Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was a hot and muggy summer night. Seth lay in bed, starting at the ceiling, wide awake. He’d spent the whole day praying for rain, to no avail. The air was sticky and humid and despite the open windows and the attic was still hot after a full day of cloudless skies in the heart of August. There was only a hint of wind catching in the trees.

Kendra had somehow managed to fall asleep under her blankets, to Seth’s horror. He didn’t know how she did it. But that had been nearly an hour ago and sleep still evaded him.

He was totally alone, starting down yet another sleepless night. His only company were the moths flitting by the window every so often. It was a coin flip these days. He’d either spend a full night sleeping through nightmares or staring at the ceiling too exhausted to sleep.

As though that wasn’t bad enough, Seth was almost willing to bet they were all slowly drowning. The weather forecast had said there was a 95% humidity index today and that there was a thunderstorm alert up. He really wished the thunderstorm part would get here faster. At least if it rained, the temperature would drop.

In the meantime, he lay on top of his covers, in a damp pool of his own sweat.

He was miserable.

To make matters worse, he felt guilty for being miserable in the first place.

It wasn’t so much the weather - though it wasn’t helping - but rather the fact that he knew he could be perfectly comfortable if he wanted to. All he had to do was make his wings re-appear and he would start feeling better. It was easy. It was going to happen the moment he fell asleep anyway, so why not do it now?

He could have screamed in frustration. Why did he insist on staying uncomfortable? Why did he always have to make things harder for himself?

He almost wished the wings weren’t there, so he could just be miserable without any way out.

It wasn’t fair how well things had turned out for him after everything. He got to keep magic and keep the wings and have his injuries healed and -

He bit his lips almost to the point of bleeding to stop that particular train of thought. No. No. No. He didn’t want to think about what else he thought had happened that day, that moment.

It wasn’t fair to all the people he’d let down, who had died because of him, back in Wyrmroost. It wasn’t fair to all the dragons he’d killed and to everyone else who had ever come to harm because of him. It wasn’t fair. Nothing was fair.

He missed Coulter.

He hadn’t know the man for long, really. But he’d really liked him. And now he was gone, by Seth’s own fault. The six month mark had passed when Seth’s memories were still gone. So it was now that he thought back on it, with a hollow feeling in his chest.

Would he have been able to tell Coulter everything he was thinking about now?

No.

He couldn’t tell anyone the worst of it. He’d sworn not to say a word. So he couldn’t tell anyone at all, not even Kendra.

His heart started to beat faster and his hands shook. He pulled his pillow close and held onto it like a lone buoy at sea. He wasn’t crying yet, just trying to slow his breathing and wait for the sudden panic to wash by. He felt oddly disconnected from his body. His mind felt clear, watching himself freak out about the thing he wouldn’t even let himself think into words.

If this kept up Kendra might wake up, though.

He kind of wished she would.

She’d ask him what was wrong, and she’d try to comfort him… But he wouldn’t be able to talk about it and she wouldn’t be able to understand. Then she’d be worried and tell other people and he’d have to be subjected to rounds of kind worry and it would make him think about it. During the day. The thought almost made him scream, and he shook his head in frantic despair. No, no, no, absolutely not. No way, José.

He had to calm down. Think about something else. Anything else. What had been sort of bothering him before? The wings. Right the wings. Focus on that.

They were great, really, in a void. When he was alone, he loved them. He could fly, what could be better than that? Beyond being alive and not undead and having his family — No, too close. Too close.

He always woke up feeling comfortable these days. No matter the weather. Hot, cold, muggy, dry - so long as he was touching his wings, he felt perfect. Went away the second he made them disappear, but still! It was nice, if only it wasn’t so, so frustrating. He wasn’t sure why it was annoying, feeling like something was perfect, but it was.

It hadn’t been before. From the day the Fairy King gifted him the wings, he had spent every night sleeping in comfort, regardless of where he was. Of course, back then his wings couldn’t disappear. He hadn’t been able to make them go away, so there had been no need to really notice them that much, beyond admiring them a little at first.

But now it was up to Seth whether or not he wanted them out. And that choice made things difficult. Well, in a perfect world he would have them out most of the time. It felt right and it was comfortable. He often felt like he was suffocating a little, having them put away for long stretches of time.

It wasn’t a perfect world though. Right after leaving Selona, Seth suddenly found the wings to be difficult to deal with. Not because he suddenly had issues moving them. No, he just… He could feel the distance they set between him and everyone else. Kendra looked at him oddly when he had them out. As did everyone else. The only person he spent any time with who didn’t care at all was Vanessa.

He had asked her if it was alright to have his wings out when around her, because though she couldn’t see them he didn’t want to feel like he was lying. She had just smiled and said it was no trouble.

Well, it wouldn’t be fair to say that she was the only one who didn’t react. Bracken didn’t. Most of his non-human friends didn’t act oddly about the wings. They usually just acknowledged them or made jokes about them, in the case of Doren and Newell. When he was hanging out with them, out of sight of the main house, he would have his wings out the entire time. Like a kind of tight rope around his heart loosened a little and he could breathe a little easier. He could just be Seth, as he was now.

But back home… the thing was that it just felt uncomfortable, being stared at. Having close family members see all the time that he probably wasn’t human anymore. And to be honest, he wasn’t much of a fan of the fact himself. He really did like the wings, loved them even. Flying was everything. Better than any meditation he’d ever been forced into.

And, well… better than the alternative. If he hadn’t gone into the Source, he would still be trapped, partially turned into one of the undead. Even the memory of the cold in his bones made him shudder again.

He took a deep breath.

There were worse things than being aware he was probably going to outlive just about everyone he’d ever cared about.

He knew that.

But it still made his stomach drop with dread every time he thought about it. It still made him feel like he was running out of air and there was no escape. It almost scared him more than when they’d been trying to save the world. Because ‘the whole world’ was such a hard thing to picture. But he knew about immortality. He’d met plenty of people struggling with it, plenty of people who had chosen to die rather than continue.

He didn’t drink any water from the Source. He wasn’t truly immortal.

But he’d been stupid.

Because right before Konrad had died, he had said his wife had bathed with water from the Source and gone on to live longer than any other of the Fair Folk. And what did Seth do right after? Jumped into the pool like a total moron.

Alright, he wasn’t a moron. He just - he hadn’t really been thinking straight by then. He’d been desperate to not be in pain anymore and for the cold to just go away and he was so exhausted that everything was spinning slightly. He couldn’t blame himself for not putting two and two together before jumping in.

Given the option again today he would say yes. He still adamantly refused the idea of being a Shadow Charmer again. The idea of demons trying to manipulate him and gaining all sorts of unwanted attention made his skin crawl. And the most important part was not being kind of undead. He’d be willing to do all sorts of things to never, ever have to experience that again.

But he still wished they had told him word for word, “Hey, just so you know, even if you don’t drink the water, you’ll still live to be really old. You good with that?”

And, sure! That would have been fine. But he’d refused the Live-Forever part, partially because he really didn’t want to outlive almost everyone. Because outliving everyone was one of the worst things he could imagine happening to him, short of becoming undead. Because it had always been Kendra who had considered becoming an Eternal, while he had always, always known he couldn’t deal with that.

So of course he would end up being the one stuck between both of his worst nightmares. And of course he would be the one to make the choice without even realizing, without even thinking…

It was kind of dumb, but he really hoped it would take a while before he stopped ageing. The last thing he wanted was for people to think he looked like a teenager for years. Oh wow, that was a horrifying thought.

Had he drunk the water, he’d be stuck as a fourteen year old for all eternity. He’d never reach his growth spurt.

He shuddered, torn between laughter at how ridiculous that was and crying over how scary the thought truly was.

Kind of funny how it was a well-meaning gift that somehow managed to scare him far more than any number of scary monsters. He’d managed to forget a little, in the thick of it all, just how terrifying the abilities of creatures of light really were. They got your guard down in ways dark creatures rarely succeed. But the fairies had still turned him into some kind of walrus-thing that first summer, and the naiads still made sport of drowning people. Just because he’d been exposed to far more good associated with light, didn’t mean the light was good.

It was somehow so much scarier to know how close everything had been. To look back and know just how close he had come to dying, time after time. The near misses stressed him so much more in retrospect than they had at the time they were happening. And to think he’d only just started having less nightmares after the whole deal with Zzyzx… only for it to all get worse after going back to Wyrmroost.

He was crying silently into his pillow by then and he desperately needed a tissue. He tiptoed out of their part of the attic and down the stairs to the second floor washroom, dodging the creakiest steps. There he blew his nose and glared at his reflection. His eyes were puffy and bloodshot, his dark brown hair looked like a bird nest.

He couldn’t help noticing how young he looked. He felt so old these days, forced to mature so quickly. How was he only fourteen? His reflection made him feel miserable so he sat on the toilet seat and stared at the floor. He cried for a long time, as quietly as he could.

Eventually the tears ran out and he stared into space, feeling empty.

It could be worse, he guessed. At least half of his friends were immortal in some way. Even if he got really old, he’d still have Newell and Doren and Raxtus. Bracken was human now, but he was probably human in the same way Lena had been, ageing very slowly. So he would probably have Bracken as an old friend too. Calvin, too, and Merek and Eve. He didn’t know how long trolls lived, but Bubda and Hermo were still his friends. The Fairy King too, but he didn’t think they’d be seeing each other again for a long while, if ever.

He took a long, slow breath of air. Right. He had plenty of good friends that wouldn’t die to old age any time soon. And those were just the friends he had now! He would probably make plenty of other good friends in the future too.

He wouldn’t be alone.

He would be alright.

Feeling a bit better, Seth went back upstairs and laid down on his bed. Still damp with cool sweat, the bed felt uncomfortably cold now that the summer heat had faded slightly. He grimaced and finally relented. His wings phased back into sight, like two faintly glowing ghosts appearing at his shoulders. He sat up enough to shove one wing between his body and the blankets, before flopping onto it and letting the other drape over him and the edge of the bed.

He hadn’t been able to describe what they felt like before, but he had a better idea now, after making them appear and disappear all the time. They felt like having another set of arms. Longer and stronger hand-less arms with long feather ‘sleeves’. Like with oversized sweater sleeves, you needed to be careful about knocking stuff over or stepping on the trailing edges. Trying to get up was a great way to make yourself fall over again, if you didn’t roll off the feathers, but he’d managed to roll off the bed a few times by accident instead.

That had been kind of funny when it had happened though.

Seth put one arm on the top wing, and stared up through the window above his head. He could see the stars. Where was that thunderstorm? He sighed. It was definitively past midnight, but he still wasn’t tired. He tried counting stars but eventually gave up in sheer boredom.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t see the stars well. Somewhere along the line, probably right after the Wanderer had given him the wings, he’d started being able to see distant things very, very well. When flying with Raxtus he’d noticed they could see the same distance clearly now. Still, stars were stars and you could only count so many before losing track. He closed his eyes, instead, annoyed at how dry and gritty they were after crying.

He combed his hands through his feathers with his eyes closed, sorting them all into the right order. It was kind of relaxing, like brushing your hair when there aren’t any knots. But eventually he got bored of that too.

Eventually he found his mind drifting back to the thing that had been bothering him earlier, probably hours ago by now. He’d been trying to hide his wings whenever anyone from the house could see him. Even though it did make him feel like he was suffocating if he let it last too long, he could endure it. Unfortunately, every single time he fell asleep, the wings would reappear.

This wasn’t so bad, since he was sharing the attic with Kendra and she was just about the only person to see him in the mornings. His wings typically appeared under the blankets anyways. But people did come wake them up sometimes and he knew there was a growing list of people who had given him surprised looks when coming to shake him awake and finding themselves grabbing a wing instead of his shoulder.

That was… fine, he guessed. Embarrassing, but fine.

Way more embarrassing, though, was what happened last week. He went to take a nap on the couch for the first time in ages, luxuriating in the joy of knowing he wouldn’t be accidentally sat on. The light was a little dim, but people would be able to see him! He fell asleep to that happy thought… Only to wake up to find he had almost knocked over a painting with one wing and was blocking the entire walkway on the couch side of the coffee table with the other wing. Oops.

Worst of all, his mother was sitting on one of the chairs, watching him. He made his wings vanish immediately. She had tried to say something to him, but he’d just blushed beet red and said, “Um, sorry” far too loudly and run off. It was dumb of him, but he didn’t know how to react any better in the moment.

He didn’t want to talk about this to his parents.

He didn’t want them to not love him anymore. It was already bad enough they’d felt so… distant from him and Kendra after they’d been brought into the loop. He didn’t want to make things worse.

So of course, he avoided them. Because that would help, wouldn’t it? he asked himself sarcastically. Of course not! But he just couldn’t find the courage to face them head on. Scary, deadly things, he could face. Life or death, consequences and magic, he could face all of those challenges with courage. Even the realization that he was probably some kind of immortal now, he could face in the darkest hours of the night.

But there was something about human interaction these days that made him so anxious.

The Source had helped him emotionally, a little a first. Though he hadn’t had the time to stop and think about it, he had been utterly exhausted, mentally and physically burned out and on the edge of a meltdown for far too long. The Source had helped temporarily soothe those pains, giving him the impression he had had a full year’s worth of full nights of sleep, nightmare-free.

But it wasn’t some kind of cure-all for human existence. It took two nights of him dropping dead asleep, still in recuperation, before the nightmares picked back up again and the emotional stabilizer started to fade.

So yeah. He was Seth, fourteen almost fifteen, horribly emotionally scarred from a whole bucketload of terrible events and also probably not even human anymore… But still human enough to have an existential crisis every other night! Yay!

It could be worse - it could always be worse. The Source could have changed his mind the same way Lena changed between naiad and human. He shuddered at the thought, goosebumps appearing on his arms and the sensitive feathers where his wings met his back flaring up. Best not to think about that!

He thought he was still himself. Lena had said she could tell the difference before and after, and Bracken had told him and Kendra the same. He did think that he might be finding it a bit easier to accept immortality than he would have before, but his mind was such a mess right now that it was hard to tell the difference, if there was any.

Well, accepting was a big word. The thought still made him panic most nights.

His thoughts drifted a bit, touching a few subjects but not really settling on any. Eventually he found his way back to thinking about his wings, their warmth a welcome comfort despite how much he had resisted it. Sometimes they didn’t really feel like they were his. Sometimes it felt a little like wearing your favourite sweater, gifted by someone you loved, and whose presence helped you breathe a little easier. It was a warm reminder that even though the Fairy King had been through so much, he had been there to help Seth at his lowest. They didn’t know each other well, but there had been such an easygoing kindness to the air around the Fairy King. Seth hoped he was feeling better by the Source these days, healing his own injuries with time.

Outside, an owl hooted. Hoo-hoo Hoo-hoo, Who-cooks-for-you? Who-cooks-for-you? Seth remembered the fun sentence to match to the hoots, but couldn’t remember what kind of owl it was for. Was it a real owl? Hard to tell in Fablehaven.

