Interlude
"What do you taste?"
"Bubblegum."
A sigh. "What do you hear?"
"Wind."
"What do you smell?"
"Fresh rain. The forest. Earth."
"What do you feel?"
"Bored." And anxious, a little queasy and sweaty.
"What, not, how. Otherwise you're going to run laps again."
"The snow beneath my feet. Melting. It's getting warm out here."
"Open your eyes."
She did so.
"What do you see?" Echo asked her.
Leah frowned. "You, across from me, levitating like a show-off. The trees, covered in snow. The ground is snowy, too, and the river to the south is almost frozen. There's the mountains in the east and the sun breaking through the clouds. There's no hikers, but a herd of deer..." She concentrated, pushing her hearing to its limits. "Less than a mile away."
"Focus on the snow beneath you. The texture, the cold, the color. Fill your mind with it. Think only of snow, for now."
Leah closed her eyes once more. She could tell now, that heat was not external, the sun was too weak. Instead, a warmth was burning in her heart, spreading to her limbs, stinging behind her eyes. She felt weighted, more grounded than before, like a statue, or a tree planted right where she stood.
"Once more," Echo commanded. "Ask for help."
Lend me your power.
Please.
A silent explosion went off.
Leah felt as if she were being pulled apart, slowly, cruelly, as if to taunt her. Uncomfortable, but not unbearable. The light behind her eyes magnified as if the sun was falling onto her, but she was scared to peek. The comforting warmth intensified, as if she were sitting in a tea kettle, boiling, boiling, boiling, nothing she could do. She grit her teeth and focused harder.
Snow, soft, crunchy, ice-cold, pure white. Beneath her feet and in her hair. On her tongue and whistling past.
Lend me your power.
Lend me your power.
Please.
Please, please, please!
She sucked her teeth. Give it to me, damn it!
The heat went off like a light switch and was replaced by the shock of the regular cold of a Washington winter. Leah fell over, but Echo caught her with a spell, helping her float four feet in the air.
"I had it!" Leah growled.
Echo, reclining mid-air, turned on her side. She pointed at her student. "No, you have it."
Leah looked down at her palms, emanating, pale blue light. A small sphere of magic energy encompassed her hands. It flickered, sure, but it was there.
"Yes!" Leah cheered. She fired a blast at a tree across the clearing, snapping off a branch. "Finally!"
"Hey, hey, hey," Echo shushed. She dissolved the levitation spell, stepping daintily onto the ground while Leah fell on her butt. "No need for senseless murder. I am proud of you, we all are, but remember not to take this for granted. Magic is conducted by -"
"The soul of one with fairy blood, or humans bestowed with the gift."
"It is fueled by -"
"Focus and emotion."
"And it is drawn from -"
"Nature. Plants, sun, wind, rain, rocks. The moon or the stars, too."
"Nice, Leah," the princess approved. "You've been studying the books I gave you."
"This is my third lesson," the human girl commented. "I've already found my light. You said I might not get it for months. Don't you think I should be doing more than growing grass and summoning rain? Can't I have a wand?"
Echo shook her head. "A wand is different. It depends on knowledge, almost entirely. We don't have time for learning more spells. It's superfluous."
"I'm serious, Echo," Leah pressed. "I want to be ready. To be the hero we all need."
Echo pulled out her suitcase from the snow, dragging it over to the center of the field. "Your eyesight and hearing have advanced to nearly fairy levels. Your sense of smell will get there, too, in weeks, I assume. You can grow plants, too. You can hold your own in sparring against me. These are the most important, and will help you best in battle. You have your strength."
"But?" Leah snapped, folding her arms.
"But you haven't found your wings, cannot change sizes, and you can't manipulate the elements. Those things are supposed to be instinctual for a fairy. School children can do that. No, not everyone can find their light, like you or me, but then again, it's most of what we've been working on."
"Oh," Leah said, looking down to her shoes. "Makes sense. I'm not a real fairy, am I?" she laughed dryly.
Echo rested a hand on the younger girl's shoulder. "Don't look so glum. You have potential. And you're special, kid. It's why you survived when my grandmother transferred her power to you. Most humans cannot handle it. Few have survived. But you're strong."
The human girl sighed. "I guess that's true," she muttered.
"You're not so different from the rest of us," Echo said, crouching to the ground. As she brushed her hand over the snow, it magically melted away, leaving damp, but drying grass for them to sit in.
"I thought you said few humans survived a transfer."
"Not that. Look, it's hard for me to admit, but I'm not too sheltered to notice what life is like for some people in my kingdom. People without full fairy-blood are treated like second-class citizens. It's no coincidence that most of our approved senators come from fullblood noble families. It's even worse for those who aren't descendants of our founders. They relocated from fairy colonies."
"You mean non-white ones?" Leah clipped.
"Yeah," Echo confirmed.
"Sucks for the major."
"Who?" Echo raised an eyebrow. "Oh, Major Berry, yes. He's had his own obstacles outside of that, but Troy does fall into both categories. His mother's family is from a clan on the other side of the country. His dad was human. Some nobles made it known they didn't like him being ranked major, but despite the pushback, he's worked hard for the position he's got."
Leah huffed. "I guess humans aren't so different from fairies, then. They all suck."
The princess laughed. "Not my point, but yeah. What I'm saying is that everyone is different in their own way, and some people are always going to have a problem with it. But to the people that count, to me and my grandmother, you'll never be overlooked, never be cast out. You'll never be an outsider."
