The urge to shift into a wolf and go off tearing through the forest looking for Sam was difficult to subdue, but I found a way to fight it. I knew I was acting irrationally at the moment, and I just needed to calm down before I talked to him. Was I happy that he was out in the woods with Starla? Of course not! Was I going to handle it like a mature mage who knew how to take care of her business? Also no. But what I was going to do was give myself some time to chill out before I went off the deep end. If there’s one thing I can definitely say about Ben Peterson it’s that he knows how to keep his shit together in situations where other people would’ve lost it like a bathroom stall in Taco Bell. So I was going to take a page out of Ben’s playbook and not lose it on Sam. For a while.
Instead, I made my way out to the old school site to see what was going on there. It was a pile of rubbl
It all sounded too good to be true. Mage Jaye was gone, and I didn’t even have to talk to her before she went. Fionna was going to be leaving with Mage Ostrich to go to a school where they might actually be able to help her, which was great because, as fond of her as I was growing, she needed help beyond what I was able to give her, and the School for Mages was no longer in my back yard.I was going to miss some of these people when they left, though. I wanted to talk to them and see if there was a chance a few of them would want to join my pack, but I needed to talk to my wolves first, and I wasn’t sure there was going to be time for that before they all left. For all I knew, Mage Ostrich had already sent everyone packing except for the ones that had flown in with him the night before. I hoped that wasn’t the case. I wanted to see them again at least to say goodbye, and I hadn’t re
Trying not to let Sam’s words cut into my heart like a dagger plunged in by an enemy mage was not working. I stared at him for several seconds before I finally had to ask, “Why is that?”He shrugged, and his face took on a sympathetic expression, like he was sorry he’d been so harsh. “I don’t know, Harlow. I guess it’s easier to be mad at you than it is to be mad at me because he knows how I feel.”“So… you came calling at my window last night, came in looking all irresistible and wanting me, and it’s my fault that we fooled around?”Sam shrugged. “I didn’t say it made sense. I’m just telling you how he feels.”I folded my arms. “What did he say exactly?” I realiz
I sat there for so long, my pack mates probably thought I’d become encapsulated by the stump and couldn’t move. But then… if that was the case… none of them came looking for me, so maybe they just knew I needed a moment or two. Or an hour. Or two.When someone did come looking for me, it wasn’t a member of my pack. It was Fionna. She came out of the woods down the same path Ben had come down. I wasn’t crying anymore, but I was sitting there staring at the same tree I’d been staring at for a long time. She kneeled down and wrapped her arms around me and rested her head on my lap, and I hugged her back as she said, “Friend sad.”“I am sad, Fionna,” I admitted. “I’m really sad right now.”“It’ll be okay, Harlow Nightingale
I generally pride myself on being fairly observant. I know it took me forever to figure out the fact that I am a mage, and maybe i should’ve been able to pick up on clues about that earlier than I did, but other than that, there haven’t been a lot of times in my life when i haven’t noticed things that are important, things that matter.You’re probably going back through this story now, at least mentally, looking for examples of when I’ve missed something. You’re just going to have to take my word for it. It really doesn’t happen that frequently.But with Fionna? Having feelings for Ben? I did not see that at all. Not even a little bit. I sat there on my stump thinking about how it could even be possible. How could she be so fond of me and secretly be in love with the man I was meant to marry? It didn’t even
Happy. Sam wanted me to be happy. That was the best news I’d heard in a long time. Unfortunately, I had absolutely no idea what was going to make me happy.But I did know I had some mages to talk to. So after my discussion with the pack, I went out to the compound Mage Ostrich had sprung up on my property and had a look around. It was definitely nothing like the School for Mages I’d built by myself in a couple of hours, but it wasn’t bad. I supposed the individual mages could change things to be more suitable to each of them if they so desired.It didn’t take long for me to find my friends, or for them to find me, as the case may be. Kayla, Lluvia, Sean, and Liz were sitting on lawn furniture chatting while Liam and Leo played basketball, or something that resembled basketball, nearby. The ball they were using didn’t quite look sol
It was hard saying goodbye to everyone the next day, but everyone was leaving. It would be weird, once they were gone, to have the pack back to just me and my wolves, at least for a few months. The mages that would be joining us would be back soon. We still had to figure that out, and I’d need to add on to the house. Now that I’d built Sam and Starla’s house--which was no longer Sam and Starla’s house--and I had built the entire school, I felt confident enough to make the changes that needed to be made to Grandma’s house so that it would accommodate all of us.I just needed to wait until all of my power was restored and until I was fairly confident we weren’t abou to get attacked. With my luck, I’d pass out from building onto the house and then some new monster would rear its ugly head.“Goodbye, Harlow! I’l
School. The place I both dreaded going back to and was happy to see. I walked through the doors of Whispering Hollow High School feeling like I hadn’t been there for ages. The students were even staring at me like they wondered where I’d been. I knew I was way behind and probably in danger of having missed too many days that semester. The same could be said for all of my packmates who had been out fighting evil and hiding from dragons for just as many days as I had been. So we all walked together to the principal’s office to find out if Mr. Short was going to require us to do anything other than to make up our missing work. “Well, well, well,” he began folding his arms and looking at me like he was my father and he’d caught me sneaking in past curfew. “If it isn’t Harlow Nightingale.” “Hello, Mr. Short, sir,” I said. “We are back.”
As happy as I was to be able to go back to school, I was just as happy to be home after school was out. Brice and I had gotten quite a bit done on the play once he stopped fooling around, and he wanted to work on it more, but I was done with school work. I wanted to go into my room and collapse on my bed and not think about anyone or anything.Of course, that was too much to ask for. The second I walked in the door, Sam wanted to talk to me. Normally, I wouldn’t mind that one bit, but I could tell by the look on his face, this wasn’t one of the things I was going to enjoy talking about with him.He pulled me into the living room as I was trying to take my backpack off. It dropped to the floor. I pulled my hand away and asked, “Can you give me a few seconds?”“All right, but this is real