Whitethorn Academy

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Even hours later, curled into my bed with Loki next to me, sleep eluded me. I was beyond exhausted, the aches and pains in my body making me wince every time I adjusted my position. But my brain wouldn't shut off.

Eventually, I gave up and clicked on the bedside light. A glance over at my desk showed the small pile of books Inara had told me she'd left for me. I hadn't even looked at them when I'd entered the room, just collapsed on the bed.

But now I was curious.

The books were old. Their pages were yellowed and worn, and a musty scent clung to them. I took the small stack and climbed back into bed, earning a small meow from Loki, who blinked sleepily at me.

"Sorry buddy," I said as I gave him a quick scratch by one of his ears.

The top book labelled, History of the Varquay, caught my attention. The cover was ornate, the letters done in a metallic gold. I traced a finger over the word Varquay as if it were a tangible object. As if I could just touching the word could make me believe that what Inara had told me was true.

But even after seeing her small display of magic, I still couldn't wrap my head around it. How could I be part of a magical race? There had never been anything special about me. Even my own mother had loved her husband more than she'd loved me.

But what if she was pretending so that she could keep you safe? A small part of me wanted to believe that was true, but after the years of abuse, it was hard. Hard to see past the mother who only doted on her husband, who ignored her daughter at every turn. The mother who ignored every bruise, physical or mental, that her husband left behind on her daughter.

And even if there was a good reason for her to ignore all of that. She'd sent me away. Blamed Oliver's and Samantha's deaths on me. Told me she'd never wanted to see me again and that I was no longer her daughter. And she'd lied to me about who I was my entire life.

Besides the physical abuse I'd suffered at the hands of my step-father, she'd abused me herself. Mentally and emotionally abused me. Her last words would haunt me forever.

I wished there was someone to talk to. I had never felt more alone than I did in this moment, staring at a book that contained my future. Even Naomi had kept me in the dark about my true heritage, about the Gifted program. What else had my friend hidden from me?

With shaking fingers, I opened the first page of the book. I skimmed most of the text. Names of people and battles that were foreign. None of it made any sense to me, nor felt familiar. Learning about American History in my classes back home had felt normal and boring.

But this felt foreign. Maybe by raising me with humans, my mother had killed the part of me that felt we'd belonged with the Varquay.

Pictures of Varquay throughout the ages greeted me, with various forms of magic plastered across the pages. Each image depicting a Varquay during battle had one thing in common; a set of wings, flared out behind them. Every single person's wings were slightly different, with varying shades of colors and patterns.

A shiver went down my spine. Would I grow wings? Will I be able to fly? Would it hurt?

At that thought, a memory resurfaced. Of me, in the woods, where I could hear large wings slicing through the air above me. The night before the bonfire, I'd been walking through the woods to clear my mind and I'd heard those large wingbeats and fear had gripped my heart.

Had someone been watching me then? Is that why I had felt so uneasy? I closed the cover of the book, feeling too uncomfortable to continue.

Loki was curled into a ball next to me, but he blinked at me as I climbed out and headed for the bathroom. With a small meow, he stretched before hopping off the bed and moving to twine himself between my legs.