"So long as I try?" Leah smirked, standing up.
"So long as you try," Echo agreed.
The two girls shared a smile.
"I should warn you. There's one thing you're utterly failing at," Echo started, with a concerned frown.
"What now?"
"Reflexes." Echo leaned over the open suitcase, pulling out a silver spear, and charged at Leah.
With a laugh, the human girl rolled out of the way, snatched the other staff in the case, and leaped into a warrior stance. She was ready to test out that new trick, alright. Then find new ones and repeat, whether she was a fairy, a human, in-between, or one-of-a-kind.
"Those coffee rolls are looking good…" Emmett said, raising an eyebrow.
Leah slapped his hands away. "They're mine. Hands off, bear boy."
"I need to keep up appearances!" He looked to his left. "Alice, what's the verdict?"
Alice glanced up from her mile-long receipt. "You'll gag and accidentally launch it into the glass window across the room."
"Noted." Emmett clapped Edward on the back. "You good, man?"
Edward nodded, but didn't move, his body tense. He was completely at ease, deep, deep down. Taking in the scents around him. Blood, always blood, would occupy one level of his mind, no matter what was happening or where he was. In the populated coffee shop he had the addition of the door opening and closing constantly, releasing fresh gusts of wind, and customers rushing by, sometimes crossing mere feet from the table where he, Alice, Emmett, and Leah sat.
"I'm alright," he finally announced, when ten total minutes had flicked by in silence.
It was Leah, who was unaccustomed to long periods of time, who spoke first. "Well, that's a relief," she sighed.
Alice shook her head. "I can't believe she was able to do that. No longing for the scent of blood. What that must be like." She kept a good façade, but like Jasper, her mind went to those torturous newborn years. No strong sense of morality or determination had brought Alice to vegetarianism. She at first saw it as a compromise for her beloved family for them to accept her. It took time for her to truly agree in her heart that the lifestyle was her duty to uphold.
Meanwhile Emmett considered the possibilities in a very different way. "So, if I guy was bleeding out in the middle of the cafe, would you -"
Edward glared.
Alice's eyes brightened. "I thought of that. Maybe only if he tasted the blood would it matter."
Leah wiped the crumbs off her hands. "This could be good for you, Ed. You never got a chance to use your medical degree."
He perked up at that. What could he do now, that every door was opened? He hadn't been able to handle living on his own due to lack of control. And then he didn't want to control anything. For years, he gorged himself on human blood, thinking it moral because they were "bad". As if he weren't a hellish nightmare himself. He glanced at Leah, smiling openly at him, not scowling, not mocking, but grinning. Her dark eyes were soft, reminding him of the time they sat at the piano and she tried to be tough when facing him alone. The dreamy look on her face as she played.
If she'd despised him for his attempt on her life, what would she think of him, knowing the many (too many) times he succeeded with others?
After he'd given up living alone, he hadn't wanted to. It was hard work faking independence and as Carlisle knew all too well - lonely. Maybe more so than his parents, he needed family. Perhaps that was the seventeen-year-old side to himself, still unformed and immature.
He smirked. "Would I make a good doctor?"
"I'm not sure," she teased. "Old folks don't trust young people to treat them."
Emmett agreed. "We'd have to move even more often. If Carlisle's face buys us ten years, then yours is going to get, what, two?"
"Two?" he spat.
Alice nodded solemnly. "The term is 'babyface'."
"You're one to talk," Leah laughed.
Alice posed exaggeratedly in her chair. "No, I'm a very mature, sophisticated woman. Who could think me a child?"
The experiment had gone on long enough. For the foreseeable future, Edward was stuck as the world's best candidate for a vegetarian vampire.
And he had to admit, it was wonderful. As the four of them walked down the streets of the city, Leah pressed closer to him to avoid the crowds. He felt the warmth of her body, his teeth were mere inches from her neck, and yet...nothing. The burn in his throat remained (strong and unforgettable), her scent engulfed them, but no venom pooled his mouth and his muscles remained as relaxed as ever.
Of course, Alice felt the need to visit a final store, as if she couldn't drive up here any day of the week. Edward could see that Leah was tired from her lesson. They should've headed back home an hour ago. He asked her about Echo's lessons, how the tutoring was going. He couldn't quite trust Ella or completely like Echo, but the latter held a sense of honor, perhaps more so than her predecessor. Maybe there was some merit to Leah being trained by the princess herself. She was the strongest indicator of the fairy's goodwill (or lack thereof) that they could hope for.
Leah peered through the glass window. "He's cute."
He lightly kicked her ankle. "You could've just said I'm boring you." He followed her gaze across the street, into the bookstore cafe.
And there he was, looking into his own face - sharp features, heavy eyebrows, even the quirk of his lips. Only this man's eyes were brown, his hair a more common ginger shade, and freckles populated the bridge of his nose. He must've been about nineteen or twenty, maybe a college student. A peaceful look passed over his face as he hunched over a notebook, scribbling something.
"Edward?" Leah was saying.
Most humans wouldn't be able to recognize the similarities, but to his eyes, they were stark, frighteningly so. He felt lightheaded just looking at this human version of himself - of his past self. The boy didn't look up from his notebook, too lost in his own world.
Not all of Edward's senses were lost to him. He let his mind travel out of the boutique, across the busy street and to the lookalike. He saw through the man's eyes, pens, textbooks, and a notebook scattered across the table. At the top of the page, the name "Patrick Masen" stared up at him.