“I’ll call my parents,” Mel said after several moments of everyone being dead quiet to digest that.
“Yes, good,” Geiger agreed. “I will be right there with Claudia and contact Dean White, Dr. Craftsman, and Katrina Calloway. All are powerful and can help. It was probably his being disoriented and magic flaring from being unlocked from the stasis part of that magic, Tamsin. This is wonderful news, sweet child. We’ll get answers and start with new plans. I’ll be right there.”
He hung up and I blinked at the phone, not anywhere near as excited, probably still in shock. I jumped when Darby touched me, proving that I was in shock.
“I can smell the pain you’re in,” he whispered. “What can I do?”
I shook my head but then snapped out of it enough to remember I could start healing myself. “I’ve got it, thanks.”
“What do you mean she found someone?” Mr. Rothchild bellowed from Mel’s phone.
“She did, Father, and we don’t know what to do. Geiger agreed we call you, Mother, King Xavier, and Queen Sasha, but just be warned, Tamsin said the guy was disoriented and he scared her, so she ran. That is all we know.” She glanced over at me. “You said he had green eyes? Black or dark hair?”
I had to think a moment. “Yeah, I think so. The eyes were—it hurt to wake him, and I was disoriented. I just focused on his super light green eyes and everything swirling in them. Yeah, I think black hair pulled back.”
“He’s a dark fairy then. A light fairy being what he saw first might be part of his wigging out,” Mel muttered. “It’s your choice if you come, Father, but we’d like the backup, and the Vogels wanted to know immediately if anything happened.”
“Yes, we’ll be there at once. They have a dinner, but something was canceled, so they actually have the rest of the day free. I will tell them at once and portal to Tamsin’s. Thank you for calling us immediately.”
I blinked around and realized I was sitting, glancing up at Darby.
“You were shaking and your knees were buckling,” he explained.
“Right, good, good,” I whispered, wiping away tears.
“This is good news, agra. You can finally get answers and have help.”
I bobbed my head. “I was ready to give up. I was thinking of giving up on all of them. This doesn’t feel good. I worked so hard to get here, I never actually thought of what comes next.”
“Neither did I,” Mel confessed. “It seemed safer to not plan that far ahead in case things didn’t ever pan out.”
I felt loads better when she admitted that, as if I wasn’t a horrible person for not staying all bright and shiny on this.
I also felt loads better when Dean White showed up. Others already had, but I tuned them out, going right for her and shocking her as much as the others. “It hurt my arm, and he’s more powerful than me. Even with the healing runes, I can’t move it. I don’t know what happened. I think Faerie felt my desperation and I was giving up, and just pulled it all out of me but—”
“Okay, it’s okay, Tamsin,” she murmured as she hugged me. I felt her strong healing and could also think better. “It also fried out your magic. You’re okay. We can talk later about how it happened, but I think you’re right that Faerie knew there was no more time left. Where is this man?”
“Far. Really far. I’ve been making a lot of progress. I used the fairy rune to run miles to him and then far back to the bike I’ve got there now. I don’t even know how long it will take us as a group.”
“We can shift and fly others over there,” Mr. Rothchild suggested. “If you’re healed, I think it best we head out.”
“I-I—” I stuttered.
“We don’t know the condition the man might be in after that sort of magic,” Geiger reminded me. “It’s also why we packed provisions.”
“Yeah, right,” I whispered.
“This guy really scared you that bad?” Mrs. Rothchild worried.
I nodded. “I know I’m new to all of this, but I’ve never felt magic like that. It was… Yeah, let’s just go.” I glanced at Darby, but he shook his head.
“Don’t even ask me to stay behind.”
“And seeing how upset you are, I won’t even get pissed you didn’t call me,” Lucca grumbled.
So clearly, Darby had? I didn’t have enough room in my brain at the moment to figure it all out and simply walked out of the room to lead the whole group to the portal.
And it was a group. Geiger, one of the other partners whose name I forgot, Claudia, Zack, Ray, Katrina Calloway, Dean White, Dr. Craftsman, Mr. and Mrs. Rothchild, Mel, Mr. and Mrs. Vogel, Hudson, Lucca, Darby, and a mother fucking partridge in a pear tree.
Honestly, there could have been one, I was so damned distracted.
“Which way?” Zack asked after we were all through. “Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve been here.”
I pointed off in the direction. “That way. Far.”
“So you did return and not leave me completely alone,” a deep voice said from behind me.
I gave a good and proper yelp before jumping away, rubbing my hand over my chest as I locked gazes with those light green eyes. “You scared me.”
He slowly raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow. “Clearly.”
“No, I meant earlier,” I defended. “I didn’t know…” Again, there was no decent lead-in to what I was about to tell him. “I’m Tamsin Vale.”
That eyebrow stayed up. “Yes, I know.”
