Ellen poked her head in as Jace disappeared. “Everything okay, Tony? He’s one of your kids, right? I didn’t stop him because I remembered seeing him in your picture.”
I had one picture on my desk, a rare family picture of us a couple years ago. “Yes,” I informed her, still blinking a little from the sudden visit and departure, “that’s my eldest son, and things are fine. He’s upset about something but I think he’s got a plan for how to deal with it now.”
“Oh good.” She smiled at me and looked like she was about to come in and sit down for a chat, but I wasn’t really in the mood for that so I decided to head her off.
“Do you mind shutting the door after you?” I asked her politely. “I have a lot of work to catch up on after the conference.”
“Of course. Let me know if you need coffee or anything!” She gave me that flirty smile that kind of bugged me but did leave and shut the door, so I was alone in my office again, just me and piles of paperwork to do.
I sighed and started to work on the folders. I wasn’t lying, I did have a lot to get through. Files on new hires, cases to review, suggested policy changes to approve or send back, a budget to finalize – there was a lot to still do, and I’d been back for a few days already.
Even the piles of paperwork couldn’t get me down, though. Gwen was texting me back fairly regularly now, though I made an effort not to text too often during business hours for both our sakes, because I didn’t want to interrupt her work and I was pretty sure I would get totally distracted if I spent much time talking to her during the day. Instead, I tried to plan our chats more for evening hours, and still tried to be considerate about not talking too late or around dinner time.
Of course, my new texting form of social life didn’t go unnoticed by my older two kids, who demanded to know what was going on. I had to explain that I ran into Gwen – the girl who got away – and that she’d decided to forgive me and allow us to be friends again.
Milo had volunteered the information that she was a unicorn, had a kid between Jace and Elyse’s ages, and was currently single. I’d given him a sour look, then sworn all three of them to secrecy on the unicorn thing using dragon magic to make sure they wouldn’t tell anyone without express permission. Particularly Milo, since he’d already done exactly that – at which he’d protested and pointed out that Gwen had actually given me permission to tell Jace and Elyse, so he didn’t see what the big deal was.
At the end of the day, though, they seemed to be interested in my new friendship and kept encouraging me to ask her out on a date, too. Now I had all three of them bugging me about it and Sterling even joined in on occasion – via text – asking me if I’d made any decisions on whether I was going to try to date his mom or not.
I didn’t know what to answer any of them, to be honest. I still thought of Gwen as the ideal match for me, but that was from when we were kids. She was different now, I was different now, and I thought it wouldn’t hurt to take the time to get to know each other a bit more before making any decisions on that particular subject. But…from the conversations we’d had so far, I had to think my feelings on that topic weren’t likely to change. I still felt drawn to her and if I had my choice, I probably would date her.
But Sterling had made it clear that if I wanted to go down that path, I’d have to be really serious about it and commit myself for a potentially long courtship. The idea of taking years to win her over actually didn’t bother me that much – I was a long-lived creature, years weren’t that big of a deal, really – but honestly, I wondered some if she was even ready for another relationship yet. I wasn’t quite clear on when exactly Bruce had died, but I gathered it was sometime within the past 10 or 12 years. For creatures like us, who could live hundreds of years, that wasn’t really all that long. Right now, she might just need a friend in her life – not someone trying to be a romantic interest. And if that’s what she needed, then I wanted to be that.
I got home at the regular time and started dinner, sighing a little when I realized Elyse had written on the walls again. I stopped when I read the poem, though, finding it kind of beautiful.
There was one poem of Elyse’s I’d never painted over because it was about family – about us. It had touched me, and rather than paint over it, I’d gotten a frame to hang around it and just kept it there. This one was beautiful, something about the way the sun touched on fresh raindrops, but it wasn’t quite as personal as the one about family.
“Elyse?” I asked. “Have you copied this down to anywhere else yet?”
She poked her head up from the couch. “Time is fleeting, and minds are flowing.”
I presumed that meant no. Sometimes Elyse did speak in the typical gryphon riddles, but generally I could get the gist of them.
I didn’t copy it for her – Elyse hated when we did that – and instead went back to work on dinner, preparing the ingredients for fajitas.
Jace came in in a rush, muttering something about letters and newspapers and budgets which I assumed had to do with our earlier conversation, only stopping when he almost ran into Milo as Milo reached the bottom of the stairs, carrying his textbooks.
Milo handed his books over to Jace. “Here, pretend you’re cooking and burn them, would you?”
I smothered a smile. “Glad to be done with your junior year, are you?”
“You have no idea.” Milo slumped down at the kitchen table. “Can’t I just skip next year as much as possible without putting my graduation at risk?”
I thought about that for a moment, then shrugged. “Sure, but don’t get caught.”
Milo sat up straight, his eyes sparkling. “Really?”
“You’re not learning anything there, you’re just going to satisfy the official rules on going to school at your age. I’m not going to force you to stay in school when it’s just for something like that.”
“Why not just homeschool him?” Elyse’s voice floated over the couch. “Then he can just do whatever.”
Milo and I looked at each other in surprise, me wondering why I’d never thought of that before.