He did like his wings, though he missed their original colour. The rich oranges and browns on the top, and the bars and speckles on the long white feathers. All edged in gold, like a sunset. Now they were a boring metallic white. They didn’t even look real, with the soft glow they gave off. At least that was still a kind of warm white.

Imagine if it was a cold white - it would be like being trapped under the classroom neons back at school! If the neons were fluffy and came out of his back, but still! That was some real nightmare fuel.

He wondered if he could dye them, or if the dye would just slide off. They certainly kept mostly clean on their own. Though he wasn’t sure if that was just because all the dust and dirt fell off when he put them away, or if they simply wouldn’t have kept that dust and dirt for long at all. He would test it, but that would mean having them visible for a few days and the very thought of that made him anxious… Maybe another time. In like, ten years.

He finally drifted off as it started to rain, the rhythmic quiet drumming of rain on the roof just above lulling him into a deeper sleep than he’d had in a few weeks.

Chapter Text

Seth jumped awake to a blinding white light and the boom of thunder ripping the skies apart overhead. The sound went on for endless seconds, so loud he could feel his bones vibrate. It faded slowly and the room was plunged into gloom. Heavy rain pounded the windows and Seth could see the gutters overflowing with a constant gushing waterfall.

A quick glance showed that Kendra was no longer in bed and the bedside clock said it was 9:32 AM. He sighed and wondered if he could fall back asleep. Probably not - his heart was still pounding a little.

He wondered if there were thunderbirds flying overhead right now, or if they were just under a normal summer storm.

He sat on his bed, his faintly glowing wings curled around him, and watched the storm. After a few minutes the wind shifted and instead of pounding directly on the windows, the rain now blew sideways. He could make out little lights flying here and there through the heavy rain and watched as two of them flew up to take shelter under the window overhang. Two fairies, a small red one with ladybug wings and a puffy polkadot dress and a taller fairy with moth wings. Both smaller than Seth’s palm. He could faintly hear them talking through the glass, but couldn’t understand a word.

He watched the storm, mind empty, trying to catch sight of a lightning bolt for a few more minutes when he heard a faint noise. The shorter fairy was banging on the glass to catch his attention. When she saw it worked, she gave him a proud smile and waved. The other fairy rolled her eyes, but stayed near.

Seth waved back, unsure what this new behaviour was about. The fairies seemed to like him a lot more these days, though they hadn’t gone out of their way to interact with him.

The ladybug fairy fluttered happily and motioned for Seth to open the window. He stared for a moment, wondering if it was safe or if he was being tricked somehow. But they were between Festival nights and it was daytime and it was a fairy. They couldn’t do any bad magic to him, especially since the treaty was back up and running.

He was too curious.

He rolled out of bed and walked up to the window. Kendra must have closed it while he was asleep. He unlatched it and pushed it open carefully, making sure it didn’t catch either of the fairies. They moved gracefully out of the way and the moth fairy landed on the windowsill. Up close he could see that her wings shone with iridescent dots when she moved.

“Hello,” Seth said, raising his voice slightly to be heard over the rain.

“Good morning!” The ladybug fairy replied, her voice surprisingly deeper than what Seth had been expecting it to sound like. She didn’t seem to mind speaking English. Weird. “Fine weather, isn’t it?”

Seth glanced back at the pounding rain to be sure they were seeing the same thing. He liked thunderstorms, but most people didn’t. He had expected the fairies to only like bright sunny days, but maybe he’d been wrong. “Yeah, it’s a nice storm,” he said.

The other fairy said something incomprehensible and sniffed in miffed pride when the ladybug fairy replied. She flew off to the far side of the window landing delicately again, he back turned to them.

“She doesn’t want to use English, but I don’t mind. I wanted to ask first! Would you trade feathers with me?”

Seth blinked at her, confused. “What?”

“I need some feathers. I’m sure I can find something worth trading with you for them. Think about it. I’ll come back in three days and we can talk.” She fluttered away a little bit, “See you!”

Puzzled, Seth looked back for the moth fairy, but saw she was already flying into the storm after the ladybug.

What had that been about?

She wanted feathers. Seth’s feathers? Did she want him to pluck them? …Could he pluck them? They might be so magical he couldn’t even do that, not that he really wanted to. He wasn’t going to, so he would just have to tell her no when she came back.

He went downstairs feeling a little odd. He wanted to talk about this to someone, but since it involved his wings, he also would rather not say anything. Still, he knew enough about magical creatures to know that he should tell someone.

As he was thinking about who he should ask, he ran into his dad on the landing.

“Oh, hey there bucko! Was just heading up to see if you were still sleeping. Quite the storm, huh?”

“Uh, yeah. Pretty crazy.” Seth’s heart pounded. ‘See if he was still sleeping’? His father had almost caught him with his wings in full sight. He didn’t actually know if his dad had ever seen them yet. He didn’t remember showing him them at all, so maybe not. His stomach roiled nervously at the panicked thoughts of his father deciding that Seth wasn’t his son anymore, and he tried to focus. Dad was talking.

“- and blueberries, but we were low on whole wheat flour so your Mom went off with Kendra to do the groceries. We’ll make them tomorrow instead. There’s half a loaf of sourdough left though, and plenty of eggs. I made them, so you know they’re just perfect. Though they might be a bit less once you heat them up.”

“Right.” He said, still a bit lost.

His dad continued chatting about all sorts of breakfast related things, while Seth trailed after him to the kitchen. He soon found himself sitting in front of a simple scrambled egg sandwich and a glass of milk. He was halfway done when his dad suddenly switched off from talking about cleaning the oven to more serious matters. “Are you getting enough sleep?”

“Yesh?” Seth lied, mouth full.

“Alright. Because you look tired.” Scott passed a nervous hand through his hair. “And look, I know you kids haven’t been able to talk to us about… the magical stuff in your lives until recently, but we’re still here to listen if you need to talk, alright?”

Seth gripped his sandwich nervously. The last thing he wanted right now was some deep conversation about magical things with his dad. He wanted to run away, but he hadn’t finished breakfast, so instead he lied again. “Alright, Dad. But I’m fine! You can’t tell me you weren’t a night owl when you were a teen.”

Scott laughed awkwardly, “You know I was.” He looked like he wanted to say something more, but after a few false starts, he gave up with a small sigh. “The rain’s pretty bad today. Tell me if you see any leaks. Your grandpa said to keep an eye out. He said he’d leave a note for the… brownies if we find any…”

Seth could see a small part of his dad’s soul drain away at the thought of letting the tiny people in the basement fix the house. It was kind of funny, in a sad way. He suddenly had an idea.

“Will do. Oh! Have you had any food made by brownies yet?”

All traces of the storm were gone by the next morning. Seth woke up slowly to find the attic brightly light and suffocatingly hot. Cocooned in his wings, he felt just fine, if a little hot, but he could tell he would start sweating like mad the moment he put them away. Maybe he’d just keep them until he walked downstairs.

He crawled out of bed and stretched. Kendra’s bed was already made and she was nowhere to be seen, so he also stretched his wings as far as they could go. The attic was the only room he could do this in without hitting anything, as it took up about half of the third floor. Though his wings didn’t appear all that big when closed, each one measured a little over nine feet, from shoulder to wingtip.

He knew that for a fact because he had used a tape measurer out of curiosity two weeks ago. He’d taped one end to the wall and walked back until he could line up one of his wings with it. It was a weird experiment that had made him notice he could feel through his feathers. It wasn’t exactly like touch, more like the feeling of wind through your hair or pressure on your nails.

The feathers were long too. With his wings fully extended, the lowest ones only stopped a few inches above the floor. In other words, they caught on everything. Thankfully, that wasn’t too big of a problem in the kid’s room. There was now a wide open area around the two beds. Seth had pushed the rocking horse and dollhouse against the walls to have room to stretch and walk around without worrying about hitting anything, a few days after coming back.

After they’d started weapons training, Seth had really enjoyed getting into a daily routine of stretches and exercises to stay limber. Once they’d returned home, it became one of the things he liked to start his day off with, though he didn’t do it every day. He had discovered pretty quickly that while his wings could become stiff and extending them felt good, they never needed anything more than that. He guessed that magical owl wings didn’t need to deal with boring things like muscles and tendons. It was probably better that way.

Seth was doing his warmup stretches when he caught sight of something weird on his bed. Something bright was catching the light and sending it into his eyes. He squinted and got closer, still stretching his right arm. He froze mid-stretch, confused. There was a metallic white feather a little longer than his hand, sitting on the bedding.

A closer inspection found three smaller downy feathers and one of the shaggy longer ones. He’d lost five feathers in all.

…Was he dying? Or sick? Or - was it somehow related to what that ladybug fairy had said yesterday? He’d totally forgotten to ask Kendra or Grandma and Grandpa about that incident. He certainly felt a little queasy, but he wasn’t sure if that was just because of the idea of being sick with some unknown, deadly Seth-killing disease or if he was actually sick and he’d only just noticed. How had he been feeling earlier? He didn’t remember.

He picked up the longest feather. It was light and soft, but fairly stiff. He couldn’t see any blood on the hollow shaft at the top. He knew there could be blood there, because he’d seen some on feathers he’d found behind the house as a kid, after hearing a bunch of birds fighting. His wings didn’t hurt, so he didn’t think he somehow ripped it out by accident.

Could feathers just… fall on their own? The timing felt weird. But the fairies hadn’t done anything to him, he didn’t think.

He sighed, trying to ignore the nervous knot in his stomach. He had to ask someone for help. It would be straight up stupid to ignore whatever this was, even if it turned out to not be anything serious.

He gathered the feathers into his emergency kit, slung it over his shoulders and went downstairs.

He was alone for breakfast, though he’d glimpsed his mom working on her computer in the dining room. After eating, he walked around the house, but found no traces of Grandma or Grandpa Sorenson. The Larsons were out on a well-deserved vacation after everything. He suddenly remembered that Grandpa Stan had said he was out working on something near the old Mansion and that Grandma Ruth was planning on continuing negotiations with the now much larger former nipsies.

If he couldn’t talk to any of them, then he’d rather ask Bracken, but the former unicorn wasn’t around. Seth knew that he wasn’t in fairyland either, for once. Bracken had taken to visiting quite frequently, but he’d left with Warren and Vanessa yesterday afternoon to forge himself a new identity. Though Vanessa and Bracken still didn’t get along, they’d agreed on a truce and Vanessa was using some old contacts to help him start to build some legal documents in preparation for him fully migrating to the human world in the next two years. Warren was there to drive them around and make sure they didn’t go for each other’s throats if they got too tetchy.

That struck out the three people he trusted the most to confide in.

Well, he trusted Kendra before everyone else, obviously. But he just knew she’d give him that worried look of hers and suggest he ask Grandma or Grandpa. And then she’d be anxious for a few days, sneaking him looks and pestering him about it… Yeah, no. He wasn’t telling her till he had answers.

He wanted to ask Dale, but he was hard to find, and Seth vaguely remembered hearing him mention working on the far side of Fablehaven today over supper last night. Dale knew a lot of things, but he probably wouldn’t know about this.

As much as he would have loved to reach out to his parents and ask them for help, he knew it was pointless. Beyond the fact that the mere idea of calling attention to his wings like this made him feel sick… he just didn’t want to see their faces drop at the idea of him asking them for magic help. He hated knowing they didn’t have the answers to everything. It made him feel sad and he didn’t know why. He had liked knowing that they were just as flawed as he was, before the summer. Now he just felt weak.

He spent most of his time these days feeling weak, like he was on the verge of tears, but incapable of crying. It wasn’t fair that everyone said girls were the only ones who were allowed to feel emotions. Boys had them too!

He sighed and tugged on the hem of his shirt. Dwelling on that wasn’t going to help. He had a thing to do, even though he didn’t really want to.

The only actually good option remaining was to ask Tanu. The potions master was visiting for four days and was currently staying in Warren and Vanessa’s shack while they were away. Seth had spent part of the afternoon yesterday hanging out with him as he gathered ingredients, but he hadn’t yet seen what Tanu had done to the shack.

The only kind of uncomfortable thing was that Seth hadn’t really spent any meaningful time with Tanu after getting his wings. Seth knew he’d seen them - just about everybody who had been in the Titan’s Valley and later Selena had seen them. But still.

Urghhhhhh, he hated being self-conscious. How did people live like this!?

He pushed his sneakers on, opting to wiggle his foot madly in, in an attempt to not deal with the shoelaces, and walked out the door into a hot and sunny day. The air smelled green, like hot plants and summer and life. The air was still and heavy near the ground, but a gentle breeze rustled the treetops around the yard. Near the corner of the porch, a trio of fairies played a gentle melody on the wind chimes.

Despite his anxiety, Seth smiled. He loved Fablehaven.

He set off for the path leading to the shack and as soon as he found himself under the shade of the trees, his thoughts wandered back to Tanu. The Samoan gathered rare and useful ingredients from all sorts of magical creatures over the years. Visibly he knew plenty about their behaviours and what was normal for them. Even if he didn’t know anything specifically about Astrid wings, he would know about magical bird wings, right?

…Maybe Tanu would have been his best bet from the start, actually.

He followed the path for a few more minutes till he reached his favourite spot. A small stream babbled its way down a series of small waterfalls. Here the path was nothing but a few cut logs to allow anyone walking through to pass without getting wet. The water chimed past, sounding almost magically musical, before continuing its merry way through the woods.

He didn’t know much about the stream, beyond the fact that it came and went every few years and that Grandpa told him the water was safe to drink. What he did know was that the trees were a little less dense here, and he was far enough from the main house not to be seen.

He pulled his wings back into existence and jumped straight up. It took only two wingbeats to clear the trees and then he was gliding gently above them. He only needed to make shallow wingbeats to stay aloft now, and he enjoyed the cool wind blowing at this height. He flew only six feet or so above the treetops, going as slow as he could, but it still only took him a few minutes to spot the cottage.

He cleared the last of the trees and glided down into the open field.

Unlike when he’d been a hurry, slamming violently to the ground all the time, he was now experimenting on how gently he could land. It was a lot harder to do, but it was a challenge he found fun. He landed with a small thump - still not perfect, but oh well - and walked up to the shack. With a sigh, he folded his wings and made them fade away before knocking at the door.

Tanu answered moments later. “Seth?”

“Morning, Tanu!” He smiled, “I had a question for you, do you mind if I come in?”

“Of course. Come in, come in.”

Barely a minute later, Seth found himself sitting on a rickety old chair next to Tanu. The shack was a real mess of potion ingredients, books and a few potions Seth could see were currently simmering on the stove.

“Does Warren know you’re using his pots to make potions?”

