Chapter Twenty-Eight

I arrived at Jamie’s funeral, my mind edgy and uncomfortable. Mourning fluttered throughout those in attendance, mixed with a multitude of thoughts for the hundreds who arrived, from guild members to classmates to staff to the dearest and nearest of the Novak family. Some were filled with regrets for what they said, what they didn’t say, what they never could say to Jamie. Some were preoccupied with the pretense of grief. Some were aggravated by the chill in the air that no amount of bright sunlight above could penetrate.

All in all, emotions were strewn about in every damn direction with this massive group.

Quelling my telepathy wasn’t an option, not with so many around and my mind in such a state of shame. Had I worked harder, done more, realized Jamie’s pain sooner—none of this might’ve happened. I focused on those I cared for, minds like my students, Milo, Chanelle, and tried to let them ground me during this ordeal.

“ I’m fine, ” Chanelle thought.

I frowned. She believed I’d invaded her head to offer comfort, kindness, but it was selfishness on my part.

Chanelle stood with her husband, Kyle. Her thoughts would’ve been easy to latch onto, to offer relief for us both, but she didn’t want that. Right now, she remained strong and composed, diligent in being her best self for the other students, the ones she hadn’t failed. Her mind stirred to thoughts, to her past, to her mistakes she’d rather not share, so I buried the images before they cemented in my mind. I couldn’t offer her solace, not with my own regrets, so I left her alone, content that Chanelle would reach out when she needed it. And I’d be there to talk, to listen, to focus on her pain and not make it about mine.

Speaking of someone who knew how to offer comfort when sinking in sorrow, Milo stood near his acolytes at the front of those gathered. First and foremost, he came to offer support, even if his mind rooted through visions, those he believed he’d missed and those yet to occur. I let him focus on guild work, let him fixate on offering the best potential outcomes in spite of believing he’d faltered too much. Keeping a careful eye on Milo, I watched him study his acolytes’ changing futures, the shift of their colorful threads of destiny. Still intermingled from what Milo could tell, yet Lena’s drifted, the indigo shade darkening, withering, and reaching for new pathways.

Milo didn’t want that, didn’t believe Lena’s best future lay on her own, so he worked to subtly steer things, hoping to help her work through the grief in the same way he’d always wanted to help me. Only when Finn died, I pushed Milo away. I hoped Lena didn’t turn into me, putting her life on pause and spiraling into isolation.

Lena appeared stoic on the surface, both in expression and her highest thoughts. Sorrow drifted around her, but she didn’t sink into the depths. She didn’t show her sadness, not the faintest trace on her face, and her thoughts prioritized what a Novak was meant to do. Even her parents remained pillars of support for those around them, refusing to crumble in their sorrow, sorrow Lena didn’t believe they held for Jamie’s loss, so she remained completely composed. A true pillar of support even in her grief.

But deep in her inner core, she thrashed chaotically, raging with a brewing storm strong enough to level a mountainside. Or worse, level a city. I couldn’t hear anything past the muffled screams; if I reached out and touched her inner core, it’d shatter my mind. Still, the belief was there. It was in Milo’s mind as he studied Lena. He feared her futures were pulling away from the paths he desired, the potential he believed would make Lena happiest alongside Ellie and Hayden. Love. Friendship. Passion. Support. Each thought glimmered as Milo analyzed visions, stringing together what he hoped wouldn’t make the situation worse. Most of all, he sought the missing Peter Graham, who evaded all the guilds and sent a nagging reminder that no matter how much Milo prepared for everything, there were things he couldn’t predict or prevent.

Everyone here infuriated Lena, pushing her thoughts further away from the sadness threatening to consume her and higher toward the peak of fury which fueled her magics. A storm of rage below, flames of wrathful heat above, it seemed only anger lay in Lena’s future.

It was difficult to hone in on her thoughts, a struggle Milo must’ve also experienced. Lena was casting even here at the funeral. With so much of the semester spent listening to Kenzo’s mind as he navigated ways to pinpoint Lena’s branch at play, I found it easy to spot the subtle shimmer of bubbles before they popped. They were scattered throughout the cemetery, stretching further than my mind could follow. What was she doing?

