It took me a moment to process what Starla had just told me. Even then, once the words had registered, I was still useless. “You don’t know?” I repeated. “What do you mean you don’t know?”
“You don’t know who the father of your baby was?” Sam asked, scratching his chin. “Did you sleep with so many men you can’t keep track, or…?”
“No!” Starla objected, clearly upset that he’d accuse her of something like that. “No, I didn’t. Only one other guy. And you, Sam.”
“Well, I’m not a genius,” Sam began, but then he turned to me, and under his breath, asked, “am I?” I laughed because even though he couldn't remember a damn thing, he was still Sam. “I’ll take that as a no,” he said, turning back to Starla. “I’m not a genius, but I’m pretty sure, if it wasn’t me, then it had to be this other guy. Unless of cou
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“I’m so sorry to bother you, Harlow,” Liam Finch said as he wandered over toward me, his hands shoved down deep in his pockets, his eyes on the ground. I could tell Sam wasn’t sure he should leave us. He was lingering a few feet away from where I’d stopped, between our houses.“Sam, it’s fine. Just tell them I’ll be right there,” I said.“Okay.” He looked at Liam a little bit like a person stares at a spider before they squish them and then headed toward my house.“What’s going on, Liam?” I asked as he awkwardly came to a stop in front of me.“Well, I just, uh… I didn’t want to come,” he said, looking up into my eyes for the first time. “I want you to
After school the next day, I came home to find Mage Jaye sitting in Sam’s living room, chatting away, as the two of them sipped tea out of delicate little teacups with flowers and gold leaf decorations on them. The only reason I had come over was to get Starla because I was planning on following through with my promise to take her over to the Buzzards’ house, but I had been planning on doing it without telling Mage Jaye. Now that she was here, I realized that probably wasn’t going to work.Sam and Jaye were laughing gleefully as they sipped their tea and ate sandwich cookies off of a gold tray. I stood in the doorway for a moment, trying to rectify what I was seeing. I knew Sam wasn’t himself, but she had to be messing with him to get him to act like this. I swear, he even had his pinky up as he took a sip of tea.“Ha
It took me a moment to absorb what Sam had just said to me. “You’re taking Starla to Cody’s house?” I repeated. “But Mage Jaye just told me not to take her.”“I know that,” he said. “But she didn’t tell me not to.”I folded my arms and stared at him for a moment, not sure what to say. “Why would you do that?” I asked him.He shrugged nonchalantly. “Why wouldn’t I? I want to know just as much as you do whether or not this Cody feller is her baby’s daddy. I’ve been there before, right?”I nodded.“So maybe I can find it again.”
I flew through the night as quickly as my wings would carry me, using my eagle instincts to find the right air currents and propel myself through the air. Seeing flashes of light from time to time in the distance made me think that Cody and his team of mages were up to no good, so I flew even faster, using my magic as a sort of eagle engine.Normally, it would take about an hour for me to get there through the air, but this time, it took about twenty-five minutes. By the time I landed, shifting back into my human form, I was exhausted and breathing heavy. I did my best to try and seem normal as I took in the sight around me. It wasn’t pretty.Some man who looked a lot like Cody, except taller and thinner, had his hand up, a beam of blue light protruding out of it, aimed directly at Starla, who was in her human form completely inanimate
As soon as the birds perched on the trees behind me, Jason’s eyes doubled in size. I wasn’t exactly sure why Mage Jaye had instructed the other mages to stay in that form, or why she hadn’t shifted herself, but I was glad for it. The entire experience was scarier this way.Jason was trying to count. I remembered his comment about math and almost laughed. He couldn’t even see all of the birds in the trees, let alone count them all. While I was certain Mage Jaye was going to chew me out royally for this one, she had brought everyone she had available with her, and I appreciated it. I did deserve to get in trouble for not listening to her, after all, even if I hadn’t technically set out to disobey her.Melanie was there, too. I saw her approach on Joshua’s left, a bit out of breath. She’d had to run the whole way, after al