“They’re mine actually,” Tanu chuckled. “Vanessa already told me I would be paying for new ones if I so much as touched any of theirs for anything beyond food. But that’s not what you’re here for. What was your question?”

“Oh. Um, yeah. Do you know anything about… magical birds losing their feathers?” Seth used his best poker face.

Tanu hummed thoughtfully before answering. “I’d say I know quite a fair bit, yes. Most magical bird species have some form of myth or story about losing feathers, either by plucking or them falling out naturally. Sometimes they’re gifted and bring great boons to the receiver. Other times they become cursed by being plucked out. Sometimes it’s the other way around, where the gifted one is cursed and the plucked feathers are boons, though that’s pretty rare. I’ve only heard of two versions of that story.” He gave Seth a knowing look before continuing. “There are plenty of similar stories for all sorts of magical beings with feathers. There are probably stories about Astrids and their feathers, though I don’t know any.”

“Oh,” Seth said, disappointed though he’d expected it. He sipped his water, trying not to feel too awkward. “I didn’t say anything about Astrids.”

“You didn’t need to. Unless you really are just here because you think I know about magical birds?”

“No.” Seth wasn’t sure what to say. He couldn’t find the right words for his questions. The awkward silence wore on.

Finally, Tanu spoke up again.

“Do you want to know anything more about any of what I said? I gave you a bit of an overview, but I can answer about what I do know.” Seth nodded. Tanu clasped his hands. “When you get down to it, Astrids are really just another kind of magic feathery creature. Their stories are probably fairly close to most other powerful light creatures with feathers. There are even stories about feathered fairies too, which might be a bit closer to home.”

“Oh, I guess I didn’t think about that.” Seth said. “…Can you tell me more about feathers falling out? What do you mean naturally?”

Tanu smiled, “Ah. Well, magical birds are like real birds. And real birds moult every year. They drop their old feathers and replace them with new, healthy ones. Well, some species moult at different frequencies, but all of them can and will replace them. When an old feather falls out, a new one will soon grow to replace it. Normal birds can have health issues if they pluck their feathers too much, because they have a natural limit to how many feathers they can grow in their lifetime.” He got up and stirred one of his pots while talking. “As far as I know, magical birds don’t tend to have that problem, even those tended to by less than savoury potions masters that pluck them fully every few months. But even magical birds shed their feathers. Those are some of the most valuable feathers for a potions master to find and trade for, you know. Beyond those gifted willingly by the birds, the lost feathers have no negative magic in them and typically keep a weaker version of their original magic. Sometimes that magic is available just by touching the feathers and sometimes you need to make a potion out of them.”

Seth looked relieved. “So they can just… fall out?”

“Sure can.” Tanu raised an eyebrow. “Now, I don’t want to pry, but I’m guessing you’re asking because you’ve been losing feathers?”

“…Yeah.”

“Birds can also lose them to sickness and other health issues. Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah. I thought that was the only way they could. And I feel a lot better now that I don’t think I might be dying.” Seth scuffed his shoes on the floor, thinking for a moment, before making a decision and picking up his bag. “You said the magic can get stronger if gifted, right?”

“Yes… Wait, you brought some here?” Tanu looked shocked for a moment, before trying not to grin. He would never have asked Seth for anything, Seth knew. Even though the temptation must have been strong. It was partially why Seth had brought him the feathers in the first place.

“I wasn’t going to throw them away!” Seth laughed, feeling much better. “Here,” He dropped the small handful of feathers on the table. Thinking of the ladybug fairy, he put one back in his pocket. Most were tiny duvet-like feathers, though a few were the shorter feathers that layered the entire outer top of his wings and one was of one of the smaller rows of proper feathers, a little longer than his hand. He’d lost a handful more overnight. “Can you do anything with these?”

Tanu looked amazed. “I - yes. They all have a little bit of the magic in your wings right?” Seth nodded. “Then they’re all invaluable. Are you sure you want to give me all of these?”

“You don’t have to use them all for potions. Keep the bigger one, you might be able to use the magic just like that. And well, if you’d be willing to trade them for something, that’d be nice.” Seth grinned.

Tanu agreed and after thanking Seth profusely, they bartered for a few things.

Seth ended up getting two shrinking potions for one of the feathers and ended up just giving the remaining feathers to the other man. Those feathers glowed slightly brighter when he did. He stayed at the shack with Tanu until he was done making his potions and Seth helped him bottle them all up. They walked back together to the house for lunch, talking about their upcoming plans. Tanu was going home in two days and was looking forward to spending time with his family. Seth was just planning on making the most of what was left of the summer before homeschooling picked up again.

He didn’t talk about the ladybug fairy.

Chapter Text

Seth told Kendra about the ladybug fairy’s request that night. She was surprised, but didn’t think anything dangerous would come of it.

“She wants to exchange your feathers for something? Have you thought about what?” She asked.

“Nothing I come up with really sticks,” Seth admitted. Last year he would have asked for gold. Money for video games or anything else cool. Kendra hadn’t really died, but he still remembered the horrible feeling he’d had when he realized that one of their last arguments had been over the gold he’d snuck out of Fablehaven.

Money, gold especially, just made him feel dread. He hated that he felt that way and he missed how free and thoughtless he had been before.

He also kept on thinking about what had happened with Tanu. How he’d traded only one feather for potions and then felt like it was wrong in some way. Were the wings truly his to trade from? They were his forever now, he knew. But they hadn’t been his at the start. The feathers were all the same ones the Wanderer had given him.

…Maybe he would just give away all of those, until they were all truly his new feathers. Then he wouldn’t feel so bad about it.

Kendra’s hummed thoughtfully. “Well, I don’t really know what you could ask for either. I wonder what she’s using them for though. It can’t be for shelter or a nest, right?”

“Like a bird’s nest?” Seth thought back to how much the fairy had enjoyed the thunderstorm. “I doubt it. Do fairies even sleep?”

“I don’t know.” Kendra said, then she laughed. “Can you imagine? Just being awake all the time? I’d go crazy.”

Seth squinted at her, pretending to consider the question intently. “I don’t know, you might already be halfway there. Maybe crazy spreads with being Fairykind!”

His sister chucked her pillow at him and he caught it before it hit him in the face, laughing. “Oh, no! It has made you crazy! Here, let me help you!” He threw the pillow back.

Kendra caught it with a squawk. “Oh, you asked for it!”

Their pillow fight only lasted a few minutes before someone came up to check what the racket was. It was red faced and still giggling a little that they went back to their beds, after dad left.

“Truce?”

“Truce. For now.”

The next morning, Kendra stuck around to oversee the exchange. She was curious. Seth had three feathers in his hands, two more having fallen over night. It was a bright, slightly overcast day. They were fully dressed and chatting about their plans for the day, when the ladybug fairy and her moth-like friend returned.

They said something to Kendra in a language Seth couldn’t understand, the ladybug fairy looking pleased and the moth fairy looking more relaxed and regal. Kendra said, “Good morning,” in return and seemed a little happy that they were talking to her.

The ladybug fairy spun to face Seth, and in English greeted him as well, “Good morning! Did you think about the exchange?”

“Good morning. Yes, I did. How many feathers do you need?”

She fluttered cheerfully, a wide grin on her face. “I’m glad to hear that! I need five. What do you want in exchange?”

Seth blinked. “Any five feathers?” All of the ones he had were bigger than the fairy, but only one was a little closer to her size. The longest he had with him was three times her height.

“Yes, any kind is fine! Can I see?”

“Alright, but I only have three right now. Once I drop two more, I’ll bring them to you.” He brought the feathers over to her, holding them outside the window so she could inspect them. She did, fluttering along. She seemed pleased. After a few long seconds, she returned to face him.

“I agree to that part of the deal. What do you want in exchange?”

Seth almost asked what she was willing to give in exchange, before remembering what he had been thinking about the night before. “...Nothing. I’ll give them to you for free,” He said, smiling and feeling a little lighter. The feathers in his hand gleamed a little brighter, their colour a little warmer.

The fairy stared at him in astonishment, then landed on his wrist. Her confident and peppy demeanor shifting to something more profound. “Thank you,” she said. “I will remember.”

Seth swallowed, feeling as though he had suddenly stepped into something he wasn’t ready for. What were the implications here? Saying ‘You’re welcome’ felt wrong. He nodded and forged ahead instead. “Would you like me to bring the feathers somewhere for you?”

She hesitated, then shook her head. “No.” The little fairy fluttered a little further down his hand. “My name is Liarra.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Liarra.” Seth gently opened his hand and let her and her friend pick up the three feathers. They flew off without any difficulty, each holding one full feather and sharing the weight of the biggest one between them.

The fairies in the garden either seemed to stop and watch them go, or to ignore them studiously, until they faded into the trees.

“…That was interesting,” Kendra said. “Was she speaking English to you?”

“Yeah. I didn’t even know they could.” Seth thought guiltily back to the fairy he’d caught that very first summer. Had she even tried to talk to him? He couldn’t remember. He’d just thought they were kind of interesting bugs that looked like people. He’d been so stupid.

Like just now, really. Doing things he didn’t know the consequences of. “Do you know what that whole ‘I will remember’ thing was about?”

“No.” Kendra sat down on her bed. “Maybe she means she’ll remember and do you a favour some time in the future, when you need it? You’d better ask Grandpa or Grandma.”

Seth sighed. “I really don’t want to.”

“Why?”

“I just…” This conversation was already awkward enough with Kendra. The idea of talking about feathers and wings and fairy deals with anyone else made him squirm. “…Don’t feel up to it. Look, we can ask Bracken when he comes back tomorrow, ok?”

Kendra gave him a look. She knew he was hiding something. To his surprise, she didn’t push it though. She stood up instead. “Fine. As long as you talk about it with someone, ok?” Just before she left the room, she stopped. “I can ask for you, you know. They wouldn’t doubt a thing.”

“But you hate lying.”

“Yeah. But I’m still offering. I’m your sister after all.” She shrugged. “Just think about it, ok?” She started down the stairs.

Seth scrambled after her, catching up on the stairs. “Ok,” he said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she smiled at him. “Now, c’mon. I’m starving!”

Kendra found him in the new tree house that afternoon. The air was hot and the cicadas were loud, but there was a cool breeze crossing the little building. “You don’t make it easy to find you, you know.” She grumbled half-heartedly. Before he could answer something sarcastic, she lifted her hand to silence him. “I asked Grandma about what we were talking about this morning.”

“What did she say?”

“That giving things for free is a powerful positive magic of its own. It means a lot and that, like we thought, the fairy will probably repay the favour someday.” Kendra shrugged, sitting down facing Seth across the puzzle table. “Nothing to be stressed about.”

“Good,” Seth said, relieved. “Thanks, Kendra. I owe you one.”

“No worries.” She eyed the puzzle critically. “Well, you’ve learned well, young padowan. You got the whole edges set up first.”

Seth rolled his eyes. “What can I say, I learned from the best.” He brushed an ant off the table, then pushed half the pile of pieces to her side. “Since you’re here, help me sort those by colour.”

They spent the next hour working on the puzzle, before Kendra suggested they go take a swim. It was getting unbearably hot in the tree house by then. Seth agreed.

It was a great day.

Over the next few months, Seth slowly grew more comfortable on the subject of his wings around some people. After opening up to Tanu a little in August, he spent more time with Vanessa and Warren when he wasn’t “in school” at the house. He usually went on days when the weather was bad or when he didn’t feel like playing outside.

There was only so many things you could do when you didn’t have friends your age to hang out with.

Warren wasn’t always around, but Vanessa was, since she was getting used to life without sight. She had her own plans about returning to work, but she was taking it easy. She had enough money to not need to worry and take things day by day. She could live elsewhere if she wanted, but after over a year spent imprisoned in the basement, the sounds of traffic and people had annoyed her enough to accept Warren’s offer the moment he made it.

Kendra was happy enough to be able to spend time with her friend, and Seth found Vanessa just as cool to hang out with as ever.

They couldn’t watch TV and Vanessa couldn’t read books anymore, so they got audiobooks and a sound system. Seth was surprised to find that audiobooks were actually fun to listen to. He didn’t like reading, but someone else reading to him wasn’t so bad after all! He’d reluctantly admited to Kendra that maybe books weren’t that bad, so long as he wasn’t the one reading them. At least she didn’t rub it in his face, though she’d given him a huge smile and a kind of patronising, “I was sure you’d like them someday!”

Warren left on a short trip and Seth spent the afternoons hanging out with Kendra and Vanessa. When Kendra wasn’t around, Seth relaxed with his wings held loosely at his sides. He’d been cooking with Vanessa, when Warren returned. To the older man’s benefit, he didn’t even blink at Seth’s appearance and simply greeted them cheerfully. Seth kept his wings, almost too scared of making them disappear and draw attention to them, but as the conversation went on, he relaxed and forgot about being self concious.

As September cooled slowly into October, Seth learned how to cook with tips from Warren and Vanessa, while Vanessa relearned to do the same things without sight. It was a learning experience for both of them and one they would remember fondly.

Fall came and went and with it came the snow and the lovely sharp cold air of winter. Seth loved playing in the snow, and spent long hours playing all sorts of games with the satyrs and Hugo. Kendra and Bracken often joined and they had a ton of fun.

Frisbee had become a lot more fun when Seth had realized he could fly to catch the disk, and the satyrs had fun throwing it just out of reach for him to catch it like that. Snow football was loads of fun in this way too, and everyone had fun playing to each other’s strengths and limitations.

Seth had been so focused on playing that he hadn’t been self aware enough to become embarassed or anxious around Kendra. He only noticed when she tapped him on the wing to tell him that her snowsuit was completely soaked and she was going back inside. He noticed that his was too and he called to the others that they weren’t going to stay for another round. Bracken hesitated to follow them, but after being goaded on by the satyrs and with Kendra telling him to continue having fun, he decided to stay outside a little longer.

As they walked back together, Kendra shivering slightly, but smiling, her cheeks rosy in the cold air, Seth felt light and good. It had been such a welcome break from his constant anxiety and worries and guilt. It felt nice that Kendra didn’t seem to mind the wings at all anymore.

As they got closer to the house though, the familiar curl of dread returned and with it he made his wings fade away. The moment they were gone, he was suddenly hit by the cold air and his wet clothes and he shuddered.

Kendra looked back at him, “You alright?”

“Just cold.”

“Because you put your wings away? They keep you warm, right?”

“Um. Yeah.” He said, unsure where she was going with this.

“They don’t rip your clothes though. Do they pass through everything? I know they pass through your blankets sometimes. It looks like a glitch in one of your games.”

“Uhh… I don’t know. I can change clothes with them no problem, but they don’t pass through clothes that aren’t on me.”

They reached the house and stomped up the porch stairs, getting as much snow off their boots as possible. They hurried inside and shut the door. Kendra struggled to get her wet coat off while Seth fumbled with his boots.