The opening eulogy pulled Lena’s attention, pulled my attention as her emotions settled. It was a lovely speech, filled with meaningless quotes to poetry Jamie never knew, achievements he’d never made, and completely swept aside the actual bravery he had, both when possessed and when facing the foul warlock who killed him. Lena didn’t care for the rewritten narrative but understood that pretense dictated something more appropriate to survive the history books no one except future generations of Novaks would read. She wondered how many of their feats were lies made palatable for social graces.

Lena wasn’t the only one. Tara listened to the speech, eyed those captive and proper during the eulogy, and was reminded of similar fabrications at Theodore’s funeral. But everything about his death was a lie, including his death. That haunting truth ate away at Tara almost as much as Jamie’s actual death did.

Tara shook, her face turned red, and the sorrow in her mind swirled so rapidly I thought she might pass out from her grief.

“HA!” She slapped a hand over her mouth, stifling a fit of giggles that bubbled.

Everyone turned, momentarily pausing during the eulogy. Lena scowled, quite ready to throw literal daggers at the Whitlock, who couldn’t control herself. Ellie rested a hand on Lena’s shoulder, steering her attention back to the continuing speech. Hayden shifted his stance, blocking Lena’s view so she’d ignore the outburst.

Gael stood beside Tara, grimacing, while King Clucks raised his wings, hiding his face. This was possibly the only time I’d seen those two embarrassed, but neither seemed to know what to do while Tara convulsed, struggling to contain the giggle fit that consumed her.

“Let’s go,” Gael said in a loud hush, which was accurate given he had never learned to whisper in class, even when he believed no one would hear his vulgar asides practically belted across the classroom.

With Tara in tow, Gael led her through the row of people more annoyed than offended, though they feigned offense on Jamie’s behalf quite convincingly in their judgmental expressions despite some finding the eulogy more tedious than somber.

I followed their trial through the cemetery, making my way toward a mausoleum where Tara sat while Gael stood close by, offering support.

“What’s going on?”

“Totally sorry, Mr. Frosty. I made a killer coffin cock joke and realized it probably wasn’t the best timing, but Tara got swept up—because, like I said, it was a killer joke.”

“Ba-bawk!”

“Right, not killer. Hello, phrasing. My bad. I’m awful. The worst. Should just throw me in that grave, too.” Gael scrunched his face, thinking on a loop. “ Don’t think it, don’t think it, don’t think it. ”

Whatever horrid joke he didn’t want me to catch, I considered myself grateful he had the decency to take my telepathy into account.

Tara burst into her giggle fit again. “He’s lying. He’s not the ass here. I am.”

Gael averted his gaze. It seemed the only lies he held shame for getting caught in were ones that made Tara look bad. Here he was, willing to take the blame for the outburst when if I looked a little deeper into his thoughts, I saw the heavy burden of guilt he held for Jamie Novak’s death. A death that wouldn’t have happened if Gael hadn’t thrown the party. A death that wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t invited Jamie. A death that wouldn’t have happened if he’d been nicer to Jamie after everything he’d endured. Each thought weighed on Gael’s heart, making it difficult for him to navigate his typical prankster personality, now content with merely faking it for the sake of others.

Oh, Gael. How I wished to alleviate the heavy burden of misplaced guilt.

“You had no control over what happened.” I stepped closer to Gael. “It’s easy to look back on a situation and see all the right things we could’ve, should’ve, and would’ve done. It doesn’t change what happened. Sometimes, the world is just simply awful.”

“I’m fine.” He smiled. “ Dammit, Clucks, I think he might be reading our thoughts. Quick, distract his brain from reading our brains! ”

“BAWK!” King Clucks belted out the most obnoxious noise before following it up with a crow that was not only startling but forced me to quell my telepathy from the onslaught of pissed-off people attending Jamie Novak’s funeral.

“ Good job. That should keep him outta our heads and none the wiser. ”

And with that, I furrowed my brow and painfully silenced my telepathy.

The rooster’s noisy eruption sent Tara spiraling into a laughing outburst, clutching her stomach and doing her best to stifle the furious fit of giggles that painfully clawed at her insides, searching for an escape. “I’m awful, I know, but watching everyone mourn…mourn. Mourn. God-fucking-dammit… Ha…mourn.”

