by WB McKay
Another human brought in the next plate of food, and both of his parents scooped up a bite and immediately went expressionless. The flickering firelight moved shadows over their unmoving faces.
Keeping most of my attention on his creepy parents, I poked my fork around my plate. Salmon. Ava, the Kinneys' estranged daughter, had some feelings about overfishing and the health of the oceans. She'd given me a list of seafood to avoid. Salmon was on that list.
Nothing to do about it now. I took a careful bite, my eyes still trained on his parents. Once the food was in my mouth, the two of them immediately appeared furious.
Was I not supposed to eat it?
"Cook!" A human man rushed into the dining room. "Cook! This meal is completely unacceptable!" Lana shoved her plate to the center of the table.
"How could you feed us raw salmon?" David demanded.
"I--it--" the cook stammered.
I'd managed to keep my mouth shut when they called the humans by their jobs, but only barely. I should have known that if I stuck around, I wouldn't be keeping my mouth shut in the face of any more of this shit. Still, I swallowed my perfectly hot bite of fish and managed to keep a relaxed tone as I told them, "The two of you must like your food charred over an open flame." I poked my fork around my plate, an excuse to keep from looking them in the eyes and antagonizing Owen's parents "If anything it's overcooked, which is probably because this guy has been trying to please the sensibilities of dragons." When I chanced a glance his way, Owen was giving his parents a smug look of satisfaction.
"Is that enough of your tests?" asked Owen.
"For now," his father conceded.
"I agree," said Lana, looking me over. "I think we know her now."
"I think I know you as well," I replied.
Lana's head bobbed up and down. "So this is Sophie Morrigan." She emphasized my last name.
"So this is the leader of the fae council."
She raised her eyebrows at me.
I put my palm up to my mouth and blew. I knew it wasn't smart to make fart noises at important people, but I was beyond caring. Why anyone wanted to spend their lives playing power games was beyond me.
Luckily, Owen didn't seem too impressed by the power plays, either. I couldn't judge by the sound alone, but he was bent over with his head between his knees, and I thought he was laughing. When he came up gasping for air, I was sure of it. I shrugged my left shoulder at him.
His parents weren't amused, but they weren't angry either. I got the impression we were equally unimpressed with each other. Fine by me.
"I believe you misunderstand, darling," Lana said to me.
If I blew out the door without asking, it would eat at me later. "Okay, I give in. What is it I misunderstand?"
Lana clasped her hands on the table. "You are the non-banshee daughter of The Morrigan. We respect what you must have gone through. The Morrigan--she is unstable. She travels between Faerie and Volarus too often, has lived too long. She has no sense of order or dignity."
I snorted. "Yes, her lack of order and dignity are her biggest transgressions. Playing her part in wars, just to see what would happen, or abandoning her children, were just silly little things. Her lack of propriety was the real concern."
They ignored me. David said, "It's no wonder you are how you are."
Lana nodded. "And of course, Owen finds that fascinating. He is fascinated with anything that rebels against its own nature." She gestured at her son, as if I'd see it displayed on his face. "Surely you are aware of how he studied The Morrigan. Tracking down his little books. Starting his nightclub. Making himself less. But you must know that, as Owen Kinney, he will grow out of these things."
She was poking a sore spot, and it must have shown on my face, because she looked satisfied.
I purposely didn't look at Owen. I didn't want to know his reaction; I'd only overthink it. "I guess you've got what you wanted from me," I told them.
"We have," she said.
I walked calmly out of the house, Owen's heavy footsteps trailing me. His parents had wanted to test me. They'd wanted to see if they could make me go along with whatever games they wanted to play. I wasn't sure what answer they were hoping for, but I hoped they wouldn't test me again. Somehow, I knew it wouldn't be that easy.
CHAPTER TEN
"Well," said Owen.
"Well," I agreed. We were safely away in his car. He'd driven about ten blocks and parked, giving us what should have been plenty of time to recover. My hand went for my phone; I had the sudden need to text Belinda just to remind her that I was grateful to her for raising me. That'd have to wait until Owen and I cleared the air, if the look on his face was any indication. I didn't want to give him the idea that his parents hadn't rattled me, but I also didn't want him to think I blamed him for that. Even if his mom had pushed some buttons there at the end, that was for me and him to work out in our own time. No one was going to ruffle my feathers without my say-so. I took a deep breath, exhaled the bad energy, and tried for a light smile before facing Owen. "I hope I'm not supposed to care what your parents think of me because that would put a definite kink in this relationship."
"Definitely not." He stared at me straight-faced until he was sure I knew he meant it. He relaxed marginally. "In fact, if you are going to care in anyway, I say more of what you did. I don't think they'll ever see it coming, no matter how many times you do it."
"What was it I did exactly?"
"You…" He wet his lips, eyes searching the air beside my head for the answers. "You didn't sacrifice yourself to please them." He smiled, proud of how he'd put it. "You didn't become small."
"Sounds like a plan." Actually it sounded about like most of my plans: vague and standing on ill-advised bravado. I shrugged.
"Speaking of plans, it's still early." He gave me a full Owen smile. "How about a date? Celebratory cheeseburgers included."
