Sorrel was already downstairs, as was Honey, who was trying to explain to Mom why she should get to transfer to our school so she, me, and Riven could all go to school together.

“You want to transfer in the middle of the year?”  Mom sounded doubtful.

“I want to go with Ren and Riven!  We could all carpool together, it’d be easier, and we could hang out together in between classes.”

Mom hesitated as she set a pitcher full of orange juice on the table.  “I hate to say this, but if Percival Holt does turn out to be Riven’s dad and wants to take him in, he may not end up being at the school much longer.  There may not be a point for you to transfer in only to transfer back a few weeks later.”

Honey’s face turned pouty.  “Well, couldn’t he just stay with us?  He’s Ren’s soulmate, anyway, so that makes sense.”

“What?”  Riven was on the bottom of the stairs, his presence undetected by any of us until too late.

I half panicked, looked to Mom for help, who seemed like she wanted me to decide how to proceed; then Honey, who looked like she was trying to decide whether to apologize or pretend she didn’t say anything; and then Sorrel.

Sorrel had been leaning back in his seat, but when my panicked gaze met his, he sighed a little, put his feet down, and sat up.  “Come here, sit down.  We have some more supernatural stuff to tell you.”  He waited until Riven came to sit down, his gray eyes flashing to me and then back to Sorrel.  “So,” Sorrel began, “supernaturals have soulmates, people who fit their souls, in a sense.  It’s not always romantic – in fact, the most common version is platonic, like a best friend.  When the soulmate bond is platonic, essentially it just means this person will be your best friend for life.  They’ll be someone you can always count on, someone you know will get you.  Most of the time we assume the bond is platonic unless we find out otherwise.  On rare occasions, it might just be a good business partner.  If it is romantic, well, then that person is someone you know would never cheat on you or betray you because their soul is bound to yours.  It’s usually a closer relationship than non-soulmates, in whatever form it takes.  Mom and Dad are romantic soulmates, while Nathan is my platonic soulmate.  And you’re Ren’s soulmate.  That’s why he wasn’t willing to give up on being friends with you.”

Riven’s brows furrowed.  “Is that why you decided to become friends with me?”  He asked me, his face troubled.

“No!  I mean…it might have influenced me after I got to know you, but I didn’t realize it at first, I was just interested in you, it took a while before I noticed.”  I spoke quicker than normal, needing him to understand, anxious that he wouldn’t like this.

Mom sat down at the table next to Riven, gently placing her hand on his arm.  “Most of the time, the bond connects before we’re even aware of it.  Fairies usually have a moment where we realize it has connected, but with some supernaturals, it’s much more of a subtle thing.  But please believe me – all of us – it’s not a bad thing.  It just means Ren is dying to be your best friend forever, if you will let him, and he’ll always be there for you no matter what.  It means even if you do end up moving to Willen Cove, your friendship won’t die off – neither of you will let it, because it’s important to you, too, even if you’re not aware of it yet.”

He chewed on his lower lip for a few moments.  “No, I’m aware of it,” he admitted at last.  “I mean, that Ren is special to me.  I just figured it’s because he was my first real friend, I didn’t realize there was something else.”

I reached across the table and grabbed his hands tightly.  “I am your first real friend, but I’m also your soulmate, and I’m sorry I didn’t say anything sooner, I was just worried it would be too much information and didn’t know if you’d be happy about it so I was scared.”

Riven gave me a real, warm smile.  “You don’t have to be scared, Ren,” he said softly.  “I have no intention of giving up on our friendship, either.”

My shoulders sagged, and I thought my entire family took a sigh of relief.

“Well, now that that’s over,” Mom said briskly, “let’s eat and get on with the day, shall we?”

As we ate, I found myself actually happier than normal – Riven knew we were soulmates now, and that hadn’t scared him off.  Hopefully everything would turn out well.  Even if he had to move in with his dad, we’d stay friends.  I was sure of it.