She said the word, fully grasping the meaning, yet in this second, it felt foreign to her.

“It’s just hilarious and terrible, but everyone over there—most of them—they hated Jamie.” Tara almost sank into the cruel memories she shared with Jamie Novak.

Not the cruelties of his actions last semester when possessed by a devil. No, Tara had a trove of past encounters with Jamie, from galas where he teased her to gatherings where he bullied and berated her. There was so much venom between the two. Quaint dinners meant only for the best of the best, where he reminded her that she shouldn’t be on the guest list. Private school where he spread rumors. She kept trying to lock away all their sour encounters and ignore their tainted history because he’d endured so much—he died protecting her. She saw herself as a monster for simply not feeling bad, for not grieving and crying and being consumed by sorrow over his death. Most of all, she hated the tiny relief that hit, meaning she’d never have to process her awkward feelings of resentment that’d twisted into a desire for friendship or, at the very least, forgiveness.

She didn’t have to process those feelings because he was dead, and that was what she told herself repeatedly. If only she knew that didn’t offer an escape to unprocessed emotions, to regrets, to grief.

“Did you see Layla and Amani?” Tara asked, completely rhetorical and meaning to distract herself from the peaks and valleys of fluctuating feelings that threw her mind back and forth. “They look like they’re about to burst into tears, but before today, they were telling everyone Jamie’s a cuck. Basically, since the semester started.”

“A what?” I quirked a brow.

“Oh, you do not wanna know, Mr. Frosty.” Gael had an ominous expression, but crude delight brimmed behind his seriousness as he turned his head to Tara. “Surprised you know the term.”

“I don’t care for sex, but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand it or everything associated with it.” Tara frowned. “In great part because of you.”

“You’re welcome.” Gael gave a thumbs-up while his rooster mimicked the action by raising a wing.

“And I don’t know, maybe they are sad. Maybe everyone here is actually really mourning, guilty…” That word clung to her throat like sludge threatening to suffocate her. “But watching everyone tear up and… It just seems so fucking fake.”

I didn’t know what to say, how to redirect the sad rage boiling the ocean in Tara’s mind, the anger she hurled at herself, self-doubt meant to bury her beneath the currents of sorrow she’d become so accustomed to drifting through day in and out.

“Everyone handles their grief differently,” I said, searching for something better to say, something that’d help Tara, but coming up short like I did far too often when shaping young minds.

“Not sure this is grief.” Tara sulked, finally past her giggle fit. “I mean, who laughs at a funeral? A monster.”

Hayden waltzed over, a smile on his face and glitter trailing his steps. “Personally, I’m a fan of your method.”

I glowered, having no energy or patience for Hayden’s jovial presence. His aura radiated cheer at an almost infectious rate.

“Totally,” Gael said. “King Clucks and I have a wickedly morbid sense of humor. I mean, the coffin cock joke wasn’t a lie. I just hadn’t said it…yet. But it’s good. Real good. Or bad because, like, inapprops.”

“I don’t have anything inappropriate I want to say.” Tara’s face fell into its standard somber default meant to wall up all her emotions and carry on quietly like she did far too often. “I just have this strange relief. It comes and goes, and that’s why I’m laughing, I think. I don’t even know.”

“To the things left unsaid.” Hayden pantomimed a raised glass, one he wished he had. “I get that. When my best friend died, I had a moment of relief…just for a second, just for one fleeting moment.”

Tara stared with wide eyes.

“We’d both applied to Crimson Guild—it’s back in Jackson—and I knew he was gonna get the gig. We waited that summer for the news. Well, he waited for the yes, and I held onto the dread of getting that rejection to join the half dozen other rejection letters I’d already gotten from smaller guilds who had fewer applicants. If they said no, surely Crimson would too. Especially when they had…” Hayden paused, noticing his thicker country twang coming out the more he thought about life back home. “Guess we weren’t really friends at that point. Competition getting the best of me made me a real dick, but an accident offered me an opportunity. I was awful for seeing it that way—even if just for a moment. It hurt having so much left unsaid, so much I wanted to go back and change.”

I absorbed what Hayden said, the words that continued spilling from his lips unfiltered, undiluted, and completely raw. Honest. Making no amends or peace or pain, merely sharing his small truth the best he could. It captivated Tara. Captivated me.

