Three Drops Final (ABANDONED)

Chapter 2- The Selkie

Felicia's POV

"Your... mother?" he asked slowly.

"Yes," I nodded. "But I swear, I had no idea she was involved in any of this. Did you?"

"No," he answered, mind obviously turning itself inside out, searching through all the knowledge he had about me. "No," he stated again, more confidently.

For a moment, I considered asking him again, grilling him to make sure he wasn't lying. Then I realised something: I believed him. I looked him in the eye and saw no hint of deceit, and I searched myself and found no hint of suspicion. Naturally, I knew he could've easily been lying to me. But I didn't think he was. And for a short, flickering moment, I felt something pass through us, through our bond. Trust.

"Cassandra..." I mused. "Do you know her?"

"No," he answered again. "But I can find out who she is. What do we know about her?"

"Well, obviously, her name's Cassandra."

"What more?"

"She has to be a witch, right? To be doing that kind of magic and amplifying my mum's aura, whatever that means."

"Yeah." He nodded in agreement, then continued. "The amplifying suggests that your mother was, in fact, human. Amplifying someone's aura is something that powerful witches can learn how to do. It involves establishing a strong connection between the auras, and then having the witch push some of his or her power into the aura of the other person. It's usually used on humans, but technically it can be used on pretty much any creature."

"Okay, so we know Cassandra is a powerful witch, who must've known my mother somehow, despite my mother being—most likely—human. This could be practically anyone though; how do we find her?"

Braith smiled now, showing off his practically blinding white teeth. Somehow, I couldn't quite enjoy the smile, what with my preoccupied thoughts playing a constant loop of fang-searching. "I have my ways. Give me a couple of hours, and I should be able to find her."

"A-alright," I agreed unsurely.

"Very well," he said. "Goodbye." He snapped his fingers and disappeared in a puff of golden smoke.

Suddenly, I had an overwhelming urge to shout 'You know you don't have to flash out like that all the time just to show off!' into the emptiness he had left behind. I wisely decided against it.

Braith's POV

The doors to the building were much larger than necessary, over twice my height tall and almost my full body length long. Then again, it was an official, fey-ruled state establishment, and if they were known for anything, it was their almost other-worldly haughtiness—if they wrote books, they had to be the smartest books; if they sung songs, they had to be the most beautiful songs; if they made food, it had to be the most delicious food. And so, was it any surprise that even when they built doors, they had to build the biggest doors?

I stepped inside with a huff, wrinkling my nose at the sterile scent the fey had sprinkled all over the room. The fey believed in total equality (which is why they ran all the state establishments in the first place), and to keep the different races from clashing, they sprayed this sterile scent around. It helped calm us down, at least enough so we wouldn't try to kill each other.

I took a waiting note (number 43), and settled to people watch for a few minutes. My eyes were first drawn to the merfolk, who, despite their obviously best efforts, were finding it quite difficult to walk with two legs. There were a few of them who seemed more well-adjusted, but most of them were half-stumbling and falling over. Though all mer had the power to shapeshift and gain the legs temporarily, very few actually used this skill more than once every few years. The merfolk seemed to prefer staying rather detached from us who were naturally land-legged, which was just fine by most of us.