by Emma Savant
I laughed, though it seemed like the wrong response.
“I haven’t told anyone else about that,” I said. “I never, in a thousand years, thought she would tell anybody.”
I hadn’t realized we were that broken. And I hadn’t imagined that realizing it would send me shattering into a thousand empathetic impressions.
My faerie side had taken over. I could almost hear the trees growing, and Elle and Kyle’s magic shimmered so strongly I could see it faintly even through my glasses.
“You never thought she would tell everybody,” Kyle said.
Elle frowned at Kyle. I didn’t see her frown, but I knew she’d done it just the same.
“She said that in front of some people who really didn’t need to know about it,” I said. “And now they’re going to talk.”
“Memory spell?” Kyle suggested.
I snorted. One memory spell would be hard enough. Trying to glamour a whole yard full of competent Glims was a joke.
“You guys can go back,” I said. “I’m okay.” I took a deep breath and tried to force it to be true.
Elle rubbed my arm a little too briskly. The gesture was weirdly maternal.
“Give it up, godmother,” she said.
Kyle slung an arm around my other side, reaching clear over my shoulder and around Elle. I was practically buried in his armpit, and the addition of him plus Elle’s grip on my other side turned the three of us into an awkward animal lumbering down the sidewalk. But I didn’t want them to move.
“You made us see each other,” Kyle said. “Let us take care of you for two seconds.”
He squeezed me in a one-armed, crushing hug.
The trees crackled and their magic shimmered around me. I wrapped my arms around my friends and let them hold me together.
Chapter Eighteen
I pressed my fingertips against my temples. With my eyes closed and my forehead resting on my knees, the world was black, and I welcomed the darkness. The tree I leaned against pulsed with a slow, deep heartbeat, and its bark crackled softly as its uppermost branches swayed in the breeze.
The blades of grass beneath my feet grew, and the soil below them shifted with earthworms and other sheltered life. A dozen different messages filtered around me, carried by the wind—all the emotional litter the breeze had picked up from the city’s Glims and their auras.
And that wasn’t all. The emotions of every other person in this little park, Glim or Hum, rushed in on me. The girl sitting on a bench was worried about money. The middle-aged man felt existential fear about the trajectory of his life. The teenage wizard sitting on the other side of the park flared with anxiety every time his phone buzzed with a text, and somehow, without being told, I knew the text was from his boyfriend and that things weren’t going well.
Beyond them, I felt the emotions of every person in every car that passed and I sensed the instincts of every squirrel and bird in the park.
I wanted to scream.
Instead, I let out a slow, steady breath and tried to shut everything out. I pushed back against the feelings and tried to imagine a tall, ten-foot-thick wall surrounding me, something that could keep all these sensations where they belonged.
But the more I tried to shut them out, the stronger the impressions grew. I couldn’t pick out words, but the feelings were all too clear. Layers and layers of emotions pressed in on me, trying to smother me. Anger, fear, rage, sadness, stress, so much stress, a little flare of joy, and then fear and more fear again. It just kept coming. It would never end.
I’d managed to focus on Lily and school these past few days, anything to distract myself from memories of the stupid wedding and keep all this input at a distance. And then, this morning, I’d woken up to find every barrier and distraction had cracked and crumbled to the ground, leaving me bare.
I rocked back and forth, pressing my forehead into my denim-covered knees until it hurt.
“Stop,” I ordered, not quite out loud. “Stop. Just stop. Shut up.”
“Olivia?”
If the other voices had been loud, this one was a shout. I winced and let out another firm breath.
And then, everything fell silent. I stiffened, waiting for the emotions to rush in on me again. But nothing happened. The world felt frozen.
I looked up to see a pair of shifting green eyes staring at me with concern. Queen Amani crouched in front of me, her hand outstretched like she wasn’t sure whether she should touch me.
“Are you okay?” she said. She kept her voice soft and low.
“Oh my god,” I breathed. “Thank you.”
I massaged my temples and closed my eyes again. The silence thrummed through me.
“Are you okay?” she repeated.
I didn’t want her to talk. I just wanted to enjoy this endless quiet, where the only emotions I could feel were my own. But she was still staring at me, so I nodded.
“I’m fine,” I lied. “Just overwhelmed.”
She sat next to me and leaned her back against the tree. We were silent together for a few minutes. Someone walked by with their dog on a leash. I heard their footsteps, but that was all. I had no idea what they were feeling.
“How did you do that?” I said.
“You’re wrapped up in my energy right now,” Amani said. “You’re safe. I’ve learned to block distractions.”
“You’d have to.”
We fell quiet again. Breaths rose and fell in my body. I rode them like waves, letting myself relax into the predictable rhythm.
“What’s going on?” she said.
I ran a hand through my hair, brushing loose strands off my forehead.
“I don’t know,” I said. The relief of only feeling my own presence overwhelmed me. “It’s been like this for days. I’ll be fine and then everything just comes rushing in.”
“And that’s not normal for you?”
I shot a glance over at her. She seemed serious.
“No,” I said slowly. “Why would it be?”