In all the years I spent dwelling inside the minds of others, catching thoughts I wanted to glean and many more I hoped to avoid, I’d never seen such honesty. Hayden didn’t twist the truth, he didn’t misremember events to suit his mind’s needs, and he didn’t omit facts to shine a better light. He simply shared this vulnerability without hesitation in a way I never knew possible. Even Milo skirted his pain, and he handled tragedy better than any person I’d met.

This wasn’t Hayden’s most vulnerable moment, though. There were so many others on display, at the surface of his peaceful mind, ready for observation like I’d walked into an art exhibit. All the grief, the rage, the sorrow, the muddled mess of nonsense was contained like portraits on the wall.

How’d I miss so much depth to someone who held himself so vapidly?

“What’d you do?” Tara asked, stealing my attention from Hayden’s thoughts, which I honestly found myself too unwilling to see even if he offered them to the world.

“A foolproof method.” Hayden smiled. “It’s not the best—there’s gotta be better ways—but it helps.”

“Yeah?”

Hayden looked up at the clouds, lost in the happiness they offered, the simple joy of floating along carefree, following their own schedule. He liked the idea of simply floating through life carefree and helping at his own schedule, unencumbered by expectations or pretense or destiny.

Destiny. Such a powerful word. Such conviction, so much connotation held in the thought, yet I couldn’t linger on it with Tara and Gael pulling me from his thoughts with their own, which was better than the many others nearby.

“Let’s head on up.” Hayden nodded to the sky. “This isn’t exactly the place for my super-secret infallible absolutely guaranteed way of handling grief foolproof method.”

“You just said it wasn’t the best,” Tara said, flabbergasted by Hayden’s enthusiasm and speed as he leapt into the sky.

“We can’t just fly in the middle of a funeral.” Tara crossed her arms, contemplating all the proper ways a Whitlock was meant to grieve publicly.

“Last one up is a rotten egg!” Gael shouted, letting King Clucks lead with his telekinesis. “ I’ll be damned if Jamie gave us a perfect technique and then went and fucking died before I could say thank you, only for us to pass on a foolproof method of saying goodbye! ”

“Cl-cl-cluck!” His rooster sat squarely between Gael’s shoulders, flapping his wings and draping Gael in a wave of telekinesis meant to ensure safety for the both of them as his human partner levitated high in the sky, trailing behind Hayden Russo.

“You ready?” I extended a hand to Tara, half willing to join on her behalf and moderately curious how someone as juvenile as Hayden handled his emotions in such a cathartic manner.

Tara floated ahead, soaring through levitation alone. Her root magic was so profoundly finessed that it pulled her to the sky ahead of Gael like she belonged in the heavens above.

I reached Gael, ready to move ahead but unwilling to abandon his slow rise as he fearfully reached heights he and his partner had never once considered. It was one thing to levitate a few feet, a full story above the ground, but to ascend so high that the ground became a greenish-brown blob. That terrified Gael.

That terror reached out and grabbed ahold of me; I willingly accepted it, hoping it eased the anxiety in Gael’s mind, a sensation he wasn’t used to.

“Ba-bawk!” King Clucks extended his delicate telekinetic grip, cradling me in the same wave that secured Gael.

Gael smirked, hiding his own concerns and happy he wasn’t the only one a tiny bit kind of sort of frightened.

I floated with them until we reached Tara and Hayden.

“What’s this masterful plan?” I asked, studying Hayden’s shifting thoughts as he absorbed the rays of the sun, sprinkling glitter in a slow descent so it’d mix with the incoming rain from the clouds he envied.

Insufferable.

We hovered so high above the crowd at the funeral, I couldn’t even hear Milo’s mind.

“So, what we’re gonna do is scream to the void,” Hayden explained, fully intent on us actually shouting our feelings like we were five goddamn years old.

“Hell yeah!” Gael raised a fist. “When do we go?”

“Now,” Hayden said, taking a deep inhale and shouting with all the force he could muster.

Without an ounce of hesitation, Gael joined him. The two of them went back and forth in the most annoying pattern of belting out their feelings. The pair flailed about, screaming at the top of their lungs and actually releasing the frustration weighing down their thoughts.