“That’s interesting,” Kendra said, about his answer. She let out a sigh of relief when she finally managed to get her coat off. “I guess it must be tiring to have them out the whole time we were playing though.”

Seth was hopping around on one foot, tugging at his other boot, but he stopped and stared at her. “What?”

“Your wings?”

“Why do you think that would be tiring to me?” He asked, confused.

“Because I barely see you with them out? I don’t know! I’m not sure what I thought,” Kendra said. “You had them all the time almost until we got home and then now I only ever see you with them if I catch you sleeping.”

He laughed, and went back to removing his boot. “Right. Yeah. Until I noticed how much people were staring.” He yanked the boot off and tossed it next to the draining mat, then hopped over to one of the only spots of floor that wasn’t visibly wet. His other foot still landed in half a puddle, making him grimace. “Ew, my sock’s wet!” He went back to trying to remove his final boot.

“Wait - are you saying you got self conscious? I can’t believe I lived to see the day Seth Sorenson actually tried to avoid attention.” She grinned. “Why don’t you undo the laces? You’re taking way more time trying to pull it off instead of removing it properly.”

“I’ve almost got it!”

“Yeah, and your foot’ll come off with it too someday.” She rolled her eyes, finishing to unlace her own boots and slide out of them easily. Then she tip toed around the soaking wet floor and dropped her boots next to Seth’s. “But seriously. So it isn’t tiring for you to have them out?”

“No,” He grumbled, still irately trying to pull his tight boot off. “Having them hidden for too long makes me tired. I just - I don’t want Mom and Dad staring at me. I don’t want anyone staring at me. I just want things to be normal,” he said in a small voice. He dropped his foot to the floor, giving up and started to undo the laces.

Kendra stood next to him, quiet for a moment, though he wasn’t looking up and couldn’t see her face. He didn’t know what to expect, but he still didn’t expect her walking straight through the water on the floor and giving him an awkward hug. He was still facing down, so he couldn’t return the hug, but he still felt tears gather in his eyes.

“I’m sorry I didn’t notice. And I’m sorry I stared. It was weird seeing you like that - still is a bit I guess. But that’s not fair to you. So how about this, whenever we’re in our room, you can have your wings out all the time, no staring at all?”

He stood back up, wiping his eyes, “Pinky promise?”

“Pinkie promise.”

They did and then Kendra pulled him back into another hug. “I’m sorry you felt that way and I didn’t even notice.”

“It’s fine! I was trying to hide it,” he said, hugging her back. A thought hit him and he leaned back, smiling, “See! I can hide things from you!”

She gave him an exasperated look. “Not funny, Seth.”

“…Yeah.”

They finished putting away their winter stuff before they heading back upstairs. They changed into dry clothes and went back down for some hot chocolate just as Bracken was coming in. Kendra hung back to talk to her boyfriend, while Seth continued on to the kitchen. There were a few people at the table at that point and they all had a nice chat talking about their day, the two stragglers joining them a few minutes later.

Seth gave a play-by-play recounting of the afternoon’s football match, including highlights such as Newell faceplanting into the bushes and Bracken being unfairly good at catching the ball.

He felt good - better than he had been in a long time, honestly.

When he went back to their bedroom for the night, he realized why. Kendra’s talk had really helped. The moment he crossed the door, he brought his wings back and joyfully hopped onto his bed. Kendra, who had been following him just laughed and went to grab her PJs.

That night, he slept well.

He’d been getting better and better sleep, as the nightmares faded away, slowly but surely with time.

Over the next few days, Kendra and Seth experimented on the limits of his wings. They had a lot of questions. What could they and couldn’t they pass through? Could Seth control the glow? Could the feathers be dyed with food dye smuggled from the kitchen? How did the warmth magic work?

The answers were interesting. He could pass anything he was holding through his wings, if he wanted it to be able to pass through. He could also hold things on his wings, such as shirts, towels and cereal boxes (that one he had wedged between his wing and his arm to carry when his hands were full, but it was a bit of a hard position to hold).

They were essentially another pair of arms without the hands.

He had known that, but it was one thing to know it and another to find ways to use them like that. It was fun though! And it made him happy to explore this with Kendra. Because though she’d promised not to stare at first, he had still caught the occasionnal glimpse. Now, she didn’t seem to mind at all.

Their next test, about controlling the glowing, was a bit harder. If Kendra was touching Seth, his wings would glow a bit brighter. He just saw white light, but she claimed it had a kind of rainbow hue to it. Kind of like Obsidian Waste, she told him, but not as strong.

The wings went back to their normal glow right after she let go, though. Beyond that, they tried all sorts of tricks to see if he could change their glow and nothing worked until they enlisted Bracken.

Bracken explained that the glow was how much magic was active in the wings and that Seth just had to pull the magic inward and away from them for the glow to go down. But, he warned, their magical abilities would go down with it.

It took a few days of trial, but he managed it eventually, pulling until the wings didn’t glow at all. They became heavier and harder to move as the magic moved away from them. He could still move them to their full range, it was just a lot more difficult. He definitively couldn’t fly like this. He could barely lift them. Even the metallic hue seemed to fade when they were like this, leaving the feathers a nice plain white.

While they essentially became useless when he did this and he couldn’t do anything but hold on to the magic, the wings did become less eye-catching. Maybe if he was in a situation where he couldn’t just make them vanish, this would end up being a good alternative for stelth?

The fact that he could still move his wings, even with less magic in them felt like a challenge. He tried to see how much magic he could remove and still fly. He quickly found out that his back muscles actually started working harder when he used less magic. Maybe that meant he he tried hard enough he could actually fly with almost no magic at all?

Though he had insomnia that night, the thought of all the possibilities kept him company instead of his usual darker thoughts. He used his wings instead of a blanket and felt no guilt or discomfort in their presence. He fell asleep earlier than he expected and dreamt of flying in fluffy white clouds of warm, gently falling snow.

Their third test, was whether or not they could dye the feathers with food dye they’d smuggled from the kitchen.

The short answer was yes.

The long answer was yes, but it was a mess.

They had smuggled the only food dyes they could find - two little pipettes of red and green. There had been blue, but it was more chalk than dye at that point, completely dried out. The first part of the test was simple, just put a few drops on a feather and wait.

To their surprise, instead of sliding off the metallic looking surface, the drops soaked into the feather. Seth rubbed at it and was surprised to see the red patch spread and smear with the green until it looked like he had smeared blood and radioactive tree sap on his wings. There were coloured blotches on every other part he’d accidentally touched too.

Oops.

It didn’t seem to spread onto anything else at least. Kendra tried to use a cloth to wipe it off, but it spread the colour further on his wing, and almost none of it ended up on the fabric. They were laughing by that point and decided they’d done what they could.

Well, test over, Seth made his wings vanish to make the dye fall off, then brought them back and…

The dye was still there.

While Seth tried to think of ways to cover it up and tried not to panic, Kendra realized this probably meant he might need to actually wash his wings. More than just a quick dip in the pool.

“Relax, Seth. It’s food dye, it’ll come off in the shower.” She told him. “Its gross that you’ve had these wings for months now and you’ve never washed them though.”

“I didn’t think I needed to! Its not like they keep the dust!”

Seth ended up agreeing that it was less embarrassing to ask how to clean them after having them for a few months, versus in a year’s time. He struggled trying to wash them in the small shower, though thankfully the dye did come out easily. After all that however, he ended up going to Bracken for advice.

Bracken told him all the tricks the Astrids and feathered fairies use to keep their feathers clean, none of which needed to be done directly in the shower. At the most he could use a specialized feather brush. But simply “preening”, passing his fingers through his feathers with water could help if he was feeling particularly dirty. His flights through clouds should be enough otherwise. The wings did have a certain amount of self-cleaning magic, after all.

Seth made sure to tell Kendra that last part, so she would stop poking fun at him.

Finally, for the last test, they experimented on the question of magical warmth. Seth had already noticed from the start that if his wings weren’t touching him (or he wasn’t flying), then he felt temperatures the same way as anyone else. When his wings were closed, usually resting comfortably hooked on his shoulders, he wouldn’t get cold, no matter the temperature or how exposed his clothes were. He could walk around in a swimsuit in a snowstorm and he wouldn’t feel cold. If the temperature was too hot, it wouldn’t make him sweat too much either.

When he was flying, he was never too cold or too hot.

Unlike their previous experiences with shared magic, this kind didn’t transfer through holding hands, probably because it was only in his wings and not in the rest of him. If he pressed his wings against Kendra’s back, however, then she would be included in the spell as well.

They tested some more with loose feathers and found that so long as it was physically touching the skin, some degree of cold protections would appear. The biggest feather Seth had, the singular flight feather that had dropped so far, was the only one that could offer the same degree of cold protection as a full wing. Kendra needed to hold several of the smaller ones for them to take effect, but they did!

Once they were done with all their tests, Kendra moved on to her new favourite book series and Seth went back to playing video games. After a few hours, he got the idea of writing down the results, though.

He wondered about the other abilities the wings had, the ones they weren’t going to test. Protection from dangerous magics was certainly a useful thing to share. Would the feathers on their own be able to share the kind of intuition the wings themselves seemed to have for danger sometimes?

One day he would find out.

But not today.

He closed the notebook and put it back in his emergency kit. Then he went back to his game, as the second big snowstorm of the winter fell quietly outside their window.

Chapter Text

Laying down in the snow, watching the snowflakes fall dizzily down on them, Seth got an idea. He nudged Kendra, who was laying down in the snow next to him, holding hands with Bracken.

“Hey! I just realized. What if I make a coat out of fallen feathers? That would be worth a ton of money right?” Not yet, he didn’t say. But when they’re all really my feathers, I could, couldn’t I?

Kendra groaned. “And here I thought you’d dropped your money making schemes. I don’t know, probably yeah.”

Bracken sat up on one arm to look at Seth. “You shouldn’t trade that for wealth. A magical coat like that would be priceless. As far as I know, none of the Astrids have ever tried to make anything with their feathers. You could probably trade it for something worth far more than money. Other priceless magical artefacts, power, and so on.”

Seth frowned. “Right… not that the idea of more priceless magical artefacts doesn’t attract me - because it absolutely does - but is there some magical reason I can’t sell the feathers for profit?”

“Because its not right?” Kendra offered.

Bracken thought about it for a moment. “I guess not. But I would stick to selling smaller quantities. Individual feathers and all that. When you make something out of purely magical ingredients it tends to take on a life of its own that’s more than the sum of its parts. It can be good, but dangerous. You could make something like that as a heirloom I suppose. Or even several of them. Your feathers aren’t going to stop falling on their own until you die, after all.”

“Huh. Well, whoever’s around when I die can get the last batch, I guess.” He didn’t say anything more, but he had another idea. What if he made scarves with some of the feathers? That would be a great Christmas present for the grandparents. He didn’t know how to make anything like that though.

He thought about the idea for a few more minutes, before Kendra struggled to her feet and declared a snowman making contest.

Seth knew they had all been acting very childish these past few months, but everyone had encouraged them to. He had overheard his parents arguing to the others that their kids should be allowed to be kids, especially after everything awful that had happened without their knowledge. They should be allowed to live a little without responsabilities. So even though he often felt tired and sad, he tried to go back and embrace doing dumb things and playing games.

Kendra’s snowman was as perfect and normal as expected and deserved full points, according to Bracken. Seth argued that while his had lost the arm he’d tried to put a sword on, it deserved points for creativity and size, at the very least. They both gave Bracken points for making the cutest snow sculpture, a small snow-unicorn barely longer than Seth’s forearm.

Seth enlisted Vanessa in his quest to make scarves, only to learn she had no idea how to make any either. “My mom was great at handcrafts like that, but even when I could see. I couldn’t make any heads or tails of it. I’m not sure how well the feathers would hold though, especially if you need them to touch skin for them to work. Maybe you can tie them into a bracelet or a necklace?”

“What do you mean?”

“Mm, like when you make a friendship bracelet and put in beads and other stuff?” She smiled a little sheepishly. “I’ll admit it’s been a very long time since I made any bracelets. But you should be able to tie things to them pretty securely. Maybe ask your sister? I’m sure Kendra has made some before.”

“She has a whole collection back home. Though I guess now it’s in the locker. She made a bunch of them with her friends before we came to Fablehaven the first time. They were crazy about them.” Seth sighed a little. “I guess I can ask her to help.”

Vanessa laughed, “Right. Well, this soup won’t make itself! I’m supposed to be teaching you how to cook, remember? Go fetch the carrots, and I’ll show you how to dice them.”

That evening after supper, Seth reluctantly went over to ask Kendra in the living room. She was reading a book alone. The lights were off, but Kendra didn’t seem to notice. Seth walked over and turned on the lamp next to her. She barely reacted, slowly tearing herself away from the book to look at what he’d done.

“Hmm? Oh, thanks.”

“I have a question for you,” he announced.

“…Alright.”

“Would…” His voice petered off in slight embarrasment. Seth cleared his throat. “Would you teach me how to make friendship bracelets?”

Bemused for a moment, her confusion melted away into a big grin. “What’s this? Seth wants to make friendship bracelets? Who’s the lucky one? Do I get one?”

“No. No one. It’s - augh! Its not for friendship bracelets. It’s part of my Christmas present idea, but I don’t know how to make any,” he grumbled. “And Vanessa said I should ask you for advice, so. Here I am. Asking for advice.”

“‘Part’ of your idea? Should I be worried about the rest?” She said, sounding far more amused than worried.

“No,” he said, exasperated. “I can do things that aren’t dangerous or wrong, Kendra.”

“Then, sure! I don’t mind. It’s been a while since I’ve made any, though. I don’t have any string here.”

“We can go into town to get some?” Seth suggested. He had been hoping Kendra had some, though with his luck if she had had it, it would probably have been pink. He only had a few weeks before Christmas though, and he didn’t want to wait a whole other year.

“Yeah, we can ask Mom and Dad. I bet they wouldn’t mind leaving the preserve for a few hours,” Kendra said, closing her book.

Their parents didn’t mind. In fact, Seth could have sworn he saw a flicker of relief when he asked them. He didn’t think they found Fablehaven that bad, but it had been a few weeks since they’d last left.

From what he understood, the Knights had helped make it seem as though Kendra had been taken into witness protection instead of dying, and that the rest of them had moved to join up with her after everything had died down. This was why his parents had vanished, as far as everyone else was concerned. Kidnapped by an evil society? No, no.

So for the time being, both his parents were still under the wing of the magical witness protection shield the Knights had used. They had moved most of their belongings from home into a locker and were considering selling the house and moving closer to Fablehaven. Their own respective parents had tried to convince them to move into the old mansion, and live on the preserve, but they didn’t want to. They believed in magical beings now, but that didn’t mean they liked them. They certainly didn’t like what this whole secret world had done to their children, even though they’d made it clear they were very proud of their kids.