Sorrel, Riven, and I left a while later to head to the parking lot, then Sorrel and Riven switched places – I was in the back – and Sorrel started talking him through driving the car, explaining how things worked.  Riven seemed really nervous, and probably if I was driving, I would feel that way, too, but he did pretty well, I thought.  He didn’t run into anything, only jolted us to a stop a couple of times, and had figured out how to drive in figure eights and do basic parking by the time Sorrel decided to call it a day and go get lunch.

We got some vegetarian tacos from a taco stand and then hung out outside, talking.  Sorrel was talking about how vet school was going and talking about some of his anatomy classes, during which both mine and Riven’s eyes kind of glazed over.  Eventually he moved on to asking me how I was looking forward to going to 8^th grade next year.

“Well, if I can go with Riven, it’ll be great,” I announced.

Riven gave me a soft smile.  “Maybe we could line up some electives or something, but being two years apart might make it hard.”

We loaded back up in the car and headed home, Sorrel asking Riven as we drove what he was thinking of majoring in for college.

Riven scrunched up his face.  “I – I don’t know.  I always kind of figured I wouldn’t go because Mom wouldn’t pay for it.  I hadn’t really thought about it too much.”

“You have a couple years,” Sorrel encouraged him.  “You can start thinking about it, at least, trying to see if there’s something you like enough to study and pursue as a career.  But don’t forget, there’s scholarships and things – your grades are pretty good, right?  You can probably get at least a partial scholarship.  Full scholarships are a little harder to come by, but if your application is good enough, you might stand a shot.  It’s worth thinking about it now so you can try to improve your grades or add extra curriculars to make you more appealing.”

I leaned forward and grabbed Riven’s elbow.  “Riven’s plenty appealing,” I frowned at Sorrel.  “They should love him, too.”

Sorrel chuckled as he rolled his eyes at me in the rearview mirror.  “For application purposes, Ren.  Stop being jealous.”

Riven threw me a smile, though, so I didn’t think he was too bothered by it, which was good.

We got out of the car at home and I grabbed Riven’s hand, happy for just a moment – until I noticed Dad’s car was back.

Sorrel noticed it, too.  “I guess that means we have some answers?”  He murmured.

Riven’s hand in mine tightened a bit, and I glanced at him to see him bite his lip, anxiety on his face.

“You want us to go in first and tell you if it’s okay?”  I asked him.  There was a lot riding on this for him – whether the man Dad met was his dad, whether he was a good person, whether he’d take Riven back with him.  I’d probably be even more terrified than he looked if I was in his shoes.

“No, I’m okay.”  Riven swallowed and moved towards the front door, still gripping my hand.  I tried to think of another way to help him as we got inside and my eyes fell on all the flowers in the flower shop.  Flowers made me feel better, so – I grabbed one, presenting it to Riven before we went upstairs.

“For you,” I told him, squeezing his fingers lightly.

Riven seemed surprised at the offered pink and red rose, but accepted it, thankfully getting distracted with it as Sorrel led the way upstairs.

Dad and Mom were talking when we got upstairs but when we entered, they stopped and looked at us.

“Ah,” Dad said calmly, a smile on his face, “the boys are back.  Boys, I’d like you to meet Percy Holt – Riven’s dad.  Percy, this is my oldest son, Sorrel, my youngest, Ren, and Riven is with Ren.”

I was scooted up as close to Riven as I could go without actually clinging to him, hoping I was offering him some sort of comfort for this.  He was still holding the rose with his free hand and looked entirely unprepared for this family reunion.

Percy Holt was probably about six feet tall, with hair like Riven’s, similar features, and a similar build overall – not heavily muscular, but still lithe and active.  I was happy to see he looked about as nervous about this as Riven did, because it meant he was worried it wouldn’t go well – which meant he wanted it to go well – which meant he cared about Riven.  That was a good sign.

I also noticed he read as supernatural but I couldn’t identify the kind, so that probably meant he was Vist, right?

“Hi, Riven,” Percy’s voice was soft.  “I’m sorry we’re meeting like this – I didn’t even know you existed until Adair spoke to me, and I can’t believe everything you’ve had to put up with from your mom.  And you’re Vist, which makes it all the worse – growing up without understanding what you were seeing must have been terrifying.  I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you to explain things.”

