Recover: Book 2 of the Magic Mutations Series | ✓

33: The Fairy Friend

The week passed at a slow pace, our efforts of research hindered by the intense weather. My body felt drained and heavy the whole time, glued to the bed as I drifted in and out of sleep during daylight hours.

The nights gave me reprieve to catch up on reading—I had bought and borrowed various vampire fiction books created over the years to see if any of them had theories to go off so that I could still try to do some research in the time we were out.

But the more I dove into it, the more I wondered if we could possibly find a fairy. It seemed like a great solution. If they still existed and Rüdiger thought he'd wiped them out... he'd never see this move coming.

Fairies... Ollie always liked fairies, I thought Sunday evening, the night before the hotspell was expected to end.

At once, I let my mind take hold of me, bringing me back to our moments of bliss. It was a distraction from the work I should have been doing, and my heart ached as I remembered the times we danced in the kitchen while waiting for the food to cook. Or laid on the couch, me brushing her locks out of her hair as she read me one of our books we were studying for a class that week.

"Lukas," she had whispered one night.

"Yeah?"

"How do you say 'I love you' in German?"

Her eyes glistened in the dark. While she couldn't see me staring at her with such tenderness, I could see the exact same gleam in her eyes that I felt in my heart. Wanting her to feel the same level of security and warmth, I rested my hand on her cheek so she could feel my emotions. "Ich liebe dich."

One side of her mouth turned up as she breathed, "Ich liebe dich, Lukas."

"I love you too," I breathed before pulling her mouth to mine.

The door opened to my room, pulling me from my memories. I turned to look at a frantic Ben standing in my doorway, half peeved that he had taken me from my thoughts of Ollie, but also relieved. Because I wouldn't feel alone leaving my memories in the past with him now here.

"Sorry, were you sleeping?" he asked, hesitating in the doorway.

"No, I was... taking a break from reading." That's one way of putting it.

"I... I thought about it," Ben whispered, "Like you suggested."

"About your fairy friend?"

He nodded, closing the door behind him and taking a seat next to me on the bed. "We aren't quite friends though... But I want them to be my friend. I just... I don't know how to navigate a friendship with a human. I mean, they are writing a book about mythical creatures so surely eventually they'll realise what I am... And I shouldn't hide it from them, right?"

"They're writing a book?" My heart leapt in my chest as I recalled Ollie was also convinced she was... "What... what library did you meet them at?" I whispered.

"The... the Pancras Square Library," Ben replied, looking at his lap.

My heart calmed, knowing there was no way it was her. Maybe it's someone else in her writers' group... "You should tell them what you are before you two get in too deep. In case it becomes more than a friendship."

"But... what if they run away from me?"

"Then... Gosh, I don't know Ben. I haven't done this before." That was a lie... not that he needed to know. But what worked with Ollie wouldn't work with any human. Ollie and I had something completely different. "Maybe... spend a week getting to know them. Letting them get to know you—besides the vampire stuff, of course. Give them a reason to see you as a person before you dump the 'I'm a vampire' speech on them."