The Fated Fire Princess

The Farnethia HQ

Nell’s POV—Ten Years Later

“I don’t understand. Why can’t we stay here with Grandma?”

I glance up at Milo, who looks about as pained as I feel. I don’t know why either of us thought it would be a good idea to break the news of our relocation to our daughter on her birthday, of all days.

“Ash will visit all the time,” Milo assures Harper, kneeling down to squeeze her hands. “We never intended to live with her forever, Harp. She’s been working so hard on the Farnethia Headquarters for us so that we’d have a place to go where we really belonged.”

Harper’s bright, silver eyes shine with sadness and confusion, and I start to smell the familiar smell of smoke that tends to manifest whenever she becomes emotional. “But we belong here, with Grandma.” 

Ash isn’t here. We agreed it would be best to break the news to Harper just the two of us; she’ll have plenty of time to say goodbye this week as we get to packing.

“Remember what we talked about—about where Mommy and Daddy are from?” I ask her, kneeling down beside Milo. Harper is a bit small for her age, just a hair over four feet, and skimpy to boot—the same way I was at her age. Milo and I have learned that stooping down to look her in the eye is the best way to calm her and keep her from starting true fires unintentionally.

“Farnethia,” Harper says, crossing her arms. “But I’m not from there.”

“You were conceived there, though,” Milo reminds her. “Where Mommy was a phoenix and Daddy was a dragon. So you still have magic blood running through your veins.” He doesn’t mention the smoke, and I’m glad. She doesn’t yet understand that it comes from her.

Harper glances down at the backs of her wrists as if scanning her own blood vessels, frowning. “But magic doesn’t exist.”

Like I said—she has no idea what she’s capable of. She has no idea that her abilities serve as proof that magic does, in fact, still exist.

I heave a sigh, settling into a cross-legged position to get more comfortable. Clearly this isn’t going to be a short conversation. “Before we came back to Earth, no one could teleport. No one could telepathically communicate—that is, talk in each other’s heads. The world was different in more ways than I can even describe. There is magic here, Harp. Especially for people like us."

“But how are we different from everyone else?”

 We haven’t told her about the prophecy—not the second one, at least, which Kenton f*****g Crowley informed us of—the one that states that her decision on her eighteenth birthday will determine whether or not Farnethians return home. It’s one of the few things about us that the entire world doesn’t know about. We plan on telling her one day, but not yet. She needs to fully understand the choices we made to come to Earth before starting to make the decision of whether to take us away from it. 

Not to mention, she needs to understand her own abilities.

“We’re different because of where we come from, and our experiences,” I tell her. “Experiences that we want you to learn more about.”

“How about this,” says Milo. “We’ll give it a try. A few months. You’ll go to school at Farnethia Academy, with Logan and Effie. You’ll get to visit the museum and learn about where you came from. If you really hate it, we’ll discuss coming back.”

I should be annoyed that he’s offering this up without discussing it with me first, but, of course, I’m not. In the nearly eleven years I’ve been with Milo—ten of which I’ve been married to him—I’ve never once been annoyed with him. We have our arguments, of course, but even in our fights, I love him as passionately as ever.

Harper bites her lip, considering. “Effie’s really going to be there?”

Effie is Lana and Ace’s daughter. She’s a year younger than Harper, but they’ve been best friends for years, despite Effie, Lana, and Ace living in Paris. 

Long distance relationships are a whole lot easier in a world with teleportation.

“Yes,” I promise her. “They moved in last week.”

I try not to mind that Harper doesn’t seem at all concerned with Logan’s involvement in our plan. Logan, Sadie and Liam’s son, is a well-mannered, bright, athletic young boy—nothing like Effie, who’s a total troublemaker. Harper has never cared much for Logan, though. She only ever wants to see Effie.

For a time, I wondered whether she might be interested in women—something I wouldn’t have a problem with, by any means, but would certainly want to have a discussion with her about so that she understood what her feelings meant. Over time, though, I decided I don’t think that’s it. It’s early to know for sure, but she eyes boys the same way I did when I was ten—with interested shyness. She just admires Effie’s fearlessness and good humor, I think. And she thinks Logan’s a bit of a square.

I’ve done my best to keep that from his mother, Sadie, my best friend.

“Okay,” Harper finally concedes. The smell of smoke has faded, which puts my own nerves at ease. “We can try. But Grandma will visit? Every day?”

I consider pointing out that every day is a bit much, but decide against it.

After all, these days, a long-distance visit is every bit as easy as a phone call.

- - - - -

“Are you sure we’re making the right decision?”

It’s just the two of us now—me and Milo. Ash took Harper out to see a movie, and we snagged the opportunity to make love as deeply and passionately as our first time. Now we’re sprawled out on the bed, naked and tangled up in each other, sweat still glistening on our chests and cheeks. We’ve got at least an hour before they get back.

“I’m sure we have to at least try—like we told Harp,” Milo answers me. “She needs to understand where she comes from, and be surrounded by people like her, if only for a time. Her powers are getting stronger, and it’ll be safer for her to be there. If she hates it—or if we do—we can always leave.”

“Not here, though,” I say, glancing around. “We’d find someplace new.”

We never intended to live with Ash for so long. We always planned on moving into the Farnethia HQ; we just didn’t realize it would take ten years to build.

“Someplace new,” Milo agrees.

The tears prick at my eyes before I can even realize why. When I finally do realize why, they stream down my cheeks: the move will take us farther away from Archie.

He’s only ever a blink away, Milo reminds me in my head—knowing, as always, exactly what I’m thinking.

“Blinking” is what we’ve come to call teleportation. And he’s right—it will always be easy for me to visit Archie.

If only he wanted me to visit.

Archie hates it on Earth. He hates being in a human body. He hates not having magic. For a year or two, he did his best to grin and bear it, but the longer it went on, the more miserable he became. By Nell’s fourth birthday, he was begging us to tell her the truth about the prophecy—to start convincing her now that she had to take us home to Farnethia. When we refused, he moved out. I haven’t talked to him since.

“Do you want her to do it?” I ask him, looking up at him through the tears. “To take us back there?”

His jaw tightens, but he holds my gaze as boldly as he always does. “I don’t know,” he admits. “But I know that whatever decision she makes will be the right one.”