I shook Adam’s outstretched hand with a firm grip.
In a way, despite not coming to reunions or meeting face to face only a few times, I already knew him. I knew quite a bit about him.
Because his brother told me stories.
James.
Adam.
They were twins.
My adoptive father, and Elizabeth’s father.
In those stories, Adam and I were more alike than James and myself. Because we’d both taken beatings for our brothers, without their knowledge. Adam, for James, and me… and me for…
His firm hand gripped mine back and a smile bloomed on his face.
“Glad you could make it.”
Yeah, I thought hazily, me too.
I glanced up at the window far above us.
I hoped this was a good choice. Things would work out… They would. I nodded to myself. Just start with talking. Talking to her was a good start. Then you know where you stand in her life… and if it will ever be allowed to change.
Talking…
It was one of the hardest things for me to do.
But, in thinking back, it hadn’t been so hard talking to Elizabeth, had it? I’d spoken more words to her in the first day we met than I had to Henry and James for the first whole week of my adoption.
So, maybe, it might still be like that?
Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to talk to her.
Adam let go of my hand as I nodded to his words.
“The only way to access that point is through the room she claimed, and she already had the room redesigned a couple years ago,” he gestured up at the castle, explaining the situation.
I’d gotten a glimpse of her room when I was up there, but I hadn’t really been paying attention. Without any exact knowledge of the location of things, it just… it felt homey, like she had her own safe den or something.
Adam continued to speak, his hand leading my gaze back up to Elizabeth and her window. She was still staring down at us as if in a daze. I guess it had probably been quite a surprise to see me. I hoped it was a good one.
“We just don’t want to mess it up by bringing it all through there, so I figured we could tag-team it. I can use the wind for more of the pushing – for the benches and windows, blocks, and everything else, but it’s hard to stabilize it with just that. You’d just need to guide it, if that’s alright with you. And then we'll get to work on the frame and construction part."
That made sense, and I nodded.
“Sounds good.”
Though, as my gaze drifted back to Adam, I remembered something. There was a person, in the group that went to defeat the previous alpha, the group that held those get-together reunions at the cabin… There had been a person who could use telekinesis.
So… why pick me?
It wasn’t like we knew each other that well, and it wasn’t like I didn’t have a job I could be doing back home.
Before I had much time to think it over, Adam was talking again.
“We won’t be overworking you. I know how the energy fades. We have a room set up for you in this wing.”
I shook off my wings, the feathers flying off on the wind, tumbling away on the grass. To grow and then to shed them, over and over. That was my life.
“There’s going to be a lot of feathers around here by the time this is over,” I said jokingly.
He just grinned and waved a hand as we started walking toward a side door on the castle, one I supposed he probably came out here to meet me from.
“Feathers are manageable. Elizabeth on the other hand…”
He said those words jokingly, with a light in his eyes. I laughed lightly, joining him.
Sometimes… she seemed like she could be a handful.
“Take me to the atmosphere!”
I smiled in remembrance of those words.
Quite a handful she could be.
We entered the castle and I found my gaze wandering as we walked down the hallway. I’d never been in here before. The walls were tall, so tall that I’d have to fly to reach the ceiling, despite my own height. There were some people walking around, looking entirely peaceful, even as they cleaned or headed to their destinations.
I guess that really showed how different things were now, didn’t it?
As I gazed around, I heard a small thunk and turned to see Adam picking up something someone had dropped, handing it back with a smile.
“Here you go.”
“Thank you.”
They returned the smile and went on their way.
Another noise drew my attention, and I stared down the hallway in the direction it had come from, mentally placing where I was now in relation to the outside of the castle on a map in my head.
That was the direction of Elizabeth’s room.
“BUT MOM–”
And that – that was Elizabeth.
I smiled as I heard the faint sound of a door and two sets of footsteps getting closer.
Adam had stopped walking too, to stare off in the same direction I was, grinning ear to ear as they grew closer.
Her mother rounded the corner first. And then, not far behind, biting her lip in concentration, was Elizabeth. She looked like she had a ton of questions she wanted to ask, too many answers she didn’t yet have…
And I smiled, unable to stop myself, at just the sight of her.
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