“Well, you’re a faerie.”
I snorted. “I’m a crappy faerie. Anyway, not all faeries deal with this.”
I waved a hand around, trying to indicate literally everything in our general vicinity.
“Some of them do,” she said.
“Then being a faerie sucks,” I said.
She rested her head against the tree. Her curls pillowed around her dark face like a cloud.
“It’s probably like anything else. Sucks sometimes, is awesome other times.”
I closed my eyes again. I craved sleep.
“I just want to be normal,” I said. The words came out so softly I didn’t think she could hear them.
But Amani didn’t need to hear me. If I was wrapped up in her energy, she felt what I felt, and she already knew.
Two women strolled by, one talking on her cell and the other trying to take a picture of the tree branches overhead while she walked. Amani watched them with her head tilted.
“When did this start?” she said.
I shrugged, though I knew exactly when. In a single moment, at Maia’s wedding, every emotion in the neighborhood had crashed over my head. The feeling of being assaulted by the world had faded in and out for a few days. Now, the onslaught was becoming horribly familiar.
“I was at a friend’s wedding,” I said. “I got in a fight with… someone.”
I didn’t want to say Imogen’s name in front of Amani again. I didn’t want to say Imogen’s name ever.
Amani tapped her knees with her fingers.
“That’s why, then,” she said.
“Having people be a nightmare to you means you can feel everything in the world?” My head snapped up. “Or did she curse me?”
A dozen swear words sprang to my lips, but I bit them back. The world didn’t need more unnecessary noise.
Amani reached out a hand and felt the air around me. I knew she was sensing into my aura, and so I held still and tried to let her in. If anyone could figure out what
was going wrong with me, it would be her. But she pulled her hand back.
“You’re not cursed,” she said. “You’re just normal.”
“This is not normal.”
“You’re normal for a faerie,” she said. “And like it or not, you are a faerie.” A sharp edge had crept into her voice.
Of course I annoyed her. Being a faerie had been her thing for decades. She was a professional Glim. I was probably her worst nightmare. I drew my legs up closer to my chest and stared at the ground in front of us.
I wished she’d go away and leave the silence behind her.
“Listen, how are you trying to shield yourself from all these impressions?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said.
A squirrel darted across the grass in front of us, too used to people to care that we were there.
“I’m just trying to keep them out. I visualized a wall, but it didn’t do anything.”
“That’s half your problem,” she said. “You’re into science. You know Newton’s Third Law, right?”
It sounded familiar, but not familiar enough. “I’m more into biology than physics,” I said.
“‘For every action, there is—’”
“‘An equal and opposite reaction,’” I finished.
“Yup,” she said. “So apply that to magic.”
“What?”
She stared at me. “This, right here, is why I’ve pushed for free comprehensive magical education for elementary school students,” she muttered. “Look.” She twisted toward me. “That’s what’s going wrong. You’re picking up all these energies, and you’re pushing on them. So what are they going to do?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Yes, you do.”
I watched the squirrel scamper up a tree.
“They’re going to push back?”
“Bingo,” she said. “You’re swimming toward all the emotions you’re trying to push away.”
I pressed between my eyes, where a tension headache was starting to form.
“So what am I supposed to do? Just deal with them?”
“You’ve got to be like a boulder in a river,” Amani said. “You have to plant yourself so firmly that you become part of the landscape. Make it easy for things to slip around you, and they will. Has no one ever taught you about grounding?”
“Mom has,” I said. “And we used to practice it at Faerie Camp when I was a kid. But it never seemed to do anything.”
“You were probably never dealing with enough energy that it made a difference,” Amani said. “Until now, I mean. That fight you got into was probably pretty stressful, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said.
She waited. I didn’t elaborate.
“Stress lowers your immune system’s response,” Amani said. “And it lowers your aura’s immune system, too. You probably just cracked wide open and everything you’ve been keeping out for years finally got a chance to rush in.” She tilted her head. “Grounding is like, I don’t know, wearing a surgeon’s mask or taking antibiotics. It protects you most of the time, and builds your magical system back up when it gets strained.”
“I’ve been stressed before,” I said.
“But you had a support system, right? You were feeling okay about your life overall, or you had friends you could vent to?”
I nodded, though I wasn’t sure.
“I’m guessing this time, you didn’t have support. Home hasn’t been too safe, or friends haven’t had your back like you hoped.”
I remembered the way the emotions had faded away after Elle and Kyle had rushed to protect and help me. I’d felt better with their arms around my shoulders.
“I think my parents are going to get divorced,” I blurted.
The second the words were out, tears rushed up to follow them, prickling at my eyelids. I closed my eyes and breathed in and out, then in and out again. Amani put a hand on my knee. Warmth rushed into my body, and I couldn’t tell if it came from her hand or her magic.
I hadn’t even said the word aloud in my thoughts. I’d used split up, or separate, but never, ever divorce. The thought lined my stomach with lead and filled the lead with bile that sloshed around until I had to put my head back down on my knees to stop the nausea.
