Page 185 of A Winding Wave of Magic
“Calm down,” she said. “It’s just me and mypóit. My head feels like it’s about to burst, so we’ll take our lessons quietly this morning.”
“Tea?” I asked though I was feeling less than generous.
“Sure, I’ll take some, and then you can tell me what’s got your face soured like bad milk.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said as I poured out, then carried her cup and the pot of tea to the table, where she’d taken a seat.“Maybe it’s being the last one to know that Jonathan and I are supposedly mated for all time?”
For a moment, I thought Caitlin was going to drop the cup on the floor. Fingers trembling, she managed to lower her cup to her saucer, then buried her face in her hands.
Jonathan and I both took seats at the table, waiting for her response.
“You weren’t to know,” she said at last, speaking through her hands before dropping them to the table.
“According to you,” I said a little too sharply.
“According to anyone with any sense,” Caitlin retorted. “We explained this to you before. Fae aren’t supposed to know about the immortal choice until they’re fully manifested. Of course, they can’t know about the potential for fated mates as well.”
“Shifters would say otherwise,” I replied numbly as I traced a thick dent in Penny’s ancient table.
A vision of my grandmother in this very chair when she had endured a similar lecture from her own mother floated to the back of my mind.
I smiled and let her fade away.
“Shifters generally don’t have more sense than a pack of dogs when it comes to such things?—”
“Oh my gods,stop.” I slapped my hand flat on the table, causing everyone to jump.
“Cass,” Jonathan murmured but had the good sense to button his mouth when I shot him a glare.
Caitlin bristled over her tea, but to my surprise, she didn’t argue. In the last almost two months, I’d never heard her step down from a fight, but she was quiet now.
“I love you, Cait, but you have to stop that,” I said, more calmly now. “I’m so tired of hearing different fae condescend to each other. Seers think we’re better than everyone because we know their inner minds, ergo we are ‘the world’s conscience’ or some nonsense. And we’re not. You and I are no better ethically than anyone else in this room or island or anywhere else.”
She opened her mouth, again like she wanted to argue, but I went on.
“Sorcerers think the same because they can manipulate things they actually see. You all harp on the sirens for being too impetuous or the shifters for being too base, but the truth is, everyone has insight into what it means to be fae—don’t you see that? If I hadn’t met you, I’d never understand the history of my people. And if I’d never met Ciarán’s folk, I’d still be sitting at this table shouting at you because I can’t keep a damn memory at bay.”
Jonathan looked surprised. “What did they?—”
“Later,” I snapped. “It seems to me that the majority of our mishaps occur because people are keeping me in the dark, not the other way around.”
I looked at both of them. Caitlin’s face had folded into a picture of stubbornness, though Jonathan had the decency to look a little bit guilty.
“Caitlin,” I said. “Did you know from the beginning that Jonathan and I were…mates?”
I still tripped over the word. It didn’t sound real.
Her mouth opened and closed several times. She took a long sip of tea before expelling a great sigh. “I…suspected asmuch. Robbie confirmed it. He said he could See your energies blending together. Said Jonny’s was reaching for yours all the time.”
A faint flush appeared over Jonathan’s cheekbones.
I nodded. “Fine. Now, I’d like to know exactly what exactly this means for us. Andno oneshould hold back.”
Caitlin looked like she’d rather do anything else but talk.
“It’s a common enough myth,” Jonathan supplied. “Humans love to quote Plato.”
“Thanks. I did major in Classics, if you remember.” I half wanted to grab one of the heavily annotated textbooks I’d brought with me, now sitting on Penny’s old shelf. “So, there are two versions. Plato actually writes Aristophanes’ version of man as an androgynous, two-faced whole that’s split in half, each piece doomed to search the earth for its other. And then there’s the whole being that Zeus splits in half for fear of its power.”