It was still surreal: having someone to eat celebratory cheeseburgers with. If I worked a case with Art, he'd go with me after. But no matter where Owen was when I finished my past several cases, he expected me to call him up when the job was done so he could come along and eat cheeseburgers with me. Some part of me wanted to relax into it, but most of me--heart, gut, brain--knew how dangerous it was to come to expect that. This was the beginning stage. The warm, tingly, giggly stage of the relationship where everything came up roses. People cared more in the beginning. They made more of an effort. They were excited about the shiny newness. So far, the shiny with Owen had been the shiniest it had ever been, but my past relationships had tarnished in a matter of weeks. I was willing to embrace the brilliance for as long as we had it, but I didn't want to fool myself into relaxing and letting it all shock me when it ended. I'd be eating cheeseburgers alone again someday soon.
"Absolutely," I told him. "Should we get changed first?"
"Yes." He pulled away from the curb. "I'll head back to the office so you can pick up Bliss and I'll head to my place, change, and then come pick you up at home. Make sure to put on something warm."
"Bossy."
"Or don't. I'm happy to have the opportunity to chivalrously offer you my coat."
"There's nothing more attractive than a guy shivering next to me."
"Noted." He kept chattering his teeth the whole way back to the office.
Getting on Bliss was rough. The stiffness and tenderness from being knocked out of the sky was setting in, and it took gritting my teeth and letting out a pathetic little whine to get my leg up over the bike. Despite wanting to move as little as possible, I wrenched my phone from my pocket and sent Phoebe, my roommate, an email asking for brownies. The magic in her brownies contained more than the power of chocolate and had healed worse than a few bruises. With any luck, she'd be home and hear the ping of my email. She didn't have a phone. The email was a recent addition to her life, and she kept the computer open and ready for communication at all times. It was getting a little weird.
Every bump in the northern
California road was a bane to my existence. Once parked, I contemplated maneuvering my leg over the bike, and searched my brain for another option. Bliss was precious; I didn't lightly consider options that could risk her tipping over. Clearly, I was in worse shape than I'd originally thought.
I got off the bike like a responsible adult, began to peel off my jacket, and cringed. Yeah, it wasn't happening. With a sigh of surrender, I shifted. The process was typically almost instantaneous and free of pain, but this was one felt like it stuttered a few times. It could have simply been that the time felt longer through the pain. I fought my way out of the pile of my clothes and once my feathers were settled, all in all, I felt to be in better shape with wings than arms.
No one else was in the parking lot, thankfully. I didn't need my neighbors to witness me pecking my clothes into order, making sure to tuck the bra under my jacket. I had no desire to attempt to fly my stuff home. I'd deal with it later.
My wings caught air, and it occurred to me that I should have flown home in the first place. While there was some definite creaking of bones, stretching out and letting my crow form do what it was meant for seemed almost as healing as Phoebe's brownies. I caught a whiff of them on the air, and it drew me away from any fleeting thoughts of taking a longer flight.
The window I usually left open was closed, which meant a very undignified moment of perching on the sill and tapping the window with my beak. Dignity had taken a real hit today.
"You can't complain to me because I'm making you brownies," said Phoebe the moment she slid the window wide enough for me to crouch down and slip inside. She was rushing back to the kitchen when she added, "Why didn't you shift and use the front door?"
She didn't stay to hear my answer, not that I could have offered her one without shifting first. I headed to the kitchen and saw the timer was thirty seconds away from beeping. She was already cutting the first batch free of the pan. I shifted back in my bedroom, pulled on a robe, and hobbled back to the brownies.
"I didn't want to shift back until I was sure the brownies were ready," I answered her earlier question, tore a large square in half, and shoved the warm gooey chocolate in my mouth with a moan.
"There's some chocolate," Phoebe waved her hand over the entirety of her lower face, "just there."
I swallowed my mouthful and swiped my tongue around my lips. "It was a busy day."
"Same here." Phoebe hopped up on the counter. "Having email has turned into a responsibility. I've been told a couple times to sign up for FaerieRing. They're saying it would be easier to get in touch with me if I was on it, but I don't know if I can handle more communication."
"Who is it you're talking to?"
She waved off the question like I'd expected her to. When she'd first emailed me, I'd noticed her signature said "High Priestess of the Tangled Vine". I'd been asking her about it ever since, and it had become a sort of game between us. I'd ask, "So, what's the Tangled Vine?" and she'd answer with a rope of vines snapping out and tangling around my ankle; then she'd roll her eyes at me and bring up something from the last episode of Medical Heroes we'd watched.
"Do you want to be my hero?" I asked her.
"I made two trays of brownies."
"Okay, do you want to be an even bigger hero?"
"What do you want?"
"My phone," I told her. "I left my clothes and my phone next to Bliss. Can you get it for me?"
She sighed heavily and gave me a look. "I guess."
"You're the best," I told her. "I'll be plopped over there on the sofa with this tray here." I took a tentative step forward and suppressed a groan. "Hopefully before you get back, but it might take me a few extra minutes."
"You're not in good shape."
