Prince of Air and Darkness (The Darkest Court)

“I’m sorry I haven’t called,” I mumble. “Things here have been busy.”

“Oh, honey, don’t worry. We haven’t had a moment’s peace either.”

Crap. “Did you need me to come home and help pack anything? I’m sure if I explained to my professors they’d understand.”

“That’s what I was calling about,” she says.

My stomach drops and this faint buzzing blurs out everything except her voice. “You were?”

“Finny, you will not believe this.” She laughs, a sound a little too close to tears for my taste. “The Wednesday after you left, there was a freak frost. Ours was the only county unaffected.”

“Wh-what?” I manage to make it to a nearby bench before my legs finish going out from under me. A few students walk the nearby paths, but no one gives me a second look even though I’m pretty sure my head’s exploding. A freak frost.

There’s no such thing. Not one that carefully targets every county but one.

“We sold the crop for five times what we’ve gotten in the past.” The laughter’s turned into tears now. But I recognize this crying. It’s her Christmas-morning, Fourth-of-July-barbeque, just-got-home-from-another-perfect-wedding, my-son-got-into-college, life-is-beautiful-and-perfect crying. It makes my throat tight and my eyes prickle. “Finny, it’s a miracle.”

Miracles aren’t real. They don’t just happen. But right now, while my mother celebrates, I don’t care. “There’s money now? What about the farm?”

“We went to the bank this morning. It’s fine. We’re fine. The farm’s still ours. We aren’t going anywhere.”

“Holy crap.”

It doesn’t matter that I’m sitting in the middle of campus on a bench dressed in workout clothes. I tilt my head back and wipe away the tears spilling down my cheeks, laughing along with my mother.

Our home is safe. The place that’s meant the most to me all my life remains part of our family. Whatever happens to me, it will still be there to protect them.

It takes a while for our laughter to peter out and I enjoy the warmth of the autumn sun on my skin.

“Honey, can I ask you something?” She only waits long enough for me to make a noise of consent before she continues. “Have you thought about what you’re going to do with your magick?”

The bench back digs into my shoulder blades when I stiffen. I bluster for a moment, unable to decide what lie would hurt her the least, but Mom knows me too well. “I thought if you knew we were okay,” she says, “it might make the decision easier for you.”

I wonder if it would have changed my choice about closing myself off from the ley line. Mastering its magick was critical to supporting my parents, but Roark’s singular ability to share the experience became just as important to me. Knowing we would never again work together to forge that raw energy would reopen the wound of our separation every time I channeled. I don’t know if I could have handled that in the immediate aftermath. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to handle it, or even want to try.

Mom’s still going, gaining speed as she builds to her real point. “Your father and I talked a lot after you left. We didn’t know how much pressure you were under. Until you told us what was happening, we never dreamed you’d try to make such an awful choice.”

“It wasn’t awful,” I protest, but the noise she makes is pure skepticism.

“You thought you had to pick us or your magick. The same magick you said was part of you.”

Heat prickles my ears and I know I’m flushing. When she says it like that, like it’s a delusion she can’t believe I lived with for so long, I feel awkwardly young and inexperienced. I pick at a small hole forming in my shirt and mumble, “I didn’t mind. I...I needed to protect you.”

“Finny, listen to me. Are you listening? We are your parents. It is our job to protect you. We didn’t do such a great job the past year—ah, ah, ah, don’t interrupt me, young man!—but that ends now. No more hiding, no more pretending everything is okay.” Her sigh gusts through the line. “You are not indebted to us because you were born. Your life is your own. However long or short you decide that is.”

I try to hide my sniffling as I use my shirt to mop away the fresh tears. Mom hears it anyway and I press the phone harder to my ear when she clears her throat. It takes a beat, but she says, “I may not know much about magick or its consequences, but I know about living. Heartache is a part of life. You have to walk with it. And when the time comes, you leave it behind and run toward hope, no matter the cost.”

“But you and Dad—”

“Only want you to be happy,” she interrupts. Her tenderness makes me cry harder and the shirt’s fabric grows damp against my hand when I continue to press it to my face. “We don’t have to understand. We just need to know it’s what you’ve chosen. Whatever happens, we’ll be okay. All of us.”

She waits patiently for the worst of the crying to end before asking, “Do you understand me, Finny? We’ll be okay.”

“Yeah, Mom. I heard you.”

“Good. Now that we have that little detail cleared up—”

I can’t contain a watery chuckle. “Little detail. Right.”