And Seth was old enough now to see that his parents had actually quite liked their jobs. Their Mom was an absolute coding wizard and had a mind like a razor blade when it came to all things technical. They’d actually installed internet largely for her, so she could continue working odd jobs not long after they were saved. Their Dad had been a salesman for a company he fairly liked. He said the people there were good and the products they sold were useful. He enjoyed helping customers find exactly what they needed.

There had been downsides, of course. Days where one or the other would come home frustrated about such and such thing or person. But they both looked so anchorless at Fablehaven, and it made Seth sad when he noticed.

It didn’t help his anxiety though, thinking he and Kendra might need to move out of Fablehaven to follow their parents. Though maybe it wouldn’t be so bad? He hated to say it, but he kind of missed school. Homeschooling was fun and all, but he missed being around other kids his age. Most of all, he missed the act of going to and from school. He could truly relax whenever he got home, like a switch being flipped, and now he felt as though everything just kind of blurred together. It was why he went to Warren and Vanessa’s shack so often.

If they lived close enough, he might even be able to fly to Fablehaven and back every day. It’s not as though anybody saw a human when he was flying. He’d tested it with Warren one day, because he was curious.

To Warren’s eyes, everytime Seth was flying, he looked like a different pale bird. He’d seen Seth as a pigeon, a snowy owl, a barn owl, a dove, a heron and even a bald eagle once. The moment his feet would touch the ground though, he looked like plain old Seth Sorenson. They’d joked about it, but it had helped him understand the magic a bit more.

All of this to say that as long as no one spotted him landing or taking off, nobody would take notice of this one bird always flying to and from the same spot.

Lost in his thoughts, Seth peered out the window at the trees rushing by. They were piled into the family car, the same way they had been the very first time they’d come to Fablehaven, except they were heading to the nearest big town with an art supplies store. There was Christmas music playing out the car speakers and it was warm, but not suffocatingly hot like when Grandma Ruth put the heat on.

They were all quiet for a little while, before their Mom turned around a little in her seat and asked, “So! What do we need to buy at store again?”

“Embroidery floss for Seth and painting stuff for me!” Kendra said.

“I didn’t say that,” Seth said, embarrased by the name. Embroidery sounded complicated and what was ‘floss’? Dental floss? “I said I wanted friendship bracelet threads. And, I don’t know. Stuff to go with it I guess.”

“Friendship bracelet thread is embroidery floss. Floss means thread,” Kendra replied.

“Well, you can also get macrame thread instead,” their mom butted in. “It’s waxier. At least the kind I used to make bracelets with. Lasts longer so long as you don’t get it wet. Not as many color choices though. What do you need it for, Seth?”

“Oh. Uh. Christmas present.” He gave Kendra a look. “And waxy thread sounds a lot better.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Alright, alright, I’m sorry for assuming you wanted the same thing I used when you asked me to teach you how to make friendship bracelets. Mom, is it different when you use that kind of thread?”

“Not sure, honey, but we can ask the people there if they know.”

The most stressful part was parking. The entire parking lot was one big skating rink of black ice and snow drifts. Their Dad parked as close to the front door as he could, though it wasn’t too hard since the place was almost deserted.

Seth almost faceplanted when he got out of the car too fast, but he pretended nothing had happened and helped his Dad steady himself instead. They shuffled over to the door together, a bit slower than the girls for once. The air was bitterly cold, so cold Seth could feel his nostrils stick when he breathed through his nose. It made him laugh and cough, and soon his Dad was laughing quietly at the same thing with him. How long had it been since Seth had been silly around his parents? He didn’t know, but it was fun.

It took them a bit longer to reach the door but the girls were trying not to smile when they did finally enter.

“I’m glad you guys didn’t fall out there,” Their Mom said, ruffling Seth’s hair when he passed.

“He certainly helped me,” their Dad said, smiling. “Before almost making me fall, but it’s the thought that counts.”

“Almost means we didn’t fall, so it’s a win-win in my book!” Seth replied.

They fanned out to explore the store and Seth had to pull himself away from the new Lego sets. He was here on a mission! Even though it was a lot less cool than the new Star Wars Legos.

His Mom eventually called him over, having found their goal first. She pointed out all sorts of thread colours and textures and even a little booklet that taught you how to make bracelets. The instructions looked complicated, with a bunch of looping arrows he couldn’t make sense of.

“I can show you,” she said. “I taught Kendra how to do it after all. And a few other types of knots too, if you want to learn. We don’t need to buy this.” She put the book back at the top of the shelf. “So! What exactly do you want to make?”

“Um. Promise you won’t mind?”

She gave him a surprised look, then squinted at him. “It depends… Does this involve anything that breaks the rules your Grandparents put up?”

He laughed, “No. Nothing against the rules. It’s uh, magic though.” He shifted awkwardly, his boots squeaking noisily on the tiles. Then he admitted, in a rush, “And I know you guys aren’t that comfortable with all that, but it is useful and I figured it could be a cool gift. So.”

He wasn’t looking at her, so he couldn’t see her expression, but her voice was lighter when she said, “Alright. I promise. I might find it weird because, well, I’m still not too used to all of this… ‘magic is real’ stuff. But! I’m getting better at it. And you and Kendra have so much magic, I don’t really know what to do with that knowledge.” She ruffled his hair. “I guess it goes to show you’re even more magical that I already thought you were.”

“Ugh, Mom.” He said, laughing, his face hot. “You’re ruining my hair!”

Instead of the usual cold hand of anxiety around his heart, he could feel a warm glow. He hadn’t realized what his parents thought of everything. He was still anxious about explaining, but it was a lot less bad now.

“So what is it exactly?’ She asked. “If I can know.”

“Oh. So, ahh, you know how the grandparents are always cold? Especially Grandma Ruth. I was thinking of making them all scarves, but then I found out how complicated that was. Oh, uh, I forgot to mention. My feathers have some kind of magic that makes people stay warm. But it needs to touch you, so the scarves thing would have been complicated anyway. But then Vanessa said to tie the feathers to a necklace or bracelet or something.” He babbled nervously, skipping past the part about his feathers as fast as possible.

“Okay, bud, slow down. Feathers?”

“Y-Yeah.”

She looked slightly overwhelmed for a moment before shaking her head and steeling herself. “Right. Okay. Alright. Feathers. So, necklace or bracelet with feathers. No beads or anything?”

“Um. Is it hard to put beads?”

“A bit more complicated, but not too bad. It doesn’t sound like you’re going to be making a super thick bracelet or necklace, so it should be pretty simple. Tying feathers shouldn’t be too hard either.”

“Then… maybe some beads.”

“Alright. Now… you’re making this to be useful and make sure it lasts. I think it should be a necklace, so its not in the way. I can show you how to make a slipknot so people can adjust the length.”

“You can do that? Oh good. I thought I would have to guess everyone’s neck length.” Seth slumped in relief. His mother laughed.

“That would be funny, but no. No need.”

They went over everything Seth would need and made a small pile. At the end, when deciding how much thread they would need, Seth asked, “Would you and Dad want one? Or something else? I don’t know what to get you guys.”

Marla pulled him into a hug. “We’re just glad to have you here with us, bud. You don’t need to make us anything.”

“But I want to!”

“Alright, alright,” She laughed. His mother hesitated a moment, before saying, “Just… no plucking them or anything, right? I can’t imagine that would be good for you. And I don’t want you to hurt yourself to make a gift for anyone.”

“I won’t. They fall off on their own honestly. It’s kind of a pain to pick them up.”

“Oh. Okay. Then your father and I will be more than happy to get one of these gifts too. But don’t feel like you have to!”

Seth gave his Mom a quick hug. “I know, Mom. Thanks.”

Chapter Text

When they got back, his mom promised to help him with his project after supper.

He was sitting on his bed, sorting through the big bag of random feathers, when she came upstairs. She raised an amused eyebrow at the sight of their room, recently decorated with several coils worth of coloured Christmas lights.

“Did the Christmas Fairy go mad in here?” She joked.

“If you’re talking about the rocking horse, that was Seth,” Kendra said without raising her eyes from her book. The stack of library books next to her bed had been coiled in fairy lights. The window next to her bed was perfectly framed by the lights, while Seth’s window only had enough left to climb up one side.

“I think we both contributed to the chaos. Kendra had fun with the dollhouse,” Seth pointed to the structure their mother hadn’t noticed yet. The dollhouse was closed, but the string of lights snaked through every window before rejoining the chain that circled the whole room.

“I see,” Marla said, visibly amused. “Looks like you two had fun.” She raised an eyebrow at Seth’s bag of feathers. “So you weren’t kidding about the amount of feathers. Want to get started on that necklace?”

“Yep! Just give me a second.”

He put the feathers he’d sorted so far into different plastic baggies they’d got at the art store and tossed them back into the bigger cloth bag and pulled the drawstring shut. He kicked it off the side of the bed and pulled out the string he’d got with his mom, three big balls of waxed brown, beige and grey thread.

His Mom sat down next to him and showed him how to get started. She suggested he make each necklace with three threads, so he could alternate between braiding and knots. She showed him how to do braids, then how to do a few kinds of knots. Then once he was comfortable with those, she showed him how to put a bead onto the necklace and secure it in place.

Finally, they took a few tries and got the feathers tied properly. It didn’t work on the really small down feathers, so they used slightly bigger ones. They tied a knot at the base of the shaft, then wound the thread up the whole length, before tying it off with another knot. Then they just continued the necklace.

“How many do you need for this to work like you want?” Marla asked as Seth was struggling to hold the feather steady enough to tie it properly.

“Mmm, what do you mean?”

“Does it take just one feather to keep warm?”

“Oh. Uh. I don’t really know. We tested with Kendra holding a handful and standing on the porch. But we didn’t count.”

His Mom hummed, before saying, “I think you should test it out, before making the necklaces. That way you won’t need to change them if they don’t work the way you expect.”

“What, like now?”

Marla looked at her watch. “It’s only eight thirty… Sure. The porch should be safe that late, right?”

“Solstice is two weeks from now, so yeah. The protections on the yard should be just as strong as always.” Seth hopped off the bed. “Let’s do this! Wanna come, Kendra?”

“Nope. Have fun though,” she said, flipping a page.

Seth grabbed the feather bag and pulled out two of the baggies. One held a large handful of the little feathers they’d been tying to the test necklaces and the other held slightly larger feathers, as long as a finger.

“You want to try testing these, Mom?”

Marla looked as though she was wondering what she’d signed up for, before sighing and agreeing. “Alright, but we’re not spending more than ten minutes out there, okay?”

“Fine by me!”

They went downstairs, and warned Stan what they were planning on doing. He raised an eyebrow and said they should be fine if they kept to the porch. They put on boots, and walked right out into the cold.

They both started shivering immediately.

“Right,” Seth fumbled the first bag open, and handed his mother a single feather. “Feel any different?”

“A bit warmer maybe? Not sure if I’m just imagining it though.” She stamped her feet. “Let’s make it five minutes instead of ten. It’s freezing out here.”

It took four more feathers before Marla stopped shivering. By the time Seth handed her the seventh feather, she stated she no longer felt cold at all. She held the feathers closed in her hands, to prevent them from flying away in the wind.

It was such an odd feeling. She could tell the air was cold, she could feel the wind against her skin, and see the snowflakes swirling around them. Before when they’d touched her skin, they felt like little ice daggers. Now, she could tell they were cold, but they didn’t make her cold in return.

She gazed out at the dark yard, the dark greenery and grass exposed by the fairies, still flying dots of coloured light, floating through the sparse snowflakes. The edge of the yard was nothing but a dark shape against the slightly lighter sky.

She let out a quiet sigh, then laughed a little. “You know, I think this is the most magical thing I’ve experienced so far.”

Seth had shoved his hand in the bag and left it there, once she told him she didn’t need more feathers. He would have curled up in his wings, but he thought that would still be a bit too early. He looked back at her, surprised. “What do you mean?”

“This,” she gestured at the night, with her hands still clasped around the feathers. “Not the fairies but - the snow feels real, the air is cold. And yet I feel warm now. And I’m not crazy or hypothermic.” She smiled at him, looking a little awestruck and childish. “I’ve seen so many magical things in the past year, but this is the first that really struck me as really magical.” She giggled and shook her head. “I’m sorry, it’s just - I feel like I’m a kid again. And I know that isn’t something you want to hear from your Mom. But still. Thank you for letting me help you with this, Seth. I’m glad you’re letting me get closer again.”

“What do you mean?”

She sighed. “I feel like you and Kendra have both been… drifting away from us, more and more since you first came here. Especially since everything that happened with the Dragon war. Your father and I feel like we can only blame ourselves. Had we listened better, or - or been better with dealing with all of this… We don’t want to lose you, either of you. But we barely hang out at all this past year, even though neither of us is working right now. Which, I’ll admit is driving us a bit more up the walls than I could have guessed. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be telling you all of this.”

“Don’t be sorry!” Seth moved closer and hugged her. “I’m the one who should be sorry. I’ve been avoiding you guys. Well, I’ve been avoiding a bunch of people lately, really. And I - I,” he choked up and couldn’t find his words for a long moment. “I just - I’m really scared. I’m scared of you guys being scared of me. Of - of how I’m different now. I don’t want to lose you either. So - I just - I can’t lose you if I never find out how you would react, right?” He laughed nervously, tears welling in his eyes. His throat felt like one big lump. “I’m sorry.”

His Mom turned around and returned the hug, still making sure not to lose any feathers in her hands, and held him tight. “Oh bud, we’d never be scared of you. Worried for you, yes. We’ve had plenty of that. And sometimes we don’t know how to act about things. But you know, the most important thing I learned growing up? Is that if you’re scared of something you don’t understand, then try to learn more about it. And then you won’t be scared of it anymore.”

“Unless you learn about some serial killer or something.”

“Well, yes, unless you learn about that. But even then, some of the fear goes away because you understand where it comes from. If the boogieman turns out to be someone in particular, then you know a bit more than before. But that’s not what I’m talking about,” she laughed. “I meant to say, that if you’re feeling scared or awkward because of magic or your wings, or whatever else and you’re worried I’ll be scared about that… then it can help to just talk about it.”

“I guess,” Seth said against her neck, still holding her tight. He wanted to cry so bad, but was holding it in. Boys don’t cry. Except boys do cry - he’d done it plenty of times, in secret. And a long time ago, just like this, held in his mother’s arms.

Marla laughed quietly, her voice sounding a little raw as well. “Well. My little boy has wings now, and I’ve got to get used to that. Really, I expected your first drastic change to be dying your head some awful neon colour, but I guess wings win the game there. I doubt you’ll be able to surprise me much from here on out!”

Seth laughed in surprise, and pulled back slightly. “Wanna bet? I’m sure I can come up with some awful colour that will shock you even more!”