“Technically I work,” I said slowly, “but…I’ll look into it, okay? See what kind of requirements the country has for that and what we would need to do. I suppose I could always take a year off from work if I needed to, but since in reality you’d probably just be researching whatever you felt like online anyway, I don’t really feel like you’d actually need me here – it just depends on what would be required.”
“Yes!” Milo hopped up and hugged me without warning, then went over to dive onto Elyse, who complained at him about messing up her work, but she patted his head as he helped her collect the papers he’d scattered, signifying she was actually kind of happy about it even if she said otherwise.
“Oh, Dad!” Milo spun back around to me. “I contacted Sterling’s fairy friend and he was happy to meet another techno vampire. He said if we can come visit, he could take some samples and stuff, or he could walk us through it and have us mail it to him. He’s kind of excited to talk to a younger techno vampire because he said it might help him figure out the disease progression since he has someone else to compare it to. He’s also going to contact the other techno vampire he knows and see if she’s okay with talking to me, and maybe I could even meet her if we go in person.” He suddenly looked troubled. “We don’t normally get to meet others of our own kind – we don’t like to intrude on territory, you know? You think she’d be okay with me visiting?”
“We can ask that first,” I pointed out. “But I’d guess if she knows it’s just for a visit, she shouldn’t have an issue with it, plus she might be curious about meeting another of her kind, too. And we can go, if that’s what you’d prefer. We can set it up whenever you want – it’s like a two hour flight, not too bad.”
Milo practically danced around the room in excitement, making me smile as I finished setting out the fajitas and called Jace down to join us.
With relief on the horizon for Milo in terms of school as well as potential hope in the form of the fairy and other techno vampire, and with Jace and Elyse buried in their respective obsessions, dinner was fairly quiet but happy. All three of my kids were doing well right now, which made me happy, and I was proud of them. They were standing up for what they believed in, creating art even if no one else understood it, or pushing for something that might make a huge difference to an entire species.
Filled with these warm thoughts, I wasn’t expecting to hear my phone ring, especially because that might mean some kind of emergency at work. I frowned a little as I looked at my phone, my concern turning into something happier when I saw who was calling.
“Good evening – ” I started to greet her.
Gwen apparently had no time for greetings. “You said something about calling you if I needed help. Did you mean that?”
My smile instantly disappeared and I stood up to go to my room to have privacy. “Yes,” I informed her as soon as the door was shut behind me. “In an official role or unofficial, depends on what you need.”
“You remember what Sterling said about my mother trusting a friend of hers, who told someone else, who killed her?” Gwen didn’t wait for an answer. “She’s here. Not the one who killed Mother, the friend she trusted. She wasn’t involved in the murder so she’s free. We – we moved away after it happened, disappeared because of her, honestly. We didn’t know if she’d realize that I was a unicorn, too, but it was a risk. So we just started over somewhere else instead.”
Well, that explained why I’d never been able to find any news of her after I’d gone back home to visit.
“But she’s here now, I saw her just now. She didn’t see me, but if she does – she’d have to recognize me, have to figure it out.” Gwen sounded like she was pacing in agitation. “And I already know she can’t be trusted. I don’t know if I can just disappear for a few days or if I have to move or what. I don’t want to move – Percy would probably want to come, and I don’t want him to disrupt his entire business for me, and Sterling – Sterling wants to stay here to hold onto his dad, plus he has Alex. I can’t ask him to move, either.”
“It’s okay,” I soothed her, “you shouldn’t have to move. Which friend of your mom’s was this?”
“Agnes, you remember her? She ran the corner store when we were kids. A familiar of some type.”
“I do remember her.” I thought quickly, trying to come up with the best solution. “Let me come there.”
“What? How does that help?”
“I can talk to her, she should remember me,” I explained. “And she knows I’m a dragon, so she wouldn’t be surprised to see me. I can find out if she’s in town for a short visit or planning to stay a while or come back, so you know what to anticipate.” I paused. “I can also make her promise not to ever repeat anything about you or your family ever again, if necessary.” With dragon magic. That might be the only way to protect Gwen and Sterling here.
“Well,” Gwen hesitated, “that would be helpful. You sure you don’t mind? It’s late and all.”
I was already reaching for my car keys. “I don’t mind. I’ll call work, let them know I won’t be in tomorrow if I need, but they owe me some days after the conference anyway, so it won’t be an issue. For now, stay out of sight, and don’t worry – I’ll take care of it.”
Protecting people was part of my job. Protecting people I cared about might not be my job, specifically, but I was bound and determined to do it anyway.
The kids looked up when I exited my room, Jace’s eyes narrowing as he saw me head towards the door.
“What’s up?”
“Gwen might be in danger,” I explained briefly. “I’m heading over there to talk to someone and find out – Milo, I’m going to call you from the car. I think I may need you to look into someone for me.”
“Let me come!” He scrambled to his feet. “I don’t want Gwen to get hurt, either!”
“Would any of us be helpful?” Jace asked, standing up, too. “I don’t do much with magic, but if someone you care about is in danger, I’ll gladly do what I can.”
Elyse nodded in agreement. “Me, too.”
I was surprised most at her, but touched by all of their willingness to help. I didn’t have time, though, to discuss this, so I just shrugged.
“Come on then, I’ll explain in the car.”
And so we all ended up piling into the car to drive to Willen Cove to try to rescue Gwen.
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