Page 54 of Quiet
“I don’t give a shit how cute you think I am. You need to fix my, um, Briar before he gets any worse.” Isa didn’t know what he’d been about to call Briar. He couldn’t think about it right now.
“Fine, fine, don’t get your undies in a bunch. Let me look at him.”
Isa shifted awkwardly until he was no longer between the man and Briar. He tried to prop him against the wall behind them, but Briar kept leaning against him.
“You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?” Isa asked after the fourth time Briar slid back down onto his shoulder. A hint of dizzy amusement filled the Briar-shaped space in his mind. “Okay, fine. But you need to let him look at you.”
Briar made a small grumbly noise.
“I’ll keep petting you. I promise.”
“Fascinating.”
Isa looked up, expecting to see the man examining Briar, but instead he was looking at Isa with a touch of wonder.
“You’re not part fae like him, but you have a spell on you like he did. Not a fae one, though—not entirely, anyway. It seems to be patched together from at least a half-dozen different forms of magic. Honestly, the number of pantheons with their fingers in this campus are astounding. No wonder everyone calls this place Enchanted University.” The man muttered the last part to himself.
Had Isa stepped into another dimension? One where random magical creatures and spells popped up like daisies? “Who calls it that? Nobody calls it that.”
“Nobodyyouknow, maybe.” The man passed a hand over the air in front of Isa, causing the boy to flinch.
“Don’t touch it! Whatever the spell is, just leave it alone.”
“I’m not going to do anything to it. It’s helping you talk to my cousin.” Finally, the man turned to Briar and did something weird and shimmery with his hands. “Ohhhh, I see what happened. Oops. My bad.”
“What do you mean oops? Is it bad? Can you fix it?”
“I could, but . . .”
“But what? Don’t give me buts, fairy man, make with the fixy.”
“Calm down tiny, angry human. It’s a spell fae usually put on their children before they can speak, but it’s done something a little different for this boy because he’s part human.”
Isa let the part-human thing roll right past him. He was going to have to deal with that bit later.
“Somehow the spell has helped him block out the cognitive dissonance he has to deal with. He’s wired a little differently than most humans.”
Or maybe he’d have to deal with it now. “Most humans? Is his wiring a fae thing?”
The man shrugged. “Probably not? I mean, there’s no way of knowing, really. We don’t get a lot of human/fae hybrids. Our biology isn’t very compatible, you know.” The fairy got a gleam in his eye. “Why? Does it bother you?”
“Of course not.”
“So, you aren’t going to ask me to fix his wiring?”
“Why would I? He’s not broken.”
“But you want me to put the spell back on him.”
“Yes! Because he’s happier that way.” Isa stopped and poked the Briar-shaped spot in his mind. “Right? I don’t want to speak for you.”
Tell him to give me back the damn spell.
“Wow, that was loud and clear.” Isa winced and rubbed his ears. “He wants the spell back.”
“And if I can’t put the spell back on him?”
“Then you’ll find another way to help him.” Isa drew himself up as tall as he could get. “Because you owe him.”