“Oh, I’ve jinxed myself now, haven’t I? I’m sure I’ll eat my words,” she shook her head. He could see tears in her eyes, but she smiled at him all the same. “Will you let me see your wings though? Last time I managed to see them up close was when you fell asleep on the couch. Since then it’s only been on the other side of the field, when you play with the satyrs.”

Seth took a deep breath. “You’re sure? Because I really - I don’t -“

“Seth. Baby. Bud. I love you. I will never stop loving you. Even if you were somehow turned into a goose, you hear me?”

“I hear you,” he sniffled, holding back nervous laughter. “Though I hope I never turn into a goose.”

“Well, I hope so too. But I want you to know that you’re safe, okay? I love you as you are, whoever that person is. Because no matter what happens, you’re my baby. And I’m so, so proud of you. You survived so many scary, terrible situations, that the thought of them keeps me awake at night sometimes.” She blinked repeatedly, trembling but holding on. “So I don’t mind if you’ve got wings, or if there’s anything else I don’t know about, you hear me? You’re alive. That’s really all that matters to me.”

Seth couldn’t hold it in, he started blubbering, and pulled her closer into the hug again. He sobbed against her shoulder, and she rocked him gently, crying as well. After a few minutes he started laughing saying he really needed to blow his nose. She agreed and helped put the feathers back in the bag, instantly feeling the cold come back.

They went back in and gladly used the tissue box set near the front door. Grandma Ruth came over and asked if they were alright, looking immediately concerned when she saw their tears.

Marla waved her away, “It’s fine, we’re fine. Nobody’s hurt. Just - talking and catching up.” She tried to take a deep breath, but it came in shudders. “We’re going to talk here in private for a little longer if you don’t mind?”

“It’s no trouble,” Ruth said. “I’ll go make you both some hot chocolate, you look like you need it.”

“Thanks, Gran,” Seth managed to say, before blowing his nose again.

He sat down on the bench next to his Mom and they went on talking a little longer, and just crying together. They talked about all sorts of things that had been bothering them. Eventually there was nothing left to say and they just breathed there in silence for a few long minutes, shoulder to shoulder. Seth sighed and let his head drop on his Mom’s shoulder and after a moment she tilted her head to rest it on his.

After a few more minutes, they stood up and walked over to the kitchen, Marla complaining that she had a terrible headache and that if she needed water, then so did he. There they found two mugs covered with little plates to keep the steam in. Gran had left them a note wishing them good night.

The drinks were cold, so they reheated them on the stove. They were quiet and content, only sharing a few words. Seth felt like the weight of the world had been removed from his chest, but he still didn’t know what to do about it.

As he stirred the milk, his Mom took a long sip from her glass of water, before saying, “There’s nothing that makes you feel better than a good cry.”

Seth just nodded quietly. He felt better. Not in the magical way the Well had made him feel better, but just - actually better. Like he had truly healed a bit, and things weren’t as bad in the world. It was messy and it didn’t really feel good - his head was pounding and his nostrils felt like sandpaper. But he felt tired and empty and alive at the same time. He didn’t really know what to make of it. Maybe it was just because the transition between feeling bad and feeling better felt so real.

He knew things weren’t fixed. He was still anxious about showing his Mom his wings - though he’d promised to do it eventually. And he hadn’t talked to his Dad about all of this yet. But things still just felt better.

They drank their hot chocolate together and talked about the necklaces. Seven little feathers per necklace for them to work properly. He wanted to make six - one for every grandparent and both his parents. That meant forty-two feathers. He had a lot, sure, but he didn’t think he had that many.

His mom said he might drop more before then, or he could just swap them out with other feathers if it came down to it. “I doubt anyone would mind having a long cool feather instead of a full set of little ones.”

He agreed, and the conversation shifted to other things. His Mom told him about how the number forty-two made her think of one of her favourite book series, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and how he might like it. She told him there was a whole radio show with it and he might find that easier to listen to. He agreed to give it a try, because the concept sounded fun.

Then they cleaned their mugs, put them on the drying rack and tiptoed their way back upstairs. They said their goodnights on the first landing, and Seth continued up to the attic. Most people were either already asleep or winding down to it by then and Kendra had already turned all the lights off in their bedroom. She stirred awake when he walked in. He’d shut the door quietly, but stubbed his toe on a toy on the way back to his bed and the noise made her look up at him.

“You’re back late,” she whispered.

“We had a bit of a long chat. Is there anything else in the way of me getting to my bed?” he asked, shuffling forward just in case he stepped on something else.

“There’s a box on the floor about a foot ahead of you. We should really clean up tomorrow.”

“Mm-hm,” he agreed, dodging the box and then hopping onto his bed. It creaked in protest. He let out a long sigh of relief. “Bed, I love you bed,” he told it.

Kendra didn’t comment on his statement, so he figured she’d fallen back asleep. He wormed his way over to the opposite side of the bed, tossing his bag of feathers somewhere over there, and got changed into his PJs. He then crawled back into bed and fell into deep slumber before his head even hit the pillow.

He would later remember nothing about his dreams, beyond the fact that they were pale yellow in parts and that he felt safe and happy.

The next two days were spent in a haze of necklace-making. His Mom had downloaded a small part of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy radio show on his iPod and he listened to it while making the gifts.

It was actually really relaxing. He found the story to be fun once he got past how funny everyone’s accents sounded. And where he usually would have gotten too jittery to continue listening, having something to do with his hands helped him stay relaxed. Well, he didn’t spend the whole day doing just that, but he did spend a few hours each day.

He finished the first necklace by the end of the second day and proudly showed it to Kendra.

“Wow! It looks great Seth!” She said. “Want to test it outside?”

They did and Kendra said that it worked. She found it weird how the feathers didn’t get picked up and flung around by the wind. Seth shrugged and said it was probably what was left of the flying magic. They went back in and Seth went back to listening to the podcast.

Eventually he got bored of working on the next necklace and went over to pester Kendra, who was painting in the corner. She handed him a canvas and told him to paint on his own if he was going to get in the way of her Christmas gifts.

He tried a bunch of different things without being able to settle on an idea. Soon enough his canvas was a complete mess of colours. After it dried he got the idea to draw around the shapes with a sharpie, telling himself stories about them. That blob could be a dragon puking, and the one underneath looked like an upside down frog with a tutu. Maybe the dragon had puked out the frog and it fell.

Soon enough, a bit before Seth was done filling out all the blobs, they were both called down to supper.

Chapter Text

It was a week after starting making necklaces that Grandpa Stan asked him to help learn some of the chores. Seth was ecstatic - not only was he going to learn more about Fablehaven, he finally had a good reason to stop making necklaces! The podcast was stuck in a part he didn’t really care for and it was a struggle to sit still and work on his project.

They got dressed and Stan showed him how to layer his clothes for exercise and sitting still, so he wouldn’t catch a cold. Then they set off. Hugo pulled a sleigh filled with hay and other things. Grandpa Stan pulled himself up and onto the seat of the sleigh and scooted over to make room for Seth.

“Hugo, take us to the buffalo, please,” he said.

Seth only managed to be quiet for a few minutes before bursting with questions about the buffalo. What were they going to do? Feed them, clean their pens and look out for any signs of injury or unhealthiness. How long was that going to take? A few hours, they should be done before lunch. How do you know if a buffalo is unhealthy? And so on.

The ride took almost half an hour and Seth had questions almost the whole way there. Stan was looking tired by the time they arrived, but he was pleasantly surprised by how well Seth had seemed to listen when they got down to work. Whenever he wasn’t sure, instead of guessing wrong, Seth made sure to ask and got clear answers. He continued asking questions, but less frequently.

It took a few hours, but they had managed to clean the indoor enclosure the buffalo could go into when they wanted. They’d replaced all the hay on the floor with clean hay, cleaned all the drinking troughs and filled all the feeding areas with fresh food Hugo had brought them halfway through the morning. It had begun to snow again outside, big wet flakes, quickly growing into packing snow.

Seth was amazed at how unbothered the buffalo looked, as they grew little snowcaps they shook off every so often.

By the time they finished, there was a half-foot of fresh snow on the ground outside. It was getting near lunchtime and Seth was hungry. The air had become humid as well as cold and they could feel it seeping into their bones.

Stan stamped fresh snow off his feet and gave Seth a solid pat on the back. “Good job. Let’s head back for lunch.”

Seth beamed at his grandpa, terribly proud. “Does that mean I can help a bit more often?”

“Yes. We could use the help. Not full time, though, you hear me? Make sure you keep up your studies. They’re important. And well, I don’t want to be on the other end of another one of your parents’ arguments. But you can help sometimes.”

“Yes!” Seth whooped then pulled Grandpa Stan into a tight hug. “Thank you, thank you!”

“Oof! Alright, alright,” the old man chuckled. “Not too tight, my old bones can’t take it! Come on, let’s go get the sleigh.”

“Sorry!” Seth let go immediately, but he walked with an extra bounce in his step.

It took a few long minutes for Hugo to finally show up, from the very far side of the pastures. Meanwhile the snow continued to fall and melt onto their coats and hats, dripping down their necks and making them shiver.

As they set off, the cold seemed to seep even deeper as they couldn’t move around anymore. Eventually, Stan broke the silence. “I know you don’t like having them around us for some reason, but you can use your wings to stay warm. I don’t want to be hearing anything about you catching a cold by my fault.”

Seth winced, “I don’t - it’s not -“ He struggled for a moment, before sighing. “I just don’t like anyone looking at me weird.”

“Hmh. You catch people staring, is that it?”

“I - yes, but I don’t know if they’re really staring or if it’s all in my head. And I guess I just don’t think about it as much when the wings aren’t there.” He sighed. “I don’t know. I guess I’m just scared.”

“I see.” Stan was silent for a moment. “Can I be brutally honest with you Seth?”

“Uh. Sure?”

“People are always going to stare. I’ve caught myself staring too. But not because I thought it was strange to see you with wings, though it was at first. I’ve lived my entire adult life surrounded by beautiful and amazing, fascinating and surprising creatures. And frankly, the really pretty ones tend to like being stared at.” He drummed his fingers on his knees a little. “Not to put too strong a point on it, your wings are beautiful. Shiny, too. So, I think that you’ll always be stared at, by strangers at the very least, but it won’t always be for a bad reason.”

“Oh.”

Seth didn’t know what to think about that. A fairly big part of him didn’t want to be seen, didn’t want attention or to be looked at - but he knew it was the part of him that was still overwhelmed and crying. Deep down, the Seth who loved being the center of attention didn’t mind. It was just so hard to find a balance.

“I probably should have worded that better,” Stan grumbled. “Your grandmother will chew me out for it later. What I meant to say, is that neither I nor your grandmother - nor your other grandparents for the matter - will ever judge you if you have wings visible or not. You haven’t met any yet, but it’s far from uncommon to meet people who have been changed by magic in some way or another. Usually this change is in some bad way - a curse that twists the body or the mind or both, debilitating effects or even just simple loss of limb. Like what happened to Warren with the Revenant. But sometimes it comes in a good way, like with your wings. Most people keep them hidden, but some things are impossible to hide and that doesn’t stop them from living their lives. We live and work with the wonderful magical beings of the world - it goes to say that they can affect us as well.”

“Yeah, they sure do,” Seth laughed a little, rubbing his hands together to keep them warm. “But everyone’s stuff seems so invisible. Like blixes looking exactly like humans.”

“I see what you mean, but blixes are their own strange thing. They descend from humans, the same way the fair folk do. It’s a lot more common for changes to be completely debilitating. Like what the fairies did to you that first summer. There are untold amounts of people stuck in similar states of being.” Stan shifted on his seat. “But there are some people out there who did get good changes. I have a childhood friend, Marley Pines, who did such a good favour for a Lunar Hare that it gifted him with excellent hearing… in the form of rabbit ears. His help had been magical in nature, and that’s how the hare had been able to repay him in that form. But Marley still works on a preserve to this day and isn’t ashamed of those ears.”

“He has rabbit ears?” Seth said. “Like, permanently?”

“Yes,” Stan chuckled. “It does make it easy to pick him out of a crowd when we meet up every so often. But you get used to seeing them pretty fast and then that’s that. It’s just what Marley looks like now. You don’t over think it.”

“Hm,” Seth said. Then without another word, he faded his wings back and wrapped one lightly around his Grandfather’s shoulder. “…Alright. Thanks. I didn’t know about anyone else.”

Stan had stiffened in surprise, but relaxed and leaned back a bit, taking a good look at the feathers next to him. “I should have told you ages ago. I suppose you get old and you just keep on making mistakes.” He sighed and closed his eyes. “This is nice though, thank you Seth. You’re sure you won’t get cold too?”

“What? No, it’s some kind of warmth magic. I’m fine now.” He swung his legs awkwardly for a moment. He looked ahead, rather than at his grandfather. The golem plodded along in the snow before them. His whole torso was covered in thick snow with chunks falling off when he moved. “Hugo, do you get cold?”

“No,” the golem replied, turning his head slightly. “Hugo no get cold. Hugo bring Seth and Stan home to be warm.”

Seth grinned. “You sure are buddy, thank you.”

Soon enough they were home and they got off the sleigh. Stan shuddered in the sudden cold when he stepped out from under Seth’s wing. “Come on, let’s head in quickly. Hugo will put the sleigh away.”

“Alright! See you Hugo, thanks for pulling us there and back!” Seth said, standing up and stretching his wings. Then he jumped off with a whoop and glided down next to Stan.

“See you Seth. See you, Stan. Stay warm,” Hugo said with his gravely voice, before unlocking the barn and pulling the sleigh in.

Seth put a wing around Stan again, even though his grandfather grumbled that he didn’t need to and they walked together back to the house. Before walking up onto the porch though, Seth shook the snow off his wings and made them vanish before following inside.

Together the pair made a sorry sight, soaking wet and tracking melting slush into the mudroom. They got out of all their layers and set them to dry. Stan grumbled that he would need to use his backups for the rest of the day.

Then they went and had a lovely lunch together with everyone else. Seth told everyone that bison were the coolest animal ever, prompting a list of all the animals he considered to be coolest at the moment. Stan said Seth had done a good job helping and was welcome to do so again another day. The others shared what they’d done so far in the day. Once the meal was over, Seth helped clean up and Stan went back out with Dale to another part of the preserve that needed tending.

After lunch, Seth decided to sneak out for a quick flight. He told Kendra, who just warned him to be back soon and be safe.

Since he knew he wasn’t going to be cold, he put on his rain jacket instead of a full coat, and made sure to tie his boots on securely. Then he was out the door, wings snapping back into existence the moment he was on the deck. He hopped down the steps then ran a few steps on the wet grass and took off. Moments later he passed over the naiad pond and the Fairy Queen island, glimpsing movement under the surface, then he was past it and flying high over dense forest.

