“How, Corri? How did this happen?”
“Well, I do have a theory…” She bit her lip, which meant that she’d had it for a while, but she hadn’t dared to say anything.
“Spill it out!”
“Remember when you were in Heaven and you broke your arm?”
“What does this have to do with anything?”
“Lucien gave you painkillers, right? And he put your arm in a cast.”
“Yes. So?”
“You said you had a wire inside to keep the bone aligned, and that the wire was supposed to get absorbed into the bone in time.”
“That’s what he said, yes,”
She was starting to count on her fingers now. “Painkillers made in Heaven, a wire inside your arm, and he also stitched your skin back together, if I remember well. With thread…”
“... made in Heaven, yes.”
She shrugged. “Don’t you see? All the medicine he gave you helped you heal really, really fast. It also restored your ability to teleport and dream travel. Because everything that is made in Heaven is simply… good. And it promotes everything that is good in a human body. Or any body, for that matter. You took the morning after pill right before going on the field trip to Heaven, so I think… I think all that stuff Lucien gave you canceled its effect.”
“What? No. No, no, no. Does this mean it could be Davien’s baby?”
“I don’t know about that. You had the wire and the thread in when you and Adrian… erm… did things. Your arm was still in the cast.”
“No.”
“Yes, Mistress. It makes sense. There’s no other explanation. The medicine canceled the effect of the morning after pills because avoiding pregnancy is just not something that is accepted in Heaven. So, what Lucien gave you identified the substances in the pills as harmful and attacked them. Ta-da! Pregnant.”
“Oh my God! It was supposed to be my choice!”
“Well, if you had told Lucien…”
“Told him what? Corri, in my world, the morning after pill works! Contraception in general works!”
“Yeah. Not in Heaven. And they have ways to prevent them from working. Actually, it’s not even intentional… it’s just that their drugs are made to respect the values they use as guidance in Heaven. You just happened to be… in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Or not.” She rubbed her chin. “Maybe none of this is a coincidence. You were supposed to meet Lucien, because he told you about the descendants and the day the stars will be aligned just right. Maybe you were also supposed to get pregnant now.”
“Corri, knock it off. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I felt lost. Confused. I couldn’t handle this. At the same time, if I was pregnant… that was that. Yes, there were ways to stop the pregnancy, and with the help of a skilled mage, it would’ve been easy and much less bloody than the classical way humans did it. I refused to think about it as an option. If I was pregnant… and I was… then that was that. I’d have to get used to the idea and prepare myself for what was to come.
“When do you think it happened?” Corri asked. “In November, right?”
I went to look at myself in the mirror. I lifted my blouse and studied my belly, but it was as flat as ever. I wasn’t showing. Not yet.
“I’m probably one month and a half along,” I whispered, running my hand over my stomach. I sighed. “This is insane. What am I going to do?”
“Look forward to August, what else?” Corri smiled encouragingly. “Your baby is going to be a Leo. Just like Mila.”
I shook my head. “I can’t. This complicates things so much! Corri, I’m on a dangerous mission here!” I buried my face in my palms. “By the way, go find Mila and ask her to give you a little blood. Store it in a vial or something. I want to know that we have at least one ingredient of the five the mages asked for.”
“On it!”
She teleported away, and I was alone again. I allowed the tears to flow freely.
* * *
As I walked into the dining hall for lunch on day one of semester two, Davien caught up with me and gave me an envelope. I cocked an eyebrow, opened it, and looked inside.
“How?”
He grinned. “I have my ways. Don’t worry, we didn’t do anything.”
The envelope contained a single plump feather from Domina’s wing.
“It was emotional. I asked her to see me in the courtyard, and I did this whole thing where I apologized for having led her on. Although we all know I never did that. Okay? It was all in her head. But it doesn’t matter. I was the bigger person, and I apologized, told her I never wanted to break her heart and all that. Then I asked her to give me a feather as a parting gift. You know… like in the movies, guys ask for a lock of hair? She didn’t think twice before plucking one off and giving it to me. So there. Now you have two of the five ingredients. It’s progress.”
“Thank you.” I grabbed a salad and sat down at the MDC table. Davien sat beside me, and Seth joined us in seconds. “But you were honest, right? When you told her it was never your intention to break her heart?”
The incubus rolled his eyes. “Actually, yes, I was honest. It’s not like I spend my days plotting how to better break women’s hearts. We’re cool, Domina and I. Friends, she said.”
“Okay. That’s good.”
“How are you feeling?” Seth asked me. “You haven’t gotten out of your room a lot lately. I was half worried you weren’t going to show up today.”
“I needed time to think. And space. You two aren’t very good at giving me space.”
“Sorry.” He grinned at me. No, he wasn’t going to move.
I was once again sandwiched between these two idiots who didn’t want to give up on me. On us. And I was so grateful for that! One of these days, I’d have to pull it the fuck together and tell them how much I appreciated them.
Adrian was at the professors’ table. All through the lunch break, I could feel his gaze on me. When the students started clearing the tables and leaving for class, I looked up at him.
“I need to start dream traveling again,” I told Seth and Davien. I never broke eye contact with Adrian. “And I want you two to guard me. Professor Wyvern, too.” I looked back at the incubus and the sphinx. “Please. I need you to start getting along. We’re in this together, okay? I don’t know who the father is, but it doesn’t matter. Because I care about all three of you, do you hear me? You mean so much to me. You worked together once and saved me. I need you to do it again.”
Davien ran his hands through his red hair. He looked like he was frustrated.
Seth hung his head, unwilling to meet my gaze. Eventually, he nodded feebly.
“Yeah, okay. I can try.”
“Jesus,” Davien complained. “This sucks balls.”
“Please try?” I pleaded.