Riven surveyed his dad, hesitating for a bit.  “I don’t think you have to apologize for that,” he said at last.  “This is all on Mom’s head, right?  If you’d known and deliberately left me with her it’d be one thing, but you didn’t even know, so I don’t think you need to apologize.”

“I agree,” Mom said briskly as she set down a plate of cookies in the middle of the dining room table.  “Percy, Riven, you’re both victims of Gretchen and we can do everything we can to get justice for you, Percy, if you want, but in the meantime let’s just get to know each other, shall we?  You have 15 years to catch up on and you’re both going to have some important decisions to make, but we don’t need to figure out everything right this minute.  Let’s just take some time to relax and get to know each other first.”

Mom was good at this stuff, but that made sense – it was her job on the council.  She was able to smoothly start asking Percy questions about his business and subsidiaries, what he did with them, how he started them, transitioning into more personal questions as she went without him even seeming to notice.

He admitted he had a sister who was married to a merfolk and they had a son who was in between Riven’s and my ages.  He hesitated a bit on this, but then admitted that his parents were Vist and unicorn – unicorn, a race thought to be lost when they intentionally disappeared.

“I think Riven is a hybrid,” he admitted.  “Because he reads human to me but I see the Vist eyes – but reading human is more of a unicorn thing, so I suspect he’s a hybrid between the two.”

Riven blinked, taken aback, and Percy started to explain some unicorn traits, some of which – seeing certain magical things, for instance – seemed to align with things Riven saw, but he didn’t seem totally convinced.

“How do you know I’m not just a human with Vist vision?”  He looked between Dad and Percy in confusion.

“It can sometimes be a guess with hybrids,” Dad explained slowly, “but as far as Percy’s guess…to be honest, the thought had occurred to me.  I figured either Vist had started to read as human or you had unicorn in you, because Vist vision is highly unlikely in humans.  As in, it’s never happened at all.  Given that you do have known unicorn blood, that seems like a much more likely explanation.”

“Cool!”  I burst out.  “Aren’t unicorns like semi-indestructible?  Doesn’t that mean Riven can’t be killed easily?”  Not that I was planning on him needing that, but hey, not dying easily was a helpful trait when one wanted to keep their soulmate alive, right?

“If he has that trait, yes that is true, but from what I can tell, Riven doesn’t have a unicorn form – I don’t see one,” Percy explained, his gaze flickering between Riven and me.  “It’s a little hard to tell what traits he has acquired but,” he paused briefly, “my sister and her son are full unicorns, so they might be able to help him figure out whether he has any magic.”

That was kind of a big secret he was telling us.  Unicorns were in hiding, and while telling us his mom had been one when she had already died was one thing, telling us his living relatives were unicorns was another.  He was making the decision to trust us, and I was happy about that.  I hoped he understood how important Riven was to me and how much my entire family liked him.  We’d never betray his family.

Riven was pretty quiet during all of this, but he seemed thoughtful, bordering on overwhelmed, but not quite there.  Mom managed to get him to talk about school and how we were doing, but he seemed a little reluctant to talk about his life with his mom, which I kind of understood – I think he was afraid talking about his mom would bring up bad memories for Percy, plus it wasn’t like he had great times living with her, so as far as Riven was concerned, talking about his mom was just going to be a lot of negativity without any positive reward.

When Riven went to go upstairs to bed, I hesitated and then approached Percy.

“Riven’s sweet and smart and awesome and he deserves to have a real family, so I hope you’ll give him a chance,” I burst out, ignoring all my family in the room, “but he’s my soulmate so I – I still need him, so, um, if you do take him back with you, please let me video call with him all the time?”

Without waiting for an answer, I dashed upstairs after Riven, my cheeks flushed bright red.

I wanted Riven to be happy, and he deserved a chance at family – but I really hoped giving him that chance wouldn’t cost him our relationship, too.