He was surrounded by a swirl of fast falling wet snowflakes on all sides, and he could see them spiralling downward onto the snow-covered treetops. He circled slowly, gaining height and looking around. You couldn’t see very far into the snow, but the air was cold and he felt alive. Soon enough he found himself in the low cloud ceiling, visibility never further than a few feet. He switched from a slow spiral upward to climbing directly up, pumping his wings and feeling gravity give way. It was like running up a steep hill, kind of hard but it felt good to be able to do it.

A minute later he cleared the cloud and found himself under piercing blue skies. His breath plumed in freezing clouds trailing behind him as he continued to climb. Eventually he slowed into a glide and laughed. His heart was pounding but he was alive and flying. He could feel the freezing air slide between his feathers and push up against his wings. With wings, the air felt like a physical mass, like swimming in water.

He glided for a few minutes, watching the bumpy roof of the cloud ceiling below. It was like being in another world up there. He could feel all his worries and insecurities drift away. He angled his wings into a slow spiral, until he hit a warmer air pocket and started to rise instead of fall. That was a surprise, he hadn’t expected any thermals here.

Or not. He could glimpse through a small gap in the clouds that he was somewhere right above the yard, entirely free of snow. That part of the preserve was always slightly warmer, even in winter.

He rode the thermal for a few minutes, before it began to fade to nothing. By now he was very high up, though he wasn’t sure how much, since he couldn’t see the ground below the clouds. He flapped a few times to gain a bit more height, before starting his favourite part of flying. Diving.

One last flap for height, and then he angled himself down and pulled his wings partially closed. He fell like a stone, only using small movements to stay steady or do a barrel roll - something he had figured out two months earlier. Seconds after starting to fall, he pulled out of the dive and used the momentum to rise back up again. Each downstroke was hard, the air like a solid weight under his wings, but still he returned to a higher point again, before launching himself back down.

He dove several times and tried other fun air acrobatics before falling back into a glide near an opening in the clouds. Through it, far, far below him, he could see a small town. He circled the hole for a few minutes, trying to identify the place. The air was different around the gap. Smoother, almost. He could feel the magic keeping him aloft reacting to it a little differently. Maybe someday he’d look up the physics of all that, but it didn’t really interest him yet. He continued observing the shape of the village through the falling snow, flying in a slow circle above it.

Then it clicked and he knew which village he was flying over. He was almost an hour away by car from Fablehaven. A quick glance at his watch said he’d only been flying for an hour or so, most of which he knew had been above Fablehaven. Or, well, near it anyway. He had no way of knowing when he had strayed from the bounds. Still, he would have no way of finding his way back from this high up, he needed to be able to see the ground.

He sighed and let himself drop slowly down through the hole in the clouds. From here he could see they were about twice as thick as his school had been tall. He wasn’t sure how high that actually was though. Then he was under the cloud ceiling again. He found the main road and followed it off into deeper snowfall. He flew past a snow removal truck and several cars before finding the turnoff to the small highway that led to Fablehaven. From there he alternated gliding and flapping, while thinking.

Somehow, since last summer, he’d managed to talk to almost everyone about his wings. And… people didn’t mind them. They didn’t mind him being himself, even if it was a new ‘himself’.

He held the thought like a precious pearl, gently in his mind. It made him feel warm. Warm in the part of him that had felt so cold and empty with the guilt and the responsibility that had been weighing down on his soul. Some of it still was, and probably always would. He could never bring back the lives he had failed to save, nor the lives of those he had killed, directly or indirectly.

But there was still good in him. He was still just a teen, even though he’d been through so much. Just because he’d helped save the world twice didn’t mean he couldn’t struggle with other things. And… it just felt nice knowing that he could have good things. He could still have a place helping Fablehaven and other preserves.

He’d been caretaker for all of a month at Wyrmroost and he wasn’t sure if that was something that would ever appeal to him again. He didn’t really like the idea of giving orders again. He didn’t want to be in charge of anything just yet. Maybe in a few years he’d change his mind, but for now, he would rather just be someone cool and quiet like Dale. Someone who was useful and could help, but wasn’t in the thick of the action all the time.

It was funny how he hadn’t noticed how Dale had never made him feel uncomfortable about his wings. He would go with him sometimes, and he would not notice or seem to give Seth any kind of judgement whether he had his wings or not. Honestly, it had been so effortless, Seth hadn’t even noticed he wasn’t stressing about it until now, months later.

It had started when Seth had been playing with the satyrs in the woods, and Dale had passed by. He’d suggested they could tag along if they wanted, and while Newell and Doren had opted out, preferring to go back to watching TV, Seth had agreed. He hadn’t even noticed he didn’t hide his wings until he accidentally knocked one against the doorframe of the barn, and put them away.

He wondered if Dale would also like a necklace.

Maybe he’d ask him after Christmas. His fingers still hurt from all the hours he’d spent on them this past week.

He found Fablehaven’s driveway and glided along the path, just above the treetops. Moments later, he landed a few feet away from the parked cars and walked up to the house, each footstep crunching in the wet snow. He shook the snow off his wings and tried to wipe most of it off his hair before going in, but it was still a freezing shock when he made his wings disappear.

“Ahhh! Cold-cold-cold!” He muttered to himself while hurrying in, kicking his boots against the steps to make the snow fall off.

His raincoat had kept most of the water out, but he’d still been sweating and flying through snow. The snow that had bunched up around his neck had melted into freezing cold water, dripping down his shirt. It hadn’t bothered him until just now. His hair was drenched and the rest of the snow in it melted and dripped down his neck as he got out of his coat and boots. He peeled off his wet socks before anyone could complain about leaving traces in the house and went up with them in his hand. He stormed up the steps to the attic.

Kendra was putting the finishing touches on her painting when he got there. She gave him one look, taking in his rosy cheeks and grin and smiled back. “Had fun?”

“Yes.” He said pulling out some dry clothes and his towel. “Now, I’m off to have a shower.”

“Do you need one?” She laughed. “Looks like you already had a cold shower!”

“Ha-ha, Kendra. Very funny.”

“Don’t take too long or the warm water will run out!”

“I know, I know,” Seth said and walked out.

Thirty minutes later, with very little hot water left, Seth flopped onto his bed and pulled out his DS. It had been a great day so far.

Chapter Text

He finished the last necklace the day before Winter Solstice and spent the day itself helping prepare for the Festival Night. His parents were understandably nervous, and had been talking about taking a hotel room for the night.

When asked, Seth said he doubted there was much out there that scared him anymore and he pointed to Vasilis, sheathed under his bed, in case of trouble. Kendra said she wanted to stay, if only because it was her last Solstice Festival night in the safety of the attic, before she would be too old to stay there.

She had just turned seventeen in the fall and was somewhat dreading leaving the protections of the place. She had told Seth she wasn’t sure how much worse her nightmares would be outside of it. Seth hadn’t known how to answer, but tried to comfort her anyway.

In the end, their parents decided to stay the night, though neither wanted to look out the windows. There were fairies at every window and the house felt as safe as it could for one of the rowdiest nights of the year. Warren and Vanessa were passing the night in Stan’s office, one on the cot that they had put back there and another on an inflatable mattress placed near the door. Now that Warren was no longer albino, it was safer to be in the main house than in their shack. Dale had offered up his room to them, but they’d refused, saying Stan’s office was fine and he didn’t need to give up his bed for them.

Vanessa had only complained a bit about Warren refusing an actual bed for them, though she said it in a teasing tone. They had had the option of taking a hotel room for the night as well, but decided against it for reasons Seth didn’t kow.

They were all crammed into the kitchen, having finished supper and put everything away, when Seth sensed something. They had been playing cards until they would all go back to their rooms, their beds already circled in salt. The sun was fading fast, though it was barely four in the afternoon.

Seth had been frowning at the cards in the center of the table, trying to see if he would be able to play on his turn when he felt a slight cold approach from the edge of his invisible perception. Although he was no longer a Shadow Charmer, he could still sense the undead as a Shadow Healer. He could still feel the exact position of each of the wraiths in the dungeons below as well as several other dark creatures of a similar nature. This was something new, though nothing as powerful as the Underking or the Liches had been.

He looked up and stared at the window in the direction the thing was approaching. “It’s starting,” he told everyone.

They gave him a surprised look and a silence fell over the group. His grandparents both sighed in unison. “Alright, let’s call it an early night and go to bed then,” Stan said.

“Wait, how do you know that?” Seth’s dad asked, frowning. “I don’t hear anything yet.”

“There’s an undead creature moving this way,” Seth shuffled his cards nervously. “I can still tell where they are. I don’t know about any of the other creatures, though, but I’d assume they’re already on the move if that one is.”

“Good call, Seth,” Ruth said, pushing back from her chair. “And Scott, don’t question that please. If you want more details I’m sure Seth will be willing to give them to you tomorrow.”

Seth’s dad looked lost for a moment before sighing and agreeing. They all made way to go to bed, but Seth watched as Grandma Ruth walked over to the window and peeked out. She didn’t seem too alarmed, certainly not as much as they’d been the first Festival night Seth and Kendra had been around for.

Everyone but Seth put in their ear plugs and went to sleep as well as they could. Seth lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, until late into the night. He listened to the howls and laughter, the odd giggles and whispers and singing.

And he listened to the whispers of the undead. Two wraiths were having a reunion near the pool, talking about the things they had seen and done since last time they’d spoken six months prior. All the creatures were giving them both a wide berth, in case one of them struck out and tried to eat them.

They were cold, they whispered. But they were glad to talk to each other. Glad one had managed to catch several rabbits that fall, and feel warmth for a moment.

There was some kind of lone zombie that wandered through the throng around the house. It pleaded for food and blood and was given some by what Seth assumed to be the loud partygoers near the barn. After that it sang quietly to itself, in voiceless words only Seth could hear.

He wondered if his powers of exorcism worked on zombies, and hoped they didn’t. Though they were undead of some kind, they had been born that way, hadn’t they? They had a strong affinity for the Underking, but that didn’t mean they were miserable.

He wondered if it would be right to go and seek out the wraiths and ask them if they wanted to move on. What if one said no and the other yes? Wouldn’t he be condemning one to a deeper loneliness?

He guessed that freeing them from undeath would still count as killing, and that would completely strip his protections from the new treaty. He had been quite careful on that front since the new one had been put up again. So maybe it wasn’t even on the table at all.

The party eventually quieted down and moved off, the zombie leaving as well, though Seth didn’t know if it was with them or not. As he was drifting off into sleep, more creatures drifted into the yard and began to play instruments, flutes and drums mostly, though at one point it was interrupted by a loud argument and what sounded like a monkey screeching at them. Unless the monkey-voice came from one of the musicians, it was hard to tell.

Despite it all, Seth slowly slipped into sleep.

The next morning, it was with bleary eyes that most of them had breakfast. They made more coffee than usual and Seth begged some off of his mom, “Pretty pretty please with extra sparkles on it?”

She gave him part of her usual speech about coffee being bad for you before giving up at his puppy dog attempts and agreed he could try a small cup, but that was it. Seth cheered, to everyone’s groans, and people begging him to be quiet.

His first sip made him grimace. The last time he’d had coffee was at a friend’s house, where they’d been allowed to drink it for years. It had been creamy and sweet and just as delicious as hot chocolate. This time it was so bitter he almost coughed. He knew his family drank their coffee black, but he somehow hadn’t expected the taste.

Still, he percevered and drank some more. It was less bad now that he knew what to expect. Still, he soon gave up and grabbed some sugar. He added a large amount in the hopes of making it taste less evil, despite the booing of those awake enough to have followed his reaction and laughed at him.

After a little while, proper conversation picked up as people became able to make small talk. Warren grimaced and said he had a headache and went off to the living room to eat alone. When asked, Vanessa assured Kendra that he was fine, he just wasn’t much of a ‘loud breakfast morning person’ but he’d be fine in about half an hour.

“Is it that bad every festival night?” Marla asked, dark shadows under her eyes. She hadn’t been around for the last summer festival.

There was a short pause as everybody thought for a moment, until Stan spoke up. “I think that one was fairly run of the mill. We’ve had far worse ones in recent history, so compared to those I’d say it was fairly quiet.”

“I don’t think it’s fair to compare those with your average festival night,” Dale said. “Pass the syrup?” He asked Kendra. He took the bottle and poured some on his waffles. “Thanks. This was pretty normal for the Winter Solstice. They always tend to party more on the longest night of the year, they’ve got more time to do it than in summer.”

“But why here? They were right in the yard,” Scott asked, sounding annoyed.

“Probably to annoy us, right?” Seth butted in, mouth full of toast.

“Finish chewing before you speak, bud,” Marla sighed at the old reminder.

“What Seth said is correct, though not all of the matter, I’m certain. Many denizens of the reserve would be more than glad to harm us all if we showed any gaps in our defense. They are here to annoy us as that is the most they can do so long as we keep safe, but they are also nearby to be able to hurt us should it come down to it.” Stan said, grim. “They’ve already succeeded once recently, after all. And they remember it working when the old mansion came down.”

Scott and Marla looked grey at the thought. Ruth apologized, “I’m sorry, I know it’s hard to think about, but you need to understand just how dangerous these creatures can be. We did our best to explain it to you before.”

Seth glanced at his parent’s faces, still looking fairly sick, and he tried to calm them down. “It’s not all dark creatures out there at night! The light ones are partying too.”

“And just as likely to harm you as the dark ones,” Vanessa added cheerfully.

“Not all of them,” Kendra cut in. “Even the dark ones. I’m sure there’s plenty of them that don’t care either way, or really don’t want to hurt any of us. The fairies and the satyrs and the hamadriads wouldn’t! And I bet someone like Bubda wouldn’t!”

“Hermit trolls behave in odd ways,” Ruth said. “It’s fairly surprising that Seth has two as friends.”

“Warren’s good friends with Bubda too,” Seth said with a grin.

“Ha-ha Seth, don’t poke fun about that.” Vanessa warned him. “Or I’ll replace all your Christmas chocolates with brussel sprouts.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“I absolutely would.”

“Ahem. On that note, before this devolves any further, we should get started on cleaning up the yard.” Stan stated. “Seeing as I made breakfast, I’m not doing the dishes. You can fight that out amongst yourselves.”

Seth’s dad spoke up, “I volunteer Seth and I to do the dishes.”

“What? No! I un-volunteer myself! I want to help clean up the yard!”

“Tough luck, bucko, you can do both once you’re done with the dishes,” Scott said as everyone else filed out as fast at they could so they couldn’t get in the way. “We can talk while we work, alright?”

Seth groaned. “You could have just asked to talk to me without doing the dishes. I would have said yes.”

“Yes, but like this we’re helping your grandparents. Come on, I’ll even do the washing. Help me bring the plates over.”

“Oh.” Seth suddenly looked a bit more willing. “…Alright, fine.”

