“Good to know. I’m steady enough to eat.” I slowly took off the sleep mask and winced. Once again the light hit hard, but each time the effects were subsiding. I tossed it on the bed. “Help me into the kitchen. I’m hungry, and I want food.”
As Kipa swept me up in his arms—with me protesting that I could walk—my thoughts were a swirl of chaos. I still had to take care of Lenny, but mostly I was thinking about what a shift my life was coming to. I was facing a crossroads in my life, and nothing would ever be the same.
By evening, I was mostly feeling back to myself. I tried to sort through whether I felt any different other than knowing a new spell, and to some degree, I did. There was something that felt like it had been triggered, in a good way, as though a part of me had woken up after being asleep for a long time. I felt stronger, and Väinämöinen’s energy signature had left a trail that—when I examined it—left me reeling with how much power the bard had. In some ways, I’d swear he was stronger than the gods.
“What are you thinking about?” my mother asked while we were eating dinner.
I cut into the lasagna with my fork, trying to think of how to answer her. “It’s as though a part of Väinämöinen came back with me, and it makes me feel more confident.” I looked up at her. “I’m looking forward to training with him, though the thought of staying in Kalevala is daunting.”
“I’ll be there with you,” Kipa said. “I may have to leave now and then to help Herne, but I’ll be there with you for at least the entire first month. I talked to Väinämöinen before we left and we agreed that he’ll train you in Tapiola—Mielikki’s realm. I called her while you were asleep and she agreed that we could live in one of the grounds cottages while we’re there. So there will be people around, and we can keep a cow and chickens for milk and eggs.”
I stared at him, then broke out laughing. “What the hell am I supposed to do with a cow? I’ve never milked a cow.”
“You’ll know how by the time we return,” he countered, grinning. “But seriously, I know how to do all of that, and you won’t have much time for it given your training. So I’ll hire a servant to clean the house and cook for us and—yes—take care of the animals.”
“Have you thought about what you’re going to tell your father about all of this?” Phasmoria asked.
I helped myself to more garlic bread. “I don’t know and I don’t care. He doesn’t get an opinion.” I glanced at her. She merely gave me a questioning look. “He’s going to have to earn my trust again. And given all that happened, that’s not going to be easy. He helped me get expelled from my own community, he turned his back on me, and he said he disowned me to please his own father. Those aren’t actions I can easily forgive.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that,” she said. “Honestly, I’m surprised you’re giving him another chance, but I am glad for it. You may have thought you took after your father, but the fact is that you’ve always been more like me. That’s one reason I knew I could obey the Morrígan and leave you with him. You had the strength of will to handle it. I prepared you for it from the beginning, and the fact that your nature lent itself to being decisive was a help. I hope you know I’ve always been proud of you.”
I stared at my plate. My mother wasn’t shy about giving out praise, but she was stern and no-nonsense and when she said something, she meant it. She never tiptoed around matters when people fucked up, and she was ready to let them know it, too. So for her to say she was proud of me meant the world. In some ways, it would have been much easier if I had been born with her Bean Sidhe blood taking precedence and followed in her path. But then I would have missed out on so many things.
“You’re introspective today,” Kipa said, poking my arm.
I glanced up at him. “Yeah, well…so much has happened the past week that I’m not sure what to think, in some ways. I’ve gone from holding a Winter Solstice party to being kicked out of the Ante-Fae community to my father disowning me to suddenly facing that I’ll be training with one of the Force Majeure for a year to my father returning to ask me to forgive him. That’s a lot to take in for one week.”
“You’re right, of course. That’s a lot of change for one person, let alone all in one week. I guess Fate decided to take her foot off the brakes.” Kipa reached for the lasagna pan. “More?”
I held out my plate. “Yeah, thanks. I suppose I should call Vixen and schedule a time for us to deal with the aztrophyllia. To think that this whole training thing started with me helping out a friend.” I paused, another thought striking me. “What about the ferrets? I can bring them to Tapiola, can’t I?”
He nodded. “That won’t be a problem. Maybe Väinämöinen might even have a suggestion for you on how to break their curse.”
That perked me up. “You’re right—if anybody might know the answer, it would be one of the Force Majeure.” Feeling hopeful—and anxious—about the coming year, I settled into finishing my dinner, trying to enjoy the time in my house while I could. Because once I returned from training, I wasn’t sure who I would be—or how I would feel.
I called Vixen that night. “How’s Lenny doing? I’ve been detained figuring out how to take care of the attachment that’s latched onto him, so I’m sorry I haven’t been able to call earlier. But I know how to deal with it now.”
I didn’t feel like telling them what had happened—not yet. Not till I had at least told Ember and Angel. It struck me that I’d be away from my friends for a year, and that made me realize how close we had gotten during the past sixteen months I had known them.
Vixen let out a satisfied sigh. “I’m so glad. Lenny’s getting worse, I can tell it. He barely showed up for our meeting yesterday about the website and he looks gaunt—like he hasn’t eaten for a long time. But I know he has. Can you tell me what’s going on?”
Biting my lip, I said, “Yeah, I can, but you cannot approach him about it or you’ll make yourself a target. What has a hold on him attacked me in my home Sunday night and tried to kill me. It can detach from him, which is why I don’t want you going after him. The creature’s called an aztrophyllia, and it’s an astral entity that feeds off life force. I’m going to have to knock it back into the astral plane with Kipa’s help and then I have to seal Lenny against it ever getting hold of him again.”
Vixen was silent for a moment, then they cleared their throat. “That sounds bad. Will he survive?”
“Yeah, it is bad. As for whether we’re catching this in time, I hope so. It will be hard to say until we detach it from him and are able to calculate how much energy it drained from him. Theoretically, he should recover if he’s still alive and on his feet. But I’ve never dealt with one of these creatures, so it’s rather hard to say.” I paused. “Can you arrange for him to come over to your place tomorrow? Kipa and I will be there and even if we have to strap him down, we can attempt to remove the aztrophyllia.”