Page 153 of Rebellious Royals

"You may not have had a family to lean on before," Liam said, smoothing down my hair, "but you do now. You also have two dads who understand that you really can handle this, so I just wanted to make sure that's out there, ok?"

"Yeah," I breathed, looking up at both of them. "I was thinking that maybe, like for my birthday-graduation celebration, I can spend a night with you two again? You know, a quiet one?"

Bracken just mussed up my hair. "I will definitely make a cake, and since you've earned it, I'll even cook meatloaf for you, Rain." Then he made a face.

"Nope," I said. "I want a good fae meal, some K-dramas, and maybe a little, um... What sport is on right now, Dad?"

"I'll record some fencing competitions," Liam said. "That way it'll be something all three of us can understand."

Chapter Forty-Eight

RAIN

We ate. We rested. Torian made me drink an entire glass of nectar from the silver oak in the middle of the atrium, and then all of my friends hit me with some sort of enchantment or conjuration. Not surprisingly, I lay down on my bed as we were all talking and planning, then woke up to darkness and Aspen crawling under the blankets beside me.

"I..."

"Shh..." She breathed, wrapping her arms around me. "This is why you don't mess with the fae, Rain. We decided to manipulate you into resting, and we're good at it."

"But what happened with the attackers?" I asked. "I missed all of it."

She kissed the side of my neck. "It's still being sorted. I can say Tag was sent up to bring you some nectar." And Aspen giggled. "We made it clear we'd taken care of that and assured her you'd be ready."

"For what?"

"I don't know," she said. "Now go to sleep." To make sure of it, Aspen began humming fae lullabies or something.

The music was in Faeril, and while I didn't understand a word, it was amazingly soothing, and I hadn't really woken all the way up. I also didn't fight her. If my girlfriend thought I needed to sleep more, then that was an easy way to make her happy. And when the alarm went off on my phone the next morning, I actually felt rested.

The feeling in the halls was off, though. Students moved in groups rather than alone like they usually did. I kept seeing people looking over their shoulders, and too many were clutching their tablets as if bracing for the worst. Even the sound in the halls was subdued.

As I jogged down to the Never, it was only worse. Underground, people spoke in whispers, looking at every door as if they didn't trust it. On my shoulder, Jack sat crouched low, but his beak was snapping from side to side, making me think he noticed it too. Yet when I stepped into my normal room, Ms. Rhodes was sitting there with two mugs before her.

"Good morning, Morrigan," she said, sliding one towards my spot.

I took it before I was all the way around the table. "My friends hooked me up, then tricked me into passing out before the sun was even down," I told her. "They wanted me ready for the worst today, and were convinced you'd ask me to do something, but all of them said they didn't know what was going on."

She sighed the way she always did when things were going wrong. "Rain, they were all Silent."

"Are you surprised?"

Slowly, she shook her head. "No. I did notice three of them with dark manacles." She lifted a brow.

I grunted. "Yeah, um, so I realized the mittens - which worked really well - meant they couldn't do things. Open a door,write, or whatever. And I thought about that the last time, but not seriously, you know? More like just a fleeting thought - yet when I saw Wilder had them all held somehow, because I didn't realize it was a glamour until someone told me, um, I just..." I shrugged. "I thought they were imprisoned, and prisoners wear handcuffs."

"Can you make them again?" she asked.

I nodded quickly. "Yep. I mean, those are easy. I just have to hit them. I mean, magically hit them."

Which made Ms. Rhodes smile. "What do they do, Rain?"

"They kinda nullify their magic. With those on, they can't do anything but live. It doesn't strip magic from them, but it does eat what comes out of them."

"So, a barrier, basically?"

I quickly took a sip of my coffee. "I didn't think it through. I just told the shadows I didn't want them to be able to do any fae magic, but I wanted them alive. Why?"

She lifted her own cup and took a drink. "Because there's one thing I learned in war. Rain, spies can be flipped, but only if they're treated well. Not perfectly, and if they aren't punished, they won't trust us. They expect a certain level of restraint and being watched, but if their captors are more kind than their own side?"