"Your powers of observation have leveled up."
"Did you disagree with more dragons?"
"Yes, actually." That was how I'd been banged up the last time I'd required her earth magic in chocolate form. My first real meeting with Owen had been the disagreement she referenced. It was the classic beginning of any true love story: He'd caught me robbing him, and we'd battled it out in his apartment. "Dragons didn't give me the bruises though. Witches."
"Witches again?" Phoebe shook her head. "How embarrassing. You should find a way to mislead people so they think it was dragons."
I sort of laughed, and then groaned from the pain in my ribs.
"Eat another brownie," Phoebe instructed, like I wasn't already doing just that. She left the front door open when she left, which irritated me to no end. I tried to will myself to go over and close it, but I was either getting lazier or my joints were stiffening all to hell. I'd made it halfway to the sofa by the time Phoebe returned. "Yeah, okay, bath time!" It wasn't a question, and I didn't bother to argue for the sake of reminding her not to boss me around. She put one arm around me and grabbed my elbow with the other. She ignored the resultant whimpering. The brownie tray was removed from my hands as we passed the counter. "Don't worry, I'll come back for them." She was patient with my hobbling, got the water hot for me, and even helped me get the robe off my shoulders in a way that I didn't have to move my arms anymore. "What did these witches do to you?"
"Blew me out of the sky."
"You are so lucky I was too busy with emails to blast you with--oh, nevermind. You'll find out when I do it."
"Or you could just tell me about it and never do it," I suggested. "That would work too."
She laughed, the idea of not hitting me with horrible pranks so ridiculous to her.
I lowered my body into the tub and let the hot water work its will on my aching body.
"You need more things." She left the room and rushed back in with a side table from the living room, which she placed the brownie tray and my phone on. "What you should really do is take a day off work, but you're not going to do that. You're not a doctor on Medical Heroes, you know. You could take a day off." She paused for dramatic effect. "But you're not going to do that because you make no sense at all."
"Kind of like you pulling me pranks on me even though you could not do that."
"See what I mean? You make no sense at all. Anyway, you need more things." She paced the three steps across the bathroom. "I've got it." She left without another word.
I closed my eyes and took inventory of my unmoving body. As long as I was perfectly still, with the hot water cradling me, I was mostly okay. A few twinging muscles around my upper back, but mostly okay. I dried my hand on the towel hanging on the wall behind me, and dialed Ava, putting the phone on speaker.
"You again?" she answered.
"Are you sick of me already?"
"These phone calls aren't a natural instinct for you," she told me. "I do not require babying."
My laugh faltered on its way out. "Have you ever had a conversation with you?" I asked her. "No one who has would consider you in need of babying." Ava intimidated without even meaning to. At least, I didn't think she meant to. Not always, anyway. "I'm trying to be your friend." That was true. I also was checking up on her. She'd been trapped in a pixie pocket recently, and she'd come out worse for the wear. On the occasions I'd dropped in at Lost in the Mist, she'd been jumpy and distracted. She'd confessed to sleeping with the lights on. It hadn't been my intention to bother her again for another two days--I was spacing out my check ins so they seemed more natural--but meeting her estranged parents had pushed up the phone call. "You could make it easier on me by not pointing out when I do something weird."
"Then you'll never learn," said Ava.
"Have I given you the impression that I want to learn to be normal? Because you can push that one right out of your brain, lady."
There were shuffling sounds on the line.
"What are you up to?" I asked her.
It was a good ten seconds before she asked, "Did you say something?"
"What are you up to?"
"Oh, things," she said. "Shouldn't you be meeting Owen?"
"Yes, actually," I said. "Did your friends tell y
ou that?" She spied on me with ghosts. I was usually prickly about it, but I guess I was babying her a little bit. I meant it when I said I didn't think she needed it, but I felt like she deserved it.
"No further intel is necessary for this conclusion," said Ava. "You are with Owen, or resting on an in-between point, ready and aware of his oncoming presence. Don't let this embarrass you; the giddy early days of love are one of life's great highs."
"Um, okay."
"I'm going to push the button to end the call now."
"No--but--"
"Did you want to ask me something, Sophie?"
The hairs raised on the back of my neck. Her ghosts spied on me, and especially Owen; of course she knew I'd visited her parents today. And her tone said: don't you dare ask me about them. Which, I wasn't going to. At least, I didn't think I was. It wasn't like I was going to outright ask her, "Are you okay with the long term silence between you and your parents?" or "What did they do to you?" I just wanted to know if she was okay. Which, again, wasn't the right thing to ask. She had me stuck, and she knew it.
"If you think of a good way I could be a comforting friend for you, let me know, okay?"
"I'll do that." I could almost hear her nose scrunch up in the way it did when she was amused. The problem was the almost, she almost did it. I was pretty sure her nose hadn't twitched in a long time, and that's what had me making these awkward phone calls. True to her word, Ava ended the call.
"I see you, Phoebe." She stood in the doorway holding a bottle of what looked like dirt.
"I know you do," she said. "She's right, you know. I've known you for seven years. You've never been so freaking smiley. It's downright disturbing."