Once they’d gotten everything next to the sink and cleaned off all the remaining leftovers into the compost bin, they fell into a kind of awkward silence. Seth fiddled with the drying cloth while his dad washed the first plates. His dad also looked awkward.

Eventually, Scott cleared his throat. “So. I agreed to wait till today. Would you mind telling me why you could feel where those creatures were, last night?”

“Ahhh, uhh, you know when I was a Shadow Charmer?”

“Yes. Your grandparents told me about them.”

“Great… I’m sure that went just great. Uhh, right, so, I learned how to do some of those stuff Shadow Charmers can do. During the whole… dragon fiasco. When I lost my memories.” Scott handed him a plate and Seth started drying it while talking. “I learned how to make magical cold and how to make it harder to see me and how to undo any kind of lock and how to sense dark creatures.”

“I thought you could hear them too.”

“Well, yeah, but I didn’t need a teacher for that. It kind of just worked on its own. Same thing for automatic language translation.” He put the dry plate down and picked up another. “So when… the thing I can’t talk about happened and I became a Shadow Healer instead, I lost pretty much all of those powers. Which, honestly - good riddance. I’m glad they’re gone.”

His dad glanced at him with a raised eyebrow. “I’m amazed you would ever say ‘no’ to having magic.”

Seth laughed bitterly. “Yeah. But it came with so much strings attached. Things I really didn’t want. And honestly I hated always second guessing if having those powers made me evil. I mean, I know they didn’t. Its just - they sucked. All of it sucked. Unlocking locks was really cool. But I mean, it all came with so much annoying other stuff. And I kind of hated feeling like nothing could stop me, once I figured it out. I was scared that I couldn’t stop me. I mean, you know me, I don’t exactly have the best track record of self control!”

His dad took a deep breath, his hands shaking slightly, though he went back to washing the dishes, as though he wasn’t sure what to do with his hands. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you were going through all of that, bucko.”

“It’s fine. You couldn’t know. I didn’t even have time to really think about it or tell anyone once it started. And then they were gone! Boosh! Good riddance.” Seth scrubbed at a tough stain for a moment to be sure the plate was actually clean. Maybe it was part of the pattern? It wouldn’t come off. Seth put it on the dry pile. “So yeah. I kept a few things, though. I can still talk to the undead. Can still see invisible stuff, though not in the same way. Can still feel where undead are around me at all times, which uh, I’d rather know than not know that, honestly. And I can still understand what some dark creatures are saying, even though I don’t think I can speak their language anymore. Haven’t really tested that one, to be honest.”

Scott looked a little overwhelmed. “Right. That’s still a lot. So you knew where the undead outside were all night long?”

“Yeah. There were two wraiths for a while. And then there was something I’ve never seen before, I think it might have been a zombie but I’m not sure. That was it though.” He paused, placing a dish.

“Lovely.” Scott sighed. “Right, is there anything else I don’t know about you? Magic-wise I mean.”

“Mmm, I’m still immune to magical fear? Oh! And I don’t need to drink milk to see magic creatures anymore! But you knew that one I think. Uhh, I don’t really know anything else about being a Shadow Healer yet honestly. There might be other stuff I don’t know about.”

“What about your… other magic stuff?” His Dad asked, hesitantly. “Your Mom told me you guys talked about your, um, wings. Can you tell me a bit about that?”

“Oh. I - yeah, I guess. It’s, mmm, did you guys hear how I got them?”

“You said they were a gift, then moved on to talking about saving your sister and never went back on it, so… No. Not really.”

“Ah. Yeah. Well, they were a gift. From the Fairy King. They were supposed to be temporary, but I don’t think they are anymore.” His voice became quieter as he spoke. Seth took a deep breath and continued. “Well, I don’t really know what they are anymore, but before they were Astrid wings. They have a bunch of really cool magics I don’t really understand. Like, flying magic. And uh, warmth magic. And they glow which is honestly kind of annoying, but I guess that’s a whole theme. And they protect you from really powerful magic and stuff, like dragon breath attacks! Probably other stuff too, but I’m not testing that out. Uh, what else, what else. Oh, maybe impacts? I probably should have broken something on landing by now, now that I think about it.” He frowned. “Yeah, I think that’s about it for that. The new thing they can do now that they’re a different color is that I can put them away.”

“That’s… a lot of things.”

“Hah, yeah.”

“And you couldn’t make them disappear before?” Scott asked.

“Yeah. They were just there. Oh! Last thing I forgot, they were like, kind of half there, half not, cause I could pass my shirt and coat through them and stuff. Well, they can still do that. But they could also do it before.”

“Right. Because you would have rips in your shirts and all that if they did.” His Dad hummed while cleaning a bowl. “Your sister says they used to be all golden, but now they’re white. So they were gold before and because they changed colors you think things changed?”

“I… don’t know how much I’m allowed to talk about. But I was told they changed. I really can’t say more than that though. But yeah, if you ever meet an Astrid you’ll see. Same wings, except gold and white instead of white and white. They’re way more boring now.”

“Right. Getting back to what you said before. You can make them disappear now, but you had them around all the time before, for a short while at least. I’ve only ever seen you with them from far away outside. Your Mom said it was because you didn’t want us to -“ He had difficulty finishing his sentence, but powered through. “To stop loving you. I - I know we haven’t been the best at communicating. Especially this past year. But - even though I have trouble understanding all of this. I still love you. We both do. Alright?”

Seth looked into his Dad’s eyes, and took a shuddering breath. “Y-yeah. Thanks. I love you guys too.”

His Dad went to hug him, then laughed a little, hands dripping with sudsy water. “Mind letting me dry my hands so I can give you a proper hug?”

Seth just laughed and hugged him anyway. If his eyes stung and his heart felt as though it was going to burst, well. That just went to show he was alive. Alive and loved.

That afternoon was the first time he didn’t keep an eye out of who was within sight when he walked out the front door, made his wings reappear and jumped down the porch stairs with a whoop. His dad followed him out slower, and if he was momentarily startled, Seth didn’t see it.

The yard was a mess and their help was greatly appreciated.

A few people took notice of Seth’s new step forward, but didn’t say a word about it. They worked the morning away clearing things up, until it was declared to be as clean as it was going to get and they headed off to do the various things that needed to be done. Dale and Warren were already off helping run the preserve and care for the livestock.

Seth, Kendra and their parents came back in last, having started a short snowball fight. Once back inside, Marla brought up why Seth never had his wings indoors.

“Oh. I do sometimes. But, uh, usually not, cause I could knock stuff over.”

“He always does in the attic,” Kendra said, punching him lightheartedly on the shoulder. “And now that you know, he won’t need to hide them everytime he hears someone going up the stairs.”

“Oh my! What’s this, Kendra? Violence? My own sister, punching me? And telling on me? Well, the last one is pretty on point for you.” He gasped melodramatically. “I’m wounded. Wounded you hear?”

“Oh I can sure hear something. What’s this, coming in?” She lifted a hand, pretending to listen to an earpiece and nodded as though listening to someone talking. “You’re right John, it sounds like a whole bunch of hot air!”

“Hey!” Seth laughed, breaking character.

They continued being silly until their parents just laughed and pulled them into a group hug.

Chapter Text

Christmas had been a wonderful day.

Seth couldn’t sleep the night before, so he was groggy when Kendra woke him up, but they still both cheerfully ran downstairs. It was nothing at all like the bleak Christmas they’d had the year before. The old record player in the living room was playing music, and the tree had a pile of gifts under it. The air smelled like pine needles when they rushed past it.

Notably, under the tree were six messily wrapped balls of crinkled wrapping paper with a piece of white tape and the sharpie-written names of: Stan, Ruth, Gloria, Hank, Mom and Dad. Seth had only barely managed to fit the ‘a’ of Gloria on the piece of tape and was glad nobody had a longer name. It felt weird using his grandparents’ names, but he didn’t really have the room for more. The balls were resting at the foot of the well packaged canvas Kendra had been working on - just finished the night before.

The Larsons pulled up in the driveway as Seth was helping make breakfast - he was in charge of the eggs - and Kendra was helping set up the table. There was a series of cheerful greetings. A few minutes later, Bracken walked over from the naiad pond and joined them, much to Kendra’s joy. He was invited in with good cheer.

They had a great breakfast filled with laughter and high spirits. Several people congratulated Seth on the eggs, saying he’d made them perfectly. He beamed at them.

After cleaning up, they moved to the living room, still chatting cheerfully away, and got to opening gifts.

There was much joy and laughter as people opened their gifts. It was about halfway through the pile when Warren, who had taken on the job of handing out the gifts, took the first of the balls Seth had wrapped. “Alrighty, and looks like we have a mystery gift for Stan!”

“I made it,” Seth said, wiping his hands nervously. “Actually, can you give them to everyone so they can open them at the same time?”

“Sure. Safe to toss?” At Seth’s nod, Warren said, “Stan! Catch!”

His grandfather only slightly fumbled the catch. Everyone else Seth had made them for each got theirs and then opened them at once. Seth shivered and swung his feet restlessly.

His Mom got hers open first and pulled out the necklace, with a smile. She grinned at him, “This looks great, bud.”

He blushed and stammered a thanks.

“A necklace?” Grandpa Hank asked, looking his over. “Did you make this, Seth?”

“Y-yeah. It’ll keep you warm. I was going to try and make scarves, but Bracken and Kendra gave me a better idea. I hope you guys like it.”

Stan and Ruth seemed to catch on immediately, looking surprised at first, then smiling. They put them on. “Any advice on how to use them?” Ruth asked.

“Oh. Uh, yeah. Against your skin is better if you want them to work. And uhh, the string doesn’t do great with water. You can also adjust the length by pulling on it, but Mom said you shouldn’t pull sideways when you do. Try to pull up and away, so the cord lasts longer.” He shifted uncomfortably, aware his other grandparents were trying to understand, but not willing to explain in front of everyone. “That’s it I think.”

Stan tucked his under his sweater and so did Ruth. They thanked him and gave him hugs, as did his parents and other grandparents. They had all put on the necklaces. Seth’s blush only started to fade once they moved on to the next gift - Kendra’s paintings. She had made a series of little paintings with scenes of Fablehaven, one for every person present.

Seth was surprised at the one she gave him - it was one he hadn’t seen before. When had she made it? It had him riding on one of Hugo’s shoulders, talking to a blobby shape he knew to be Grandpa Stan. He had his wings in the image, two thin white streaks beside his shoulders, blending in with the snow around them.

He gave Kendra a tight hug. “When did you have the time to do this? I thought you weren’t making me a gift!”

He had secretly made her a simple necklace too, with three longer feathers, but he was planning on giving it to her later. He’d managed to do it while hanging out with Newell and Doren, watching TV in their hut.

“Of course I made you one! And you’re not always in the house, I had time to hide it before you could see it. In fact, you almost did see it! But you just came up to grab something and left right after, so I didn’t think you noticed it.”

He hadn’t. He’d gotten used to not looking at them after Kendra had complained he was pointing out every little flaw. He had only been admiring them, but he wasn’t going to say that.

Bracken also got a gift from Kendra, as well as a few other people, to his surprise. The former unicorn was now the proud owner of a bright snowflake-themed sweater with a zipper (which he put on immediately); a pair of wool socks that looked suspiciously like the same socks everyone else had received from Warren; a painting of the naiad pond from Kendra; a cool round rock Seth had found and painted ‘You rock!” on it; and a blue and purple checkered scarf from their parents. He said he didn’t have anything to give back, and mumbled something about not even celebrating Christmas, but everyone just told him they were glad he was there and he didn’t need to give anything.

“It doesn’t have to be religious, you know. It’s really more of a consumer’s holiday anyway these days. I’m not sure about the grandparents, but for our family it’s more of a family tradition kind of deal than a religious one. We do it because it’s fun and it’s an excuse to do something special, but I’m sorry if it’s making you uncomfortable.” Seth told him, when the conversation had moved to the other side of the room.

“Oh. It’s fine - it isn’t the first time I’ve participated in some variation of the holiday. But that does make me feel a little better, thank you.” Bracken said, looking over at Kendra hugging Vanessa for her gift. “It’s an odd time to be in. I had noticed there were less and less religious humans in the Sphinx’s prison in recent years, but I suppose I didn’t think much of it beyond that.”

“You guys celebrated Christmas in the prison?”

Bracken laughed. “We celebrated all the holidays there! We - I mean my family and I - we celebrate the phases of the sun. The Solstice, the Equinox. There were plenty of us in the prison who did as well. I wasn’t the only non-human there. Either way, humans have celebrated the turning of the year for millenia as well. But there were people of a great many religions there over the years too. And keeping celebrations alive was one of the ways of staying sane. Usually we’d all end up invited to participate in some parts here or there, the stuff you could do if you weren’t part of the faith. But sometimes people didn’t mind, they’d share and explain things and talk about memories of doing these things with their loved ones. There are so many rituals out there. And we’d try to find creative ways to allow them to do the things they wanted.”

“That sounds really nice of you guys.”

“You find whatever ways you can to keep on going. Some of it was selfless, but some of it was selfish. If you helped someone, you hoped they would help you in turn.” Bracken sighed and leaned back into the sofa. “I’m glad those days are over. I’m glad we’re all free now.”

“Yeah.”

It began to snow again outside, thousands of tiny snowflakes dancing in the bright daylight. Fairies played games, turning some snowflakes to glass and bursting others into bright colorful sparkles. One fairy flying by the window was catching a trail of snowflakes like a long veil flowing behind her.

Marla walked over and asked if she could swap with Bracken. He agreed and went to sit next to Scott. They began to talk and Seth raised an eyebrow at his mom.

“Is dad giving him the Speech now?”

“No,” she laughed. “He wanted to know more about what it’s like in the fairy kingdom, but you know how shy he is. We’ll see if he ever gets there, but he’s trying.” She sat down next to her son. “Are you having a good time?”

“Yes.” He hesitated, not wanting to appear like a little kid anymore, before deciding it didn’t matter. He scooted closer and leaned into her one-armed hug. She was wearing the same fancy perfume she always wore on special occasions - the one he’d always dramatically complained about choking to death by. Even though it still smelled terribly strong, he didn’t really care right now. He only wrinkled his nose a little.

He had his mom back. He had his dad back.

He had fixed his relationships with just about everyone he cared about right now. He was less scared to face forward and be alright with who he was. And he felt better than he had in so, so long. In his chest, almost exactly where he had found that well of darkness the summer before, now he felt a bright warmth that had absolutely nothing magical about it. It was such a corny thought that he would never admit it out loud to anyone, but he thought it was love.

He really, really loved his family. And all the close friends they had here today and all those who were celebrating elsewhere.

He closed his eyes, shutting out the warm lights of the living room, and leaned against his mom, feeling like a little kid again. “Love you,” he mumbled to her.

She kissed him on the head and said, “I love you too, bud.”

And, at least for now, everything was perfect.