“I can’t do that.” Tara fidgeted, antsy, and as uncomfortable as me. Not at the heights we’d flown—neither of us worried about the massive plummet that’d end horribly, and it had nothing to do with King Clucks’ mother hen hold over us but more to do with the broken pieces of our minds.

“Yes, you can,” Hayden said. “It’s easy to just let it out. Hard to start, but once you roar, everything comes together.”

“It totally works,” Gael said, followed by a commanding “bawk” from his rooster.

Tara spun around, drifting slightly further away. “I can’t. It’s just not me.”

“You can,” Gael said, scrambling forward in the sky, ignoring the faster beat of his heart as he tried to reach his friend, who already wove her telekinesis around King Clucks’ casting.

“I can’t.” Tara eyed me. “You think this is silly, right? Screaming for no reason? It’s just…no.”

There was a reason, though. She had a mountain of reasons to test Hayden’s silly foolproof method. I had a few myself.

Each one ate at me as Hayden and Gael stared, thoughts encouraging me to express what they shouted with such ease.

Clearing my throat, I yelled, slightly yelp-ish and without the same carefree dignity Hayden and Gael roared with. Pausing, I tried again, this time thinking about everything in my life I’d lost.

Finn, who’d died before I shared my honest feelings with him.

Milo, who endured over a decade of grief I had wedged between us.

Jamie, who I’d never know because I failed before I truly began.

And soon, the small stack became a mountain similar to Tara’s, and I screamed without regret, releasing all the anger, sorrow, grief, and every other unsaid emotion in the sky too far for anyone else to hear.

I continued shouting, every moment, every regret, and it all brought me back to the most recent. Jamie Novak.

“AH!” Tara screamed, then quickly paused.

Gael’s eyes held a motivating touch Tara had become so accustomed to; she didn’t need to know the words to understand the meaning. Not only with Gael, but the squint of his familiar carried more meaning than an entire well-rehearsed speech I could’ve offered.

Without hesitation, without reservations, without a second of forethought, Tara screamed at the top of her lungs, releasing every ounce of grief she held onto. Grief for Jamie. Grief for her life. Grief for her brother. For her father. For the mother she barely remembered. For the life she never asked to inherit. For the magics she hadn’t mastered. For the world she couldn’t control. For the feelings she couldn’t handle. For the loss she wanted to escape. For all the uncertainty she had in herself.

Tara screamed for everything in her life, finally raising her voice to the level of pain she carried deep in her chest, so much so it threatened to cave in and crush her heart most days. She screamed until the pain stopped. Only it didn’t. The pain would never end, merely be subsided.

In awe, I watched the air ripple, the sky itself tear asunder until reality cracked at the release of her grief, her exhale of death, her mourning.

“I think you just exhibited another branch,” I said, already regretting my words as Tara sulked.

“Fuck,” she muttered.

“Is that an augmentation or alteration branch?” Hayden tilted his head, studying the rips in the sky, the literal slashes of sorrow that ate away at everything in its path before fading back into a peaceful blue.

“It looks like a Banshee’s Wail,” I said, having studied so many magics over the years and recognizing every single one that dealt with sorrow and sadness. “It’s a psychic branch that feeds on pain.”

Tara’s gaze clung to the sky, the piece of it she tore apart with yet another magic she didn’t understand. “Banshee’s Wail?”

“It focuses on the vibrations carried through emotion, strong emotions, foreboding and mourning and…” I swallowed hard, trying to determine how much I had to offer on actual insight versus the lore behind the magic. If that was her new branch. She could possess something entirely different, but most sonic-based magics didn’t rip through the fabric of the world. That type of energy, that type of expression, was purely psychic. I literally felt my grief sucked into the hole Tara tore into the sky.

“A Banshee’s Wail.” Gael rolled his neck, and I just knew he was gonna say something vulgar. “I mean, it’s a cool magic and all, but all these branches and none compare to the massive cock I’ve got!”

Tara snickered, slapping a hand over her face once King Clucks pecked Gael.

“I didn’t call you fat! I said massive. It’s a compliment. You’ve got girth, buddy!” Gael cringed, bracing for the pecks. “The ladies like girth! Ow. Ow! OW!”