Getting called to the principal’s office during school hours is one thing. Being summoned to the heat mage’s office at nine o’clock in the evening is something quite different, especially when you don’t even go to school there. But once I was sure all of my pack mates were all right, I really had no choice but to go to see Mage Jaye. Sam insisted on going with me because he was my legal guardian, after all, and Ben went because he wanted to make sure that I was okay..When we got to the school, Maggie greeted us, though she looked more than a little apprehensive, standing in the hallway outside of the office. She was smiling but in a tight-lipped, pained sort of way. “She’ll be right with you,” Maggie said.I nodded, thinking Jaye might just prolong this for a while because she liked to torture me. It didn’t take
Maggie was upset, but she shrugged it off and said she’d manage. I was just so tired! All I wanted to do was go home and go to sleep. Sam and I walked out together, and as soon as Maggie was gone, he said, “Guess you told her.”I socked him in the arm, and he rubbed it, looking injured. “What was that for?”“Oh, like that hurt.”“It did!” He shook his head at me. “Maybe you’re stronger than I remember.”I had to stifle a laugh because it just sounded so ridiculous. “I wasn’t trying to show her. I just can’t Fionna anymore tonight.”“I understand that.” He stopped rubbing his arm as we headed down the steps
I desperately wanted to go to sleep. There was no reason in the world that I could think of to open the window and carry on a conversation with Fionna Flamingo under the circumstances. But then… Maggie had asked me for my help with her, and here she was.Reluctantly, I opened the window and called to her. “Fionna? What are you doing?”Rather than using a human voice that might come from a bird, which wouldn’t have been very hard, she just squawked at me again. I took a deep breath and tried not to roll my eyes. “Come here,” I told her.She didn’t have to be asked twice.As awkward as it is to fit a wolf through my window, getting a giant flamingo to come through isn’t any easier. Somehow, she managed. Then, s
There’s a comfy chair right next to the fireplace in the main living area of Brookstone. It has become my favorite place to sit. I can sit there for hours and do absolutely nothing but stare out the window at the beautiful forest and sparkling lake. It’s amazing to me to think how far I’ve come in just a year and a few months. I don’t just sit around and do nothing, though. I haven’t had to use my magic to fight off any other mages or shifters since we destroyed Grimly Grouse and his evil minions, but I do use my magic sometimes for other things, like producing presents for my friends or making mythical creatures to entertain us. Brookstone is as beautiful on the inside as it is on the outside. Part of that is the fact that we modernized it and redecorated a lot of the rooms. We wanted all of the modern conveniences we were used to, but we didn’t ruin the amb
My plan had been pretty simple. I’d bust into Brookstone, make the other mages and any shifters that were there think that the house was on fire, and I’d run them out to where my pack mates were waiting to take them down.I had no idea one of my pack members had her own idea of what should happen then. I guess I should have. It isn’t as if she hasn’t shocked me enough times in the past for me to expect Fionna to do something… unexpected.The mages in Grimley’s pack came streaming out of the house. Most of them went out the front door because I’d started the alleged fire in the kitchen, which was in the back of the house, on the east side. Fionna, being the tricky mage that she is, had opened a portal right on the other side of the front door so that every single one of the mages who ran out that exit sprinted right int
I didn’t bother to get a ride back to Brookstone the next day. It was clear that no one wanted to drive out there anyway, and it wasn’t as if it was a necessity. We had other ways of getting there, after all.I volunteered to change my wolves into birds so they could fly with us, but all of them passed on that. They said they weren’t used to flying and were afraid they’d fall out of the sky or something. Like I’d let that happen. I’d rolled my eyes, but since most of the area around where we’d stayed the night before was woodsy and rural, we decided it would be okay for them to walk out into the woods and shift there. The rest of us would fly over.My wolves weren’t going to be entering the property until after I knew the situation in the house. Once I knew whether we were on the defensive or the offensive, I woul
