but nothing was the same. Everything I worked for was gone. They put me on probation. And—” My chest was so tight, I couldn’t get another word out. I felt like such a child. Fernsby women were supposed to be strong. My mother was. I was not.
My mom hugged me, and I cried so hard everything came out—all my tears, all my fears, all my worries. It came out in incomprehensible sobs, in a typhoon of released tension. The storm lasted an eternity, and somehow almost no time at all. And then it was over, dried out, and leaving nothing but a numbed husk. And I felt a bit better.
When I was ready, I pulled away and delivered the rest of what I had to say. “I’m having panic attacks, like I told Ambrose. His advice helped, but it wasn’t enough to save my job. I’m rusty and slow and damaged—too damaged to solve a simple case in time to stop my entire world from crumbling through my fingers.”
Mom waited. Finally, she said, “Is that everything?”
I shrugged. “I’ve made a friend, I think. But I left her at the library to help with my work. After everything, I can’t believe I left her bag behind. Mine, too, but still. Fernando is probably rolling around in Inorog, wondering what happened to me.”
“He’ll find his way. He always does.”
She was right of course.
“I also left my partner behind. Partner isn’t the right word. He’s my worst enemy. But maybe he isn’t as much of a terribleperson as I thought, and if I’m right about him not beingcompletelyawful….”
Mom smiled kindly. “I’ve never seen that look on you before.”
“Utter humiliated devastation? It’s not my power shade. I’m more of a cherry bomb red and canary yellow gal.”
“Fondness for a man.”
“Why would you assume I’m speaking about a man?” I shook my head. “Is this the start of a you-should-give-up-your-dreams-to-settle-down-and-have-babies-like-a-normal-person talk? Because I—”
“Lilian Fernsby, have I ever once in your life told you that you were normal?”
Her admonishing tone threw my balance.
Yes? Maybe? I wasn’t sure. I settled on what seemed like the right answer. “No?”
“You have never, for a single moment, been anything but extraordinary.”
A bubble of snotty laughter erupted from my face.
“I’m completely serious,” Mom said, while sounding like it. “You were a human babe, born into a world of magic.”
