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Darwin snorts.
Callan leaves shortly after the game ends. He gives me cheek kisses and pulls Darwin into an extremely warm hug. Then he reaches up into the air like he’s grabbing something, pulls downward, and disappears.
“He shouldn’t be able to open the Fae Ways in here. I warded this whole place.” Darwin sighs. “We’re still not stronger than him.”
“We’re not stronger than him on our own. You did the wards. I made the shrine to the Mother. We didn’t worktogether. We’ll do the wards as a quaternion and he’ll never walk in here unannounced again.”
Darwin slumps back against me. “Okay.”
I wrap him more tightly in my embrace. “You’re safe. We’re safe here.”
“But we won’t be here for Yule,” Darwin says, his voice low and rough. “We’ll bethere. The least safe place in the entire world.”
Is that how he feels about his father’s home? I understand the feeling. I certainly felt that way about Da’s home. But I hate that Darwin still feels so unsafe.
“You’re not alone this time. We’ll be with you. We’ll make a safe place.” I find his free hand with mine and entwine our fingers. “Together.”
Charlie shifts over from the other couch. He puts his big hand on Darwin’s shoulder. “You don’t need to be afraid of him anymore. Not ever again.”
Darwin puts his hand over Charlie’s. “Thank you, Charlie. And thank you for stepping in the way you did earlier. You can’t do that once we’re at court, though. It just makes me look weak. You can’t show any weakness at court.”
“Your dad said you’d gimme a crash course in fae politics,” I say, kissing the back of his neck again. “No time like the present.”
“Really?”
I rub my cheek between his shoulders in assent.
“We need another round of beers for this shite,” Charlie says.
He fetches them and once we each have a beer in hand, Darwin begins.
Chapter50
Doctor Prince’s Tail
Istare at my laptop screen, re-reading my conclusions on confluences in splintered time-streams for my TA assignment one more time before I hit send.
The email whizzes off to Doctor Prince. My laptop screen darkens. But it’s not the computer; it’s the Special Collection’s witchlights.
The lights have been flickering all afternoon while we’ve been studying. It’s dead annoying. The spells must need to be renewed or sommat. But complaining to Miss Moss prolly won’t get me anywhere. She hates me.
I rub my eyes and try to focus.
Concentrating is a major effort today. I’m overtired already and finals haven’t even started, although they’re so close I can feel the cold breath of them on the back of my neck. We stayed up too late last night. I gave Charlie that extra loving he earned, but only after Darwin taught us fae politics for several hours. My mind’s still spinning with names, titles, relationships, powers, customs.
Although I can’t understand Darwin’s mother abandoning her children and husband, I’m sympathetic with her not wanting to be a princess. If Stuffiness on the Seine sounded grim, it don’t have a patch on Torture in Thistlemist.
I’m going to be the worst princess that place has ever seen.
I sigh and power down my laptop before checking that the boys turned theirs off before they went out on a snack run. After the fire drake that Charlie summoned appeared out of his laptop’s power cord, we’re careful to turn off all the electronics before we read the Acta.
I blow out a long breath and center myself. Classes end tomorrow. Then we have a four-day reading period before finals. I have to ace my finals. Bs aren’t an option. We leave for Thistlemist the evening after our last exam, Early History of Magic. I don’t know what’s scaring me more: Doctor Prince’s final or Yule at the fae court.
I don’t know if Da and my brothers will be there. I don’t know if my mother will be.
I don’t know enough, not about fae politics, not about what we’re going to face. Not about the uses of fucking Carolina larkspur for my Greenwitchery final.
I hate being unprepared. I hate feeling like I’m being pushed in one direction when all I want to do is run in the other.
