Ray was not surprised to see it there, or the state of some of the documents. Hehadbeen worried about things for a while.
Calvin finally shuffled everything in his hands into order and handed them back. He waited until the tumblers of the lock had slid into place before remarking, “I see. Are you going to tell him?”
“I might have already,” Ray pointed out, but doubted he had. “There’s no hiding anything from him, from what he says, and he signed one of them.” A durable medical power-of-attorney. Cal had probably done so thinking he’d never need it.
“But you thinkIshould know where they are, for the future. Just in case.” Calvin nodded slowly.
“He has enough to be upset about now.” Ray shut the closet door. “And as you said, his mind doesn’t rest.”
The living room HQ was a mess of papers stuck to the wall in a pattern that Cal probably understood. Ray considered the stack of papers on Cal’s desk, yet to be taped anywhere, while Calvin moved Benny’s laptop to charge it and then drank his cool coffee with barely a grimace. Still in the kitchen, Cal and his mother volleyed between different subjects. Lis wanted Cal to meet someone, but it didn’t sound like a romantic fix-up, since she wanted Calvin to meet him too.
Ray spent a worried minute wondering ifLishad found someone else to keep, but then Cal had the same idea and it was soundly dismissed by his mother.
Lis also pressed for what she could do to help, if Cal or Ray had any plans for how to correct Ray’s problem. And ‘waiting to see if the spell fades on its own’ had led to the kind of disdainful, doubtful silence that Ray’s mother might have used on him when he’d been a teenager.
“What?”Cal finally demanded, although he softened his tone a heartbeat later, possibly not wanting to be heard.“I mean, what? You’re staring.”
“You said Cassandra compared this to another were who had lost a ma—match.”Lis sidestepped the word with barely a pause and did not keep her voice down for long. “Is that how it feels to Ray? Because then I don’t know how much time we actually have here. Feeling Rejected was enough to weaken him before, right? Your big wolf is strong but you’re his Achilles heel.” She said that loud enough for Calvin to also stop what he was doing to listen. “What?” Lis went on. “You didn’t need to tell me the details. He ended up in the hospital, Cal. He’s a were and he was in the hospital for some cuts and bruises.”
“It was a bit more than that,” Cal argued stubbornly. Ray imagined his arms were crossed. “A demon was involved.”
Lis’ arms might have been crossed as well. “My point stands.”
Cal hesitated. “He… he’s said some things. About how weres deal with the connection when it’s gone. Which was very dumb of him, by the way. We weren’t even anything at the time, but he let himself weaken for me?” Cal huffed, outraged. “Like he wasRejectedor whatever? I was throwing myself at him on the daily!”
“Cal, hush. He’ll hear you.”
“He’s listening anyway.” Cal dismissed that breezily, his tone distracted as he continued thinking out loud, his mind and wings whirring. “I was throwing myself at him daily. So he still had contact with me and was weaker anyway. Because hefelta Rejection. Weres really are creatures of emotion—I joke about it but they really are. Or instinct, I guess. He would sayinstinct. They might think things through afterward but mostly they just react. Huh.” The whipping, whirring sound of his wings in motion ended. “Everyone thinksfairiesare flighty and too emotional with weres out there feeling their feelings all the time? And now… now for all we know, the connectionhasbeen severed, and if there is a new one…. if there is… it’s weak. Is that enough to replace the one that might be lost? How long will that take to build? Can you even do that?”
His wings started up again, until Lis raised her voice. “How much time do you have?”
“No idea. But we have to break it. We just… need to figure out what it is first.”
“Did you try, you know, bringing the truth out of him?” Lis asked delicately. “If it didn’t work when you tried it, it might if I do. I’m much older, after all.”
“And a full fairy.” Cal didn’t say it with any bitterness. “I suggested it, the first night. He wasn’t a fan of the idea.”
“Well, he hardly knew you then.” Lis moved, closer to Cal, Ray assumed. “That someone I want to introduce you to—not now, naturally. He’s a good example of the power of the mind to protect itself, even in creatures assumed to be flighty. Or maybe that makes us more powerful, with our healing. But the ability of memories to hurt us is strong. There is no such thing as “past” to your brain. That’s just a tab on a file. It’s all present, always.”
Calvin had come closer to hover at Ray’s shoulder.
“You’re saying memories of me are hurting him?” Cal asked, quiet as he hadn’t been before.
“No. I’m pointing out that the magic is the original trauma, but some of Ray’s symptoms might just be Ray trying to avoid more pain. Or some other instinctual drive that we don’t understand and whichhemight not understand.”
“Fucking werewolf instincts,” Cal muttered, then sighed heavily.
Lis was not amused. “Everyone tries to avoid emotional pain, Callalily Matthew.”
Ray turned to Calvin. “Matthew?” he mouthed.
Calvin looked exasperated at the question but elaborated anyway. “My father’s name.”
Ray accepted that, even if he doubted Calvin’s parents had been happy with his choice of Lis, all those decades ago. Despite that, Lis had agreed to, or chosen, that middle name for Cal. Lis was fierce, but sympathetic, and she seemed to know people a little better than her son.
“Okay,” Ray agreed. He realized his hands were clenched, and then that he hadn’t spoken loud enough. He went to the kitchen doorway. “Okay,” he said again. He didn’t want anyone poking around in his head, but where doctors and Cassandra had failed, there was Lis. Cal trusted her, and Ray would die for Cal, even as they were.
He looked at Cal, then met Lis’ startled stare. “Okay.” Ray said it three times. That felt like magic too. “You can show me the truth.”
