"Well, it sounds like that was a rousing success, at least." Dr. MacMoran said at my therapy session that afternoon.

I felt profoundly lucky that in addition to being my therapist, she was also certified to act as a counselor for Scotland Yard, which meant I hadn't had to bare my soul to a total stranger for their mandated therapy. I wanted that license to act as a field consultant for the Yard back. It was a pretty big deal to have gotten one in the first place at my age, and I was determined to live up to the confidence Ben had shown in my skills and talents.

And, by extension, the confidence his boss - Superintendent John Reid - had subtly expressed by not simply kicking me to the curb or telling me not to darken their doorstep again.

I nodded in response to her cheerful statement. "It’s been a good day."

She smiled across the low coffee table at me from where she was sitting in one of her office's big, comfortable armchairs. "You have more good days than bad now, eh?"

I returned the smile. "Quite. Though I can still tell when it's going to rain…" I tapped my right knee. "Even after a year of physical therapy and exercise, it's not 100%. But Trish - Dr. Kestrel - thinks it's about as good as it's going to get." I was pleased to note that I neither sounded nor felt particularly bitter about it.

"Yes, but you got back what…95% of its flexibility? And it can take your weight now," Dr. MacMoran pointed out, watching me closely.

I nodded. "If you're dancing around asking how I'm feeling about it…"

She gave me a quick, amused grin. "Caught in the act. I'd say you know me almost as well as I know you now. That's what I was getting at, yes."

I shrugged. "I'm not annoyed at myself; I know I've done all I can, with Trish's help, to rehab my knee. I'm not annoyed at Brenna either," I added thoughtfully. "Ten months of exchanging letters with her has given me enough insight into how messed up she is to know that she had very little control over that particular outburst of anger…"

I'd shown Brenna's letters - and my responses - to Dr. MacMoran voluntarily. Partly because I thought it might help her help me recover, and partly because I'd wanted her advice about how to communicate with my profoundly disturbed half-sister.

"Mainly," I said finally, "I'm just a little bit irritated with my knee."

Dr. MacMoran laughed softly. "I'd say that's understandable enough. But you're still young, and you're a Changeling. This too shall pass, in time."

"So Trish assures me," I said.

She must've heard in my voice the disquiet I felt. "Your half-Sidhe heritage bothers you."

It wasn’t a question. We'd had this conversation a couple of times before.

I sighed. "Yes, and no. It's a hell of a thing to have to carry around, you know?"

She smiled a little. "Not really, but I think I have a glimmer of understanding on the matter. Tell me what really bothers you about it, Alys."

I met her eyes for a long moment. I'd been sorting this out in my own mind for the last few months, and thought I'd finally put my finger on the crux of the problem. "Well," I began slowly, "you know that I met my biological father last year, at least for a few minutes. There's no doubt in my mind anymore that I'm half-Sidhe."

"I suspect you're the only person who ever doubted that, Alys," Dr. MacMoran replied gently. "A bit of denial, perhaps?"

I nodded. "Perhaps. Anyway, there's no doubt anymore. He never would've been able to provide what little healing he had time to do before Brenna…before he died…unless we shared a direct blood relationship."

Dr. MacMoran nodded a little when I didn't continue. "All right. Go on."

"Well…" I sighed, looked down at my hands, then met her eyes again. "I'm going to live a very, very long time."

"That's a given as a Changeling. I'm sure Dr. Kestrel has had a few words with you about it," she smiled, "since I asked her to."

"I think she would've anyway," I chuckled softly. "She's not the type to let anything remain unsaid."

"One reason I like her," Dr. MacMoran said. "So what's bothering you, Alys? Surely for a wizard, an unusually long lifespan is a good thing."

"Oh, it is! All that time to study and learn…but…" I sighed again. "I'm going to have to say goodbye to so many people. Heck, if I have children, I'm likely to outlive them by a century or two. Or three. Or who knows how many." I slumped back in my chair, my heart aching.

She gave me a sad but knowing smile. "Ah. That I can understand." She sighed softly. "Death is the most difficult part of life for most people accept. But it's a simple fact…everybody dies. Even the Sidhe can die, as Brenna demonstrated so brutally. It's all right to mourn the people you've lost, Alys. That's perfectly natural." She leaned forward, setting her notebook aside. "But don't mourn them before their time. Live and love. There's not enough joy in the world as it is to pass up the opportunity to experience some just because it will lead to heartache much, much later on."

"That's what Trish said too."

"She'd know better than I would," Dr. MacMoran agreed. "But I think what you're feeling is quite natural, and it's something that I'm confident you'll adjust to as you get older. You're a strong young woman, Alys, and I believe that time and experience will only make you grow stronger."

I blushed a little, surprised by the intensity of her praise. "Thank you, Doctor."