We hovered for a bit until Clucks finished his punishment. Then we descended to the ground as the funeral reached its end. Hayden joined Ellie, who’d been abandoned by Lena, desperate to escape the crowd of condolences from people she didn’t even like. I almost confused the slight shimmer of microscopic bubbles during our descent for glitter cast by Hayden. Lena was still casting her branch far and wide, but it didn’t disrupt our levitation or telekinesis. Though disrupting other magics remained the main function when casting her branch, she’d conjured tens of thousands for another reason. I tilted my head curiously. There were so many ways Lena could repurpose her arcane branch, and the way she left her thoughts exposed, raw, and raging, I realized she was sending her magic fluttering everywhere in search of the warlock who killed her brother.

I wished Tara’s scream had pulled away a bit of Lena’s sorrow, but hers clung too tightly to the anger that continued brewing into a thunderstorm I could see on the horizon of her aura.

“ I’ve got my eye on her, Dorian. ” Milo stood alone in the cemetery, far from the crowd making their way to the wake.

I walked toward him, closing our distance but not our minds. His was lost in visions, regrets, and determination. “She’s going to need a lot of time to heal.”

“She needs closure. I can’t offer Lena much, but I can offer her that.”

“So, you’re chasing Peter Graham?”

“Someone has to, and I’ve stopped him once before.”

“He’s strong. Scary level type of magic.”

“True.” Milo stared through me, past me, and at the looping fates only he could truly track. “I’m less concerned about his magic, his strength, and more worried about how calculating he’s gotten. The level of sophistication it takes to avoid my branch… It’s discerning.”

“You think he’s the shadow?” The one Milo thought had vanished.

“Possibly.”

“Could’ve learned something from Theodore, maybe got lessons in”—I shrugged—“evil patience.”

“Peter Graham didn’t have any interactions with Theodore Whitlock while at the MDC. Trust me, I checked. Peter didn’t have many interactions, nothing involving comradery, that’s for sure.”

“I don’t have any answers, but I wish you’d let someone else track him,” I said. “He’s a dangerous warlock.”

“Warlock, yeah.” Milo’s expression turned quizzical, replaying my words, and then he buried his thoughts in visions; his eyes met mine, almost like he wanted to search my future above all else, but then his surface thoughts twisted back to Lena. “Dangerous or not, he made a grave error attacking Lena.”

“Seriously?” I blinked. “Puns?”

“Oh, shit.” The realization of his phrasing hit him, hit him like sunshine cutting through a blanket of ice, and melted away the stoic expression until a smile filled his face. “Unintended but amazing. Don’t tell anyone, though. My PR team hates dark humor. They’d make me hold a press conference to apologize.”

“I know you feel responsible because this involves one of your acolytes, but—”

“That’s just it, I don’t. I feel awful. I feel like I failed. But I don’t feel responsible. That said, my connection to Lena allows me deeper insight into her future than others. When Peter Graham killed Jamie, he unintentionally wove his fate to Lena’s. The two are entangled, and despite all he’s done to hide his presence, I can glimpse the murky residue.”

Whatever Milo had planned, whatever futures he weighed, he didn’t want me interfering. He didn’t want me knowing, carefully wearing his visions on the surface of his mind to hold back his thoughts.

“I can respect you have to do this, that you want to do this yourself, that it doesn’t involve me. I’m even capable of holding back my magic, getting better every day, so when I say I’ll respect your boundaries and let you do this, know that I mean it.”

“That’s a first.” Milo teased.

“Ass.” I glared, fighting off the smile Milo always gave me, even when joking. “The point is, where I was going with this before you felt the need to speak, was that I want you to know I’m here. Here for you in any way you need me, here for you when the dust settles.”

He brushed the hair off my face, leaning in and kissing me. It wasn’t filled with passion or lust, but comfort and love and caring meant to remind me while his magic kept his mind distant, his heart always stayed close by.

Milo pulled back, pressing his forehead to mine so our thoughts, our emotions, our very beings would meld from the contact. “Kind of morbid, kissing in a graveyard, I know.”

I smirked. “Depends on who you’re kissing.”

“Bet your gothic heart is just beating with delight.”

“When you’re around, always.”