Cai Aies Finely Hall: April 29th, 20XX

My feet hurt as I landed in the now-familiar pink tiles of a bathroom and unleashed the product of my nausea into the toilet. My body was already tired from processing large amounts of used magic in the training hall Cambridge had let me visit today, but now I needed to do it all again here in the human world.

Sparrow’s workshop had somehow become my landing spot in the human world since my transporter refused to take me to Finley’s apartment, but I’d gotten pretty good at making sure no one was here when I landed.

I looked at the clock on the wall and did a little mental math. If I ran home now, I could leave enough time for Finley to look over that proposal from Squire before Finley and that beast had to go see Theodulus.

While I wasn’t thrilled about having to divide our time between three societies, I was much more tolerant of our activities in the human world. At least this was rooted in our mother’s legacy.

I washed myself off and cleaned up the bathroom before walking out into the living room, where there was a nice window that I usually jumped out of. It dropped into an alley where there were no cameras and usually no witnesses at this time of day. I would just fly down, let Finley take over the main body, and then we would go to Finley’s apartment until Theodulus called.

As a thank you for borrowing Sparrow Truman’s space so often, I pushed myself to purify the energy in her space. It wouldn’t do much except make the space feel less heavy and help creativity along.

I’d specifically looked up the effects of purifying magic in the human world, but other than helping humans feel lighter and sometimes bringing forth creativity and good feelings, it didn’t do any harm. It would be dangerous if I put in a lot of magic into their bodies, but just being around magic was better than not for most people.

My steps slowed as I realized that the lights were still on in the main space of the apartment studio and my hearing intensified as I heard two people’s heavy breathing.

I heard a thud, and a small scream as they fell to the ground. I lightened my steps and ran out to see Sparrow pinned under a heavy man wearing some form of strange costume. It was covered by an intimidating black cape, but I could see a bit of the patterned fabric peeking out over the edge of the sturdy boot. It looked like the military’s uniform, but I couldn’t think of any branch of the military that used black fabric.

Besides, what could Sparrow have done to be attacked by a member of the military?

Either ways, I needed to interfere. No matter what I felt, Finley would never let me walk away from his treasured friend in danger. Even now I could feel his conscious threatening to take over if I didn’t deal with it immediately.

“Get off me!”

Her voice sounded strained and launched my body into action before my mind could catch up. The lines between my conscious and Finley’s blurred so closely that I felt a sickening sensation of repulsion, and I separated us as quickly as I could.

Yeah, it was I that wanted to leap into action.

I.

Me.

Cai.

The assailant grunted heavily as I reluctantly borrowed some of Aies’s strength to kick him away and into the wall. I was still too unpracticed with magic to guarantee Sparrow’s safety if I used any offensive spells, and I also didn’t know how a human would react to being barraged by a sphere of purposefully toxic magic. I couldn’t be the first to put blood on our hands.

The assailant’s body was heavy, but it was no comparison to the half goblin body I currently possessed. After a bit of resistance, the body flipped to the other side of the room, and I felt my heart drop to my feet as I recognized the face that had been half hidden away by the mask.

“Jake!”

As if to confirm the terrible feeling that tickled my lower stomach, Sparrow screamed out his name and ran over to him. I tried to run over and check on him as well, but my feet stayed planted on the ground in fear.

My mind raced as I realized that once again, we secondary personalities had committed one of the greatest crimes against Finley. Harming one of his most precious friends.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Although my case was more understandable than Aies’s I doubted he would be in the right state of mind to accept that.

Even now, the only reason he didn’t know about the incidence before and the one now was because Aies and I were forced to work together and suppress these memories. As well, they were so awful to Finley that he was determined to not acknowledge them as real.

“Who are you! And why would you attack him?!”

Even as she spoke, her eyes flitted over and around my body and the spark of familiarity lit up in her eyes, showing me that I had likely waited too long when I had sprinkled the dust on her the last time. Although, some people in the human world were just naturally resistant to the fairy dust and would resume their memories as soon as they were exposed to a strong enough stimulus.

A stimulus like, let’s say, the same random man you’d met in your workspace suddenly reappearing and kicking your friend’s rib into his back.

“S-Sparrow- Wait. No I’m so sorry. I- I thought you were in da-”

I hated how weak my voice sounded and I hated even more how my heart felt like it was being ripped into a million and three pieces. I hated that I had hurt that human, and I hated even more how the other human looked at me like I was a monster.

