Fallen (BoyxBoy)

Chapter 52 - Mismatched

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"What are you doing?"

The voice snapped me from my daydreaming, and I blinked at the window in front of me before looking over at my father.

"Oh, I..." I drifted, "...washing the dishes."

"Really? You haven't moved in a few minutes." He walked up to me and frowned at the water. The look made me realise it was boiling around my hands. I had not even felt it. "Is your magic acting up again?"

I drew my hands from the water. They were red and pain was beginning to set in. My magic was still flaring making glowing red flames radiate from my skin. It didn't hurt me, but the boiling water had.

"A little," I admitted.

It did constantly, and he always had to help me calm it. He placed his hands over mine and began to mutter a spell.

My eyes shifted to him as he focused on my hand. I had drifted into thinking while washing the dishes as the squirrel from the previous day returned to my mind. It didn't make sense to me. I had distinct memories of being unable to heal things, and he told me I could not as well. Said he figured it was a side effect of having unusual magical abilities.

Did he just not know that I could?

Why did I remember being unable to?

Had I somehow developed the ability to heal since I last tried to use it? Maybe. Maybe that was why Kendrick knew I could do it, maybe I had met him recently.

I wanted to ask my father about him, they must have known each other. But I remembered Kendrick's request that I don't tell my father about meeting him. What would happen if I asked?

"Ashen?"

My father's voice snapped me from my thoughts again and I realised he had calmed my magic and healed my hands.

"Thank you," I mumbled.

He studied me for a second before sighing. "It seems you need a little more rest before we move on. Go get some sleep, Ash. You're going to need your energy when we get to the next clan. They're quite stubborn."

I nodded but didn't move, and he raised his brows.

"Um... Dad, do you think –" I paused, cut off by distant howling from a nearby forest. It sounded like a few wolves.

My father looked out of the window, his brows lowering angrily. "God, those fleabags are so annoying. We're staying on the island this time until we move to the next one."

The suggestion immediately made my breath catch, an automatic panic that seemed to come with the possibility of not seeing Kendrick again.

"Have we stayed with werewolves before?" I decided it would not seem suspicious to ask since he had brought them up.

"God, no. Imagine being closer to that." He shook his head. "And the shifting. So rancid. All that cracking. Also, you? Live with werewolves?" he chuckled.

"What does that mean?"

"Oh, you used to hate them. You know, your mom and I knew that you, Avery and Arion snuck off the island sometimes. You must have had a run-in with some wolves because you just started despising them out of nowhere one day. I remember thinking it was odd that you all looked so dishevelled when you returned home after 'going to the park'."

Was that how I met Kendrick?

No, it didn't seem like we had gotten into anything bad. He didn't look at me like someone I had not gotten along with in the past. He looked at me like he was sad. Like he was hurt that I couldn't remember him. As though he was glad he found me... and I was very important to him.