“Who cares about the damn chair? You need to see a shrink. Maybe you even need to be locked up in the psych ward or something. Toni, you’re not a werewolf. Yeah, something really weird is going on...”
She pointed in the general direction of my hands, which now looked normal, just a little fuzzy with puffs of cotton still stuck to the fingernails. I started picking the last bits off, finding the task relaxing. Since it was Rosalina’s turn to freak out, it seemed I could be calm.
“... But the fact that you grew claws,” she went on, “doesn’t mean you’re a werewolf. Maybe this is some sort of prank, or a spell that lunatic mage put on you during the attack. Or maybe a side effect of the attack and healing magic combined. Or maybe—”
I glanced up at Rosalina and interrupted her. “I’m afraid you’re rambling.”
She blew a raspberry and sank into the sofa, her arms limp to her sides as if she was exhausted. “Wait, I get it. This is just your idea of a joke,” she said, sitting up again.
“I wish that was all, but no. Yesterday, Mom didn’t feed me creamy tortellini. Not at all. Instead, she told me that my dad wasn’t my dad.” As I uttered that last sentence, an awful sadness descended over me, making everything around me feel pointless.
Dad, I’m sorry. It doesn’t matter what she says, you will always be my father.
Always.
“You’re not joking, are you?”
“Not in the least. Get this... Mom had a mage waiting for me in the kitchen, the same one who, since I was born, has been putting a spell on me to prevent me from shifting. Except, the night we found Stephen, I did shift. I don’t remember it happening, but there’s these few hours I don’t remember at all. I blacked out, and the next thing I knew, I woke up entirely naked on top of our building. You remember that lovely situation. I’m sure.”
“Holy shit. Holy shit. You’re telling the truth.”
“Yes, I am.”
“You’re a freakin’ werewolf. You’re a freakin’ werewolf.” She stood and started pacing in front of the sofa.
I followed her with my eyes, my heart starting to pound again. “I think you’d better calm down. You’re starting to make me nervous, and nervous isn’t good for me right now.” I glanced down at my hands, then at the holes in the back of the armchair.
“Calm down? Calm down?! How can you ask me to calm down? You’re... a... werewolf. Aren’t you freaked out?”
“Of course I am. I’ve been trying not to shift all day. I don’t know how to control it, so I need calm. Can you do calm for me? I mean, unless you want your nice leather sofa to be next.”
This seemed to sober her up. She sat back down on said sofa, leaned her cheek on the back rest, and caressed it. “Don’t listen to the big bad wolf. You’ll be alright. I promise. I can do calm. Just for you.”
I gave her an incredulous look. “Who’s crazy now?”
“I’m sorry. I’m just having a very hard time processing all of this.” She sat up straight, her expression growing serious. “How are you holding up?” she asked in a sweet voice.
And that was all it took to undo me. I started crying like a baby, sobbing and hiccupping, and for the first time, allowing myself to feel the pain of Dad’s loss. My father. My sweet, sweet father. It was what hurt the most. Not that Mom had lied to me, but that from now on, anytime I thought of Dad, I would wonder about that other man.
And my sisters and brother, what about them? What if they started seeing me differently? Like we didn’t quite belong together anymore? One of these things is not like the other. Guess which one? Me!
Gah! I knew better than to think this way. I would love all three of them no matter what. They would always be my siblings, one hundred percent, but I couldn’t stop the stupid thoughts from driving through my head.
When I finally stopped crying, I found that I was on the sofa with Rosalina, surrounded by her warm embrace as she smoothed my hair with tenderness. She passed me my cup of tea, which soothed my scratchy throat and helped slow down my breathing enough so the sobs passed.
After that, I told her everything in detail. She listened carefully, her mind working behind her sharp green eyes. She was a woman who, when confronted with a problem, immediately thought of solutions. She might have a little meltdown at first, but in the end, she always had good advice.
When I finished, I asked the inevitable question. “What do you think I should do?”
“One thing is for sure, you can’t try to figure this out on your own. You need help.”
I was reluctant to get help. I certainly didn’t want to have anything else to do with Damien Ward, and the only werewolves I knew were not the ones I wanted to take advice from.
“I know you probably won’t like this idea,” Rosalina said. “I wouldn’t like it much either, considering what he did, but I think you should talk to that Copper Mage.”
I shook my head adamantly. “No. I don’t want to deal with that creep. ‘Cause he’s gotta be a creep, right? Only a creep could do what he did. Twenty years, Rosalina. That’s how long he has been messing with...” I waved my hands around my body and head, unsure of what part of me he had tampered with.
“Yes, but he’s the only one who can answer all the questions you have.”
I couldn’t argue with that. He was the only one who knew exactly what the spell had done to me. And maybe he knew of something that could help me control my random urges to shift.
“I’ll go with you,” she offered. “You don’t have
