Page 17 of Change

“Customs?” I breathed, a sense of foreboding filling me as this topic came up, once again. There was no way that this was a coincidence.

“A general overview of culture.” Brayden sounded shy and his knee began to bounce. “It’s an introduction book you created, a long time ago. They say you’ve always been curious and like to learn things for yourself.”

Did they now? Though it’d make sense—if this was like reading a diary I’d written, it wouldn’t feel like someone else telling me about my life.

It’d feel like…

Everything was no longer spiraling out of control around me.

“Culture?” I frowned down at the grotesque image. “Is that a goblin eating a human?” It totally was.

It was even labeled—in fancy cursive—as a preferred punishment toward humans who’d attempted to trick or steal from the fae.

“Don’t worry too much about every chapter.” Brayden quickly flipped forward through the book. “Most of these things are outdated anyway!”

“Brayden…” I was still staring in the location where the image had once been, which was now replaced with a wall of barely legible text. “If this was from my private library, then how did you know what was in it?”

He froze, and I huffed out a breath.

Maybe I didn’t want to know.

“Never mind.” Whatever reason he had to snoop around, it worked out for my benefit anyway. Just so long as he was putting his sleuthing skills to use in order to do good, I didn’t care.

“Brayden,” I said again, as—now—a nervous tension began to fill my stomach. I highly doubted that it was unintentional that two people in two days had come to me with this topic.

Brayden was watching me with wide-eyed wariness, and his voice shook a little when he replied, “Yes?”

“Why are you and Dr. Stephens talking to me about fae custom all of a sudden?” I moved my finger over the pages of the book, vaguely noting that it felt warm under my touch. “We’ve barely had time to even go over everything wedoas mediums—empaths—whatever you want to call our abilities.”

“It’s all of that,” Brayden interrupted.

But I pressed onward. “I’d think, then, that culture would be one of the last things to talk about, since it’s a given that I wouldn’t be going to the fae realm any time soon.”

Brayden made a sound of understanding and leaned back. “Well, Mucreatedour realm. So you should probably feel some sort of connection…”

He was telling the truth, but not entirely. Brayden made a terrible liar.

“Is there any personal information about Mu in here?” That, probably, would help me feel a ‘connection’ other than reading about gruesome traditions that—the first occasion I could—I would definitely be addressing. That was, if my ‘oversight’ was as strong as everyone implied.

“No.” Brayden frowned. “There are other books—about family lines, history, personality analysis and past lives. I have those here.” He pulled out two more thick books, laying them beside the first on the table. “But I figured you’d want to start with the prophecy.”

My chest swelled. He really did understand me. Trying to figure this out on my own would have takenages.

Meanwhile, Brayden was giving me something that I hadn’t been able to find before—a way to more fully understand myself.

“There’s a lot more, obviously, between the public and private archives,” Brayden was saying, green eyes shining in apology. “And Uncle Caleb and I have been trying to find your private journals and diaries foryears, but we haven’t—”

His sentence stopped abruptly as I jumped off the chair and threw my arms around his neck. Maybe it was the medicine making me warm and emotional, or maybe it was just because it was that time of the month, but I didn’t want him to feel guilty when it was obvious that he’d been trying so hard.

And even more than that, he’d already helped me so much.

No one had ever taken my research seriously before.

“Thank you.” My cheek was pressed above his clavicle, and I could hear his heart racing even as he remained frozen under me. “You didn’t have to.”

“Oh…” He finally moved—exhaling—as he hugged me back and pet my shoulder. “Of course.”

There was something about the hitch in his voice that made me hold him at an arm’s length, glancing up at him with watery eyes. “Youdohave to listen to me?” I’d been half-joking when plotting out all the ways I could torture Bryce. But now that I thought about it, that was kind of terrible.