Descendants of Magic

CHAPTER XXII. - CONNECTIONS, CONSEQUENCES AND CHOICES

            Reilly was staring at me with anticipation but also worry written all over her face. There was a speck of guilt in her eyes too, maybe because of how she reacted to the tattoo and didn't believe me that I saw it. I was past that and honestly I couldn't stay mad at her for long anyway. She is my best friend, my savior and my anchor in this world in which I was abandoned. I placed the mug down, now free from all the marshmallows, and took a deep breath. I was still shaken up and I couldn't look Reilly directly in her eyes so I let my gaze fall onto my lap as I start explaining everything I've seen and experienced today.

Me: Even if you didn't see that tattoo, I was still scared out of my skin by it so I wanted to find out what it was. I did ask the girls if they did a prank on me like you suggested but they were also surprised something like that happened to me and told me that they would never do such thing.

Reilly: I am really sorry I doubted you, or them.

Me: It's totally fine. I can understand where you are coming from, even better now after you told me about your training thing and how it was stressing you out. You are a true born warrior though. You can deal with anything they throw on you and I could see you as a general or a leader of those squads.

Reilly: I don't know if that's exactly what I want from my life though. Enough about me. I can tell you the rest some other time. Please continue and I will listen.

Me: Thank you for being here. I mean it. And just because I managed to get new friends, it doesn't change anything between us. But the girls are magicians and they might know things that you probably as a demigod didn't learn about. They even offered to help me and we scoured the whole Aveus library for any book that would have information about magical tattoos but we found nothing solid.

Reilly: That's true. I have never seen anything like this so it's definitely not from Ares but I don't know much about Zeus and his powers so you should probably ask some other descendant.

Me: Oh you mean the very kind and nice Saxa who loves me so much?!

Reilly: Right.

Me: The girls told me that they will ask their family members who work with protective tattoos or voodoo or something like that but until then, I have to wait. I was on my way back to the room and I was still a little bit angry so I didn't want to talk to you. Luckily I've met Mr. Hale on my way and went into his office instead to waste some time.

Reilly: Ooh, so you have a thing for the young handsome professor?!

Me: Reilly!

Reilly: What? I am just asking. As your best friend, I need to know if I am gonna become a third wheel to you and some handsome fella.

Me: Not anytime soon, don't worry.

I liked the way this conversation felt. So normal, like we weren't studying at a magical school and all of the problems in our lives were circling around friendships and boyfriends. I don't know what Mr. Hale is to me. He is not my professor since he doesn't teach any of my classes. Boyfriend? I don't know if I even want to go down that path. But we are definitely something more now since he saved my life and almost sacrificed his in the process. I am in a big dept now when it comes to him and I will have to find a way to pay it back, if I can ever repay him for what he did.

Somehow I managed to talk to Reilly about everything without bursting into tears and crashing again. She picked up the drawing and started analyzing it, asking me questions. I didn't really have solid answers about it because we never figured out what it is. If it was just a prank or some sort of omen sign. I hoped it's the first option because I didn't want to be hunted for being some sort of a ticking bomb. And then as if she could read my mind, Reilly asked another question about the tattoo.