It should have been a good thought, with the way they fought. I should have been delighted. Maybe I’d get to live with my mom. Maybe I’d get out of talking to my dad until I was in my twenties and too old for him to say anything about my life and choices. There would be fewer people looking after me and Daniel, and we could live our own lives with less interference. Our parents would be so stressed out over trying to divide money and magical heirlooms and acquaintances that they wouldn’t have time to make sure I attended a Glim university or that Daniel stopped sneaking away for his performance group.
They’d be too busy to have a family.
I couldn’t catch my breath.
“Olivia.” Amani’s voice broke into my thoughts as though from a distance.
I forced my attention back to her. It was like trying to tame a wild animal.
She drew her knees up against her chest, too, and rested her chin on them with her head tilted so she could look at me.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Me too.”
“You need a shield,” she said.
“From what, life?” I tried to laugh. Nothing came out except a raspy puff of air.
She tucked a gold-threaded curl behind her ear. “Home probably isn’t the most relaxing place right now,” she said.
I wiggled my toes, trying to tap the ground within the confinement of my shoes.
“I honestly haven’t been there enough to tell you.”
In between school, Wishes Fulfilled, Goose House, and the streets of Portland, home had turned into nothing more than a sleeping place. If I did get there during the day, I stayed in my room.
“Hold out your hand,” Amani said. She held hers out, palm up, demonstrating.
I mimicked her.
She put her other hand over mine, palm down, close enough that I could feel heat. Our skin didn’t touch, but the warmth between us grew until we may as well have been clasping hands. An overwhelming impression of silver filled my mind, the color glinting in the sun.
I closed my eyes to see better.
The image shifted and shimmered, and I caught sight of snaking emerald vines. They crept and twined around the edge of my field of vision, and slowly, as though a camera was focusing, the silver expanse shifted and resolved. The edges hardened to the shape of a vast shield.
Though I couldn’t reach out and touch it, I felt the shield in my mind. Its sun-bright surface radiated heat, and the hot light wrapped around and enfolded me.
The tears prickling behind my eyes faded. Deep in the pit of my stomach, something grew calm and sturdy like a rock.
I took a deep breath.
Amani pulled her hand away. The image faded to blackness. Only my steady breathing remained.
“You’re going to have to practice to keep it,” she said. “But now you know what to aim for.”
I tried to conjure up the shield again. Silver glittered at the edges of my vision, but it subsided too quickly. I tried again.
“Relax,” Amani said.
I tried to let my mind and limbs loosen. A second later, the silver shimmers were back, stronger this time. They faded out.
“Once you get it up around your family, remember, don’t push,” Amani said. “Just hold it steady.”
She put her fingertips on the ground and gently raised herself to a crouching position.
“I have to go,” she said. “I’m going to be late for a Council meeting. Just keep practicing. I hope you get feeling better.”
“Thanks,” I said.
And then the sound on the world turned back up. She was gone, either whisked away by magic or moving too fast for my exhausted mind to keep up.
Chapter Nineteen
I had never imagined a d
amp seashell could feel so hostile. I walked gingerly. Every step sent the shell thudding against my pocket and King Neptune’s words ringing in my ears.
The shell had been on my desk this morning, set atop a crinkled piece of green paper with Listen written in blue ink. So I’d held it to my ear and listened.
Reprehensible conduct… heinous violation of the contract between land and sea… utter disrespect for authority… King Neptune Pacifica’s voice had thundered in the privacy bubble I’d put up in my Wishes Fulfilled cubicle, making my ears ring.
And I’d ignored him.
I’d waited till the furious message fell to silence, then I’d put the shell in my pocket and headed out. Lorinda didn’t need to deal with this one, and I felt too dead after that stupid wedding to care about anything King Pacifica had to say.
A small detour between Wishes Fulfilled and Goose House took me by the river. I pulled the seashell out of my pocket. It lay still and quiet in my palm. Its job was done; only the tiniest tendrils of magic clung to its swirling creamy surface.
A woman jogged along the path behind me. Emotions radiated off her, mostly worry. I waited until she was gone. Then, in one swift motion, I threw King Neptune’s message as hard as I could.
The shell sailed through the air and landed in the dark gray water. A second later, it was gone. And then so was I, off toward Goose House.
A note on Lily’s bedroom door said Gone swimming! Her new roommate, a faintly red half-goblin wearing a giant pink bow in her hair, pointed me down the hall.
“She’s at the aquatic room,” she said, her gravelly voice and Valley Girl inflections not quite blending together. Her emotions washed up toward me with the same mix of excitement and nerves that seemed to fill everyone at Goose House.
Lily’s pale figure swam graceful laps in the small pool. Her pearly skin shimmered in the water and her hair streamed out behind her like a textured cape. A few other people were there, swimming laps or treading water or chatting quietly in the corner hot tub.
I sent a pulse of energy toward Lily, and she glanced up and then raced to the end of the pool, moving much faster than she should have been able to.
She hoisted herself up on the pool’s edge. Water cascaded down from her body to the cement floor. She leaned back over the edge to squeeze water out of her hair.