I wanted to yell at her to stop looking at me, or to use a spell to turn back time to a place I could change my actions, but I hadn’t learned that spell yet, and even if I had, there wouldn’t have been enough usable magic around to cast it.

“Sparrow?? How do you know my name?”

Her defensive words stabbed into my body like tiny daggers, and I struggled to keep standing, but I knew that taking into the air would not help the current case.

“Oh my god, his ribs are broken!”

Hearing that proclamation snapped me back to reality, and I realized that just as I’d used my inhumane nature to harm him, I could use the same to heal him.

In fact, just as he’d been harmed by Aies’s goblin abilities, Finley’s precious friend would be healed by his fairy powers.

Yes. That was a good plan of action.

“Miss- Miss Sparrow. I am, slowly, going to approach you to check on how J- Your friend. I sincerely apologize for misunderstanding the situation and harming him. If you would extend me some of your trust, I swear that I can make it like this never happened.”

I furiously pumped the dirty magic in the air and pushed it back out into the low leveled enchantment spell I was using. It was a good thing that Finley had devoted some time to learning about it when my fiancée had accused him of using it against her.

“What? And you still didn’t answer my question about how you knew my name? Or how you got in here?!”

Although her voice was still incensed, it seemed like she was naturally susceptible to this sort of spell. She slowed her attempts to nurse the unconscious Jake’s wounds and completely focused her attention on me as I made my way across the room to them.

“I will answer all of those questions, Miss Sparrow, but for now I wish to prioritize fixing my mistake.”

I finally made it and crouched down to him to see the damage. The costume was in the way of seeing the damage so I ripped it apart. At the worst, I would just have some magic to restore it to its previous shape. Sparrow let out a frustrated gasp as his visibly bruised skin was revealed and the effects of the enchantment spell was weakened.

If she had known what the spell was, this would have been enough to break it but since she had no way of understanding that the favorable feelings towards me had not originated from herself, she could only accept them as her own, or fight them off. But either way, she had to act as they were real and not just some manifestation of my spell.

“Yeah, I think that his ribs are fractured.”

In that split second, I decided. This was something that would slightly put Finley at risk, but to a level I knew that he wanted this as well. It wasn’t a choice I was comfortable making, but it was one I had been given permission to make.

“Miss Sparrow, please try not to be too surprised.”

Before she could ask any questions, I brought out my wand and used it to channel as much magic as I could squeeze out, and wrapped Jake in a cocoon of it.

Sparrow stumbled backwards with a look or horror, intrigue, and fascination on her face. It was frustrating to see, but at least two out of the three emotions could be seen as positive… probably.

“H-how?!”

I lifted the cocoon of magic into the air and tried to manage Jake’s condition. His vitals were okay, and I got a sense of how he was doing, but I would need to pull out the diary to get a better sense of how to heal him.

“As I mentioned Miss Sparrow, I will answer all of your questions in due time, but for now...”

I could see her fight against her better judgement, but the enchantment spell worked well on her and convinced her to accept that for now. She leaped into action and led me to another room where she pushed two tables together and padded it with as many flat fabrics as she could find.

“I swear on my name that I will do my best to heal your friend, and I’m very sorry for this.”

Before she could ask what I was apologizing for, I threw the fairy dust at her face and caught her before she slumped to the ground. There was no way that it would completely erase her memory and it was more than likely that she would be here waiting for me tomorrow, but that was a problem for tomorrow’s me.

Right now, I needed to focus on healing Jake, and I didn’t have enough confidence in shielding Sparrow from the active magic. While I didn’t know what effects it would have on her, I knew that having Sparrow this close while I actively used magic wouldn’t be good for her in the long run, and I just couldn’t hurt another one of Finley’s friends.

The purification I did only left passive inactivated magic around, which was beneficial, but magic at the level I used it would only harm her.

I quickly moved her out of the room and surrounded Jake and myself in as solid of a bubble as I could contain before pulling out the journal and getting instructions on how to heal him.

Unlike usual, when I asked the diary for references, I looked very carefully at the spell and followed each step to the slightest detail. My eyes strained from the focus and I could feel my wings flick back and forth.

I absolutely could not mess up.