It was difficult to get rooms with enough beds for all of us, but my wolves decided they could always shift into their wolf forms and sleep on the floor, and since most of them didn’t sleep much anyway, we went with that. I was definitely going to be sleeping that night, though. I was so tired, I could barely keep my eyes open to discuss the plan for the next day. Fighting mages is hard work--apparently.“So what is our plan for tomorrow?” Kaylee asked. We were gathered in the room she and I were sharing, all of us sitting on the beds, the floor, and the small sitting area. “I take it we’re going right back there since you wanted to stay so close, Harlow.”“Yeah, we need to go right back over there and take care of things once and for all,” I said. “We just need a plan that will get rid of Grimly Grouse as s
With the ground shaking beneath our feet, the mages lifted themselves up into the air. I pulled up my wolves, too, but that didn’t help save my house. The thought of Grimly Grouse destroying my family home was enough to make me want to set his hair on fire.The ground was cracking beneath us now, some of them were at least a foot across. The idea of one of my people dropping inside of one of them was enough to make me want to fly everyone out of there and back to our rental right away.“Kaylee,” I shouted, wanting to try to fix the problem beneath us and keep my wolves out of danger. “Can you take over for me?”“You mean… float them?” she asked. “All of them?”“We can all help,” Liam said from the o
Looking around at my mages, I tried to determine who I needed to help and who was okay on their own. Liam was taking on a large male mage with a nose ring and the appearance of horns coming out of his bald head. I assumed those were placed there by magic, and he didn’t really have horns growing out of his head, but it was difficult to know for sure. “Give it up, Harlow!” I heard Grimly shout from far behind the line of advance. “I have more reserves. You cannot win.” It was difficult for me to keep my eye on this brute that was about to knock Liam out and respond to the maniac in the back. I decided to ignore Grouse and concentrate on Liam’s predicament. I was fairly far away from the fight, and there were other engagements going on between me and Liam, but I couldn’t let that stop me. The devil guy with the horn
The mages from Brookstone were slowly walking toward us, their long cloaks in a rainbow of colors not even moving from the wind they made, their steps were so even and slow. I stared at them for a long moment, trying to determine what the best thing to do was. A quick estimate told me that there were probably about thirty of them, which meant my team was outnumbered about five to one as mages went. The wolves would be able to help a little, but not much. They were mostly there to fight off any wolves that came our way, and Grimly Grouse had stopped using those, pulling out the big guns instead.We really only had two choices. We could stand there and fight and probably get annihilated because we were outnumbered so badly, or we could run away, regroup, and figure out when and how we should come back. I was really starting to lean toward Plan B, but when I looked at the faces of my packmates, I could tell t
I took advantage of the fearful flicker I’d seen in Grimley Grouse’s eyes and hit him with a bolt of power before he had much time to expect it. He got his hands up, but it wasn’t enough to completely deflect it. I ended up hitting him hard enough to knock him backward almost to the edge of the stream. The other mages around him took a few seconds to stare in shock before they remembered they had powers and could possibly do something to help him.They weren’t going to be able to help him, though. My mages were all ready, so before any of the red cloaked mages could hit me with their powers, mine had their hands up, shooting rays of light to counteract the ones directed at me. I watched the magic around me bend and shift, redirecting back the way it was coming. A few of the red mages were knocked off balance, but none of them went flying the way that Grouse did, probably because mos
I heard the first sounds of battle coming from my left, to the southwest of the house, but I couldn’t tell who it was that was caught up first by the wolves coming from Brookstone. I thought that Raven and Tony had been the furthest to the south, but I wasn’t certain. I decided I should fly over there and have a look. Of course, by the time I got over there, there was a good chance the rest of my wolves would be under attack as well since we’d seen the wolves shooting through the forest at an incredible rate spread out in a line. As I landed, I heard the sounds of battle echoing across the forest as Grimly Grouse’s wolves collided with mine. This wasn’t going to be pretty. I changed back into my mage form as soon as my feet touched the ground and immediately fired a