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Cordelia and I dug in and caught up.
To adjust to swimming with a tail, Cordelia explained, new Sirens spent the first month of their life completely underwater. She wasn’t worried, but we’d have a hard time seeing each other for a while.
Cordelia and Xavier were still in the midst of their “situationship.” When I brought up her age, Cordelia paled but insisted Xavier had skipped multiple grades—so he was only 18, a teenager like her. Cordelia had also saved all her notes from when I was gone with Reaper—so I’d be ready to study and catch up when the time came.
I felt myself relaxing in the company I was with. No straight posture. No fancy talk. Just eating with friends. I didn't witness any expected pompous arrogance from Faeries. No pleasant niceties from Angels. Just boisterous, friendly conversation.
This year drained me. I had learned to fight demons, courted one, and landed myself a permanent place at this University. Through all that, I’d rebuilt myself.
And now, my darkness was included in that picture.
I was not the same girl. I’d started new relationships. Severed others. Made just as many friends as enemies.
Most shockingly, I longed for my relationship with my mother again. I kept waiting for her to text, call, shout, or do something—but she was dead to me.
As dead as the girl I used to be.
I had just finished my dessert—birthday cake to celebrate our “birth in society”—when I heard a familiar rap on the window.
“Gaksi!”
I threw my shadows into the window, aiming to open it, but it shattered instead.
“Sorry!” I yelled apologetically as I hopped over the jagged glass.
“I’ll fix it, Luna, don’t worry!” Wisteria called behind me.
I smiled to myself. While furniture damage was punishable for the Fae, it was amusing here; laughter filled the room.
Even as I turned to Gaksi, little sprouts had grown and twisted off the floor to pick up broken shards.
My shoulders slumped when I saw the sun god instead.
“I missed you, vain little thing,” I said, placating my disappointment. I held out my forearm, where she landed, fixating her gaze on me with those all-knowing eyes.
“We missed you too, princess,”a high-pitched, sugary voice spoke into my head.
“Sam?” I jerked my arm away, but she clawed in tighter.
She huffed. “Don’t be rude.”She preened out her feathers.“I have plenty to say, too.”
“Then why haven’t you?”
“We weren’t bonded yet.”
“Huh?”
“You have to bond with Reaper to get access to the rest of his demons.”She peered beady little eyes at me.“He longs for you.”
Remorse caught me, and tears welled up in my eyes. “I’m busy right now, Sam.”
“My master is also busy these days, fearing you don’t want him anymore.”
She hopped up my arm to my shoulder, then leaned against me.“Call to him.”
I glanced behind me to where the entire new member class of Rose House, plus Cordelia, were watching me converse telepathically with a bird. Cordelia gave me a thumbs-up.
Sam raised her wings, and a shield of opaque sunlight covered us.
