Page 182 of Change

My head was pounding, and I squeezed my face so hard against my knees that stars began to dance under the darkness of my eyelids. Frustration and anger prickled at the back of my throat.

“How long are you going to let them talk about you like this?”

The question didn’t register for a moment—I’d grown so used to the distant conversations that wereaboutme, not with me, that I didn’t even think I’d had a part of this at all.

But then the words, and the voice, broke through my bubble of isolation.

My room was mostly dark, but some moonlight still broke through the large glass windows and trickled past lace curtains. And lounging on my pink cushioned bench was Caleb Weaver, his back against the windowsill as he stared out of the glass.

I opened my mouth to speak, but the words caught in my throat.

Uncle Caleb had less than pleasant things to say to me on a normal day, and right now, things were far from normal.

“I have to say, you threw me through a loop,” he began conversationally, not looking at me.

I blinked at him, squeezing my knees closer. When had it gotten so cold here?

“I trust my instincts. They’re always right,” he said, finally looking at me as he pointed to his head. “And I had my ideas about you from the beginning.”

I highly doubted it was anything positive. There was absolutely nothing I’d heard him say that wasn’t sexist and awful.

“Most people, including most women, are weaker than me. It’s just the nature of things.”

I sighed, the pressure against my chest loosening slightly. Here we go, at least this was familiar.

“Take Gloria, for example,” he said. “She’s supposed to be my equal, always has been. We’re in the same quintet, and she’s my controller. But I knew from the first time I met her that something was off. The balance between us wasn’t right, and it made me want to protecther. That wasn’t how our dynamic was supposed to work.”

I blinked at him, my taut fingers slightly loosening to a less painful hold.

Well,technically, he wasn’t wrong at all.

They were in the same quintet, and they should have been equals in power. She should have been protectinghim.

But Gloria had never been able to shift.

“I tried to break that curse for years—so did Gregory. We worked up until the time Michael died, and she pushed everyone else away and finally asked me to stop.” There was something different in Uncle Caleb’s expression now, something I’d never seen from him before.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d venture that it was respect.

“W-w-were you t-together?” I asked the question that had been plaguing me for weeks.

He frowned. “We were withher,” he answered after a long pause, moving to face me. His cane dangled sideways over his knees, and he crossed his arms. “Gregory, Michael, and me.”

I was right! I knew it! Although, I’d thought it was just Uncle Gregory and Uncle Caleb.

“W-what happened?” Uncle Gregory said that Michael was the onmyoji in his quintet—his best friend. He said he’d died.

“Gregory set himself up as the scapegoat in order to stop Gloria from blaming herself for Michael’s death,” Uncle Caleb said. “Everything fell apart, and she held a grudge against him. But we didn’t care, at least she wasn’t depressed. She and I still interacted—she was never mad atme. However, what I said the first time I met you holds true: the woman is nuts. Always has been. Always so dramatic. She wouldn’t talk to Gregory again after that.”

My heart was racing, and my blood ran cold.

She wasn’t talking to Uncle Gregory over something like that?Whywould anyone do that? Couldn’t they just talk it out?

How could he stand it? I hated the idea of someone being angry at me.

“It’s an Unseelie thing,” Uncle Caleb looked to the ceiling and raised his eyebrow but did not comment on the artwork. “Everyone thinks we’re evil,” he said, “but honestly, we’re a bunch of sentimental, self-sacrificing idiots. We always get what we want, even at our own expense. It’s a serious flaw. Life is shit.”

“H-how can you s-stand it?”