She sat back in her chair, putting her notebook in her lap again and opening it to where her pen was holding her place. "Tell me about the dreams Athena says you've been having."

Athena and Artemis were in the waiting room outside the doctor's office. I could sense them there, and could feel Athena's apprehension. I'd been feeling it on and off since she'd come out of the office earlier, her session having been before mine, as usual. Now I understood it.

"Do I have to?" I asked, hoping we could let that slide.

"I think you should, just because you asked that question,” Dr. MacMoran nodded firmly, though her expression softened a little. "Are they bad?"

"They're…" I trailed off into silence and tried to find the right way to explain it. "They don't feel like dreams," I said finally. "They're too vivid. Too detailed. They feel more like memories…but they're not mine."

She met my eyes, her focus entirely on me. It had been a bit intimidating, the first time I'd seen that expression. Now I found it comforting, knowing beyond a doubt that all of her formidable attention was focused on my problems.

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"What do you mean, they feel like memories?"

"It's like…" I thought about my words carefully. "You know how dreams always have a slightly ephemeral quality to them? Like you're sort of outside your body watching what's going on, and part of it at the same time?"

She nodded. "That's an interesting way of describing it. You've studied dreams?"

"Jonathan and I studied dream imagery and meaning together a few years ago," I said. "I'd been having dreams that were unusually clear and very detailed. He was worried I might be experiencing precognitive dreaming. Turns out it was just an after-effect of the three months I'd just spent with some Tantric Mages he knew."

Dr. MacMoran raised an amused-looking eyebrow. "Do I want to know what sort of dreams they were?"

"Similar to these, actually," I said in surprise, wondering why I hadn't made the connection before now. "Only…inverted."

"Inverted?"

I nodded. "That's the best way I can think of to describe it. Both those dreams and these were very erotic…but the old dreams were pleasant, and these aren't."

"Do you want to talk about them in detail?" she asked slowly. "More to the point, do you think the details are important?"

I considered the question very seriously. "I don't think I'd be comfortable going into detail," I replied. "Frankly, I'd like to bleach the parts of my mind where my memories of them are stored. But…Doctor, you were involved in removing Brenna's spell, weren't you?"

"Yes, I was," she confirmed. "It was a very complex and unusual piece of spellcraft. I've never see anything quite like it. Frankly, I hope I never see anything like it again."

"From the way Brenna was talking about it at the time…" I thought about the words she'd used, describing the spell as magic her father - our father - had 'given' her. "And from what Dr. Absolom, the mnemonotranscriptionist at the the Central Library, said…could it really have been Sidhe magic?"

Dr. MacMoran looked thoughtful, but there was no surprise on her face. I guessed she'd been thinking along the same lines herself. "I believe that’s the most likely explanation, yes. It was certainly like no mortal magic I've ever seen. And I've dealt with spells that were designed to do enormous damage to the human psyche."

She rested her elbows on the arms of her chair, steepled her hands in front of her and looked at me over them. "I worked with your mother to finish removing the spell from her mind as well," she continued. "We discussed it at some length, and she'd never seen anything like it before either. Nor had Jonathan. You might be interested to know that it didn't have the same effect on her that it had on you."

That startled me. Mom and I had never discussed what Brenna's spell had done to us in detail. "What do you mean?"

"In your mother, the spell enhanced the negative emotions she was feeling. I think that may be all it was ever designed to do - paralyze a person by enhancing their self-doubt, despair, anger, or through other similar emotions." She pursed her lips. "It left no real lingering after-effects in her. Could it have -”

I cut her off, thinking out loud. "Sympathetic magic."

She tipped her head to one side. "Pardon?"

"Sympathetic magic," I said slowly, putting the pieces together as I went. "Everything I've read about the Sidhe suggests that they're big into sympathetic magic…magic that's based around connections between people," I added when I saw the confused look on Dr. MacMoran's face. "That's one reason why they like to make deals with mortals. It gives them a profound connection - debt - to the person they made the deal with. As long as they're not the ones incurring the debt, of course."

Dr. MacMoran nodded. "I think I understand where you're going. You think that because you and Brenna share a direct blood connection, her spell acted differently on you than on your mother."

"What it did to my mom is probably how the spell's actually supposed to work," I said. "It was meant to cripple its target by amping up the impact of their darker emotions: fear, doubt, despair, and so on."

"Which it did to you, but also so much more," she nodded. "It sounds plausible to me."

"I'll have to bounce the idea off of Jonathan when I see him," I smiled. "Thanks, Doc."

"I was just the sounding board," she said with a smile. "You came to the conclusion all by yourself. But I'm glad I could help, especially if understanding it makes you feel better. In fact, if you don’t mind, I’ll go have a word with Dr. Absolom about it. I met him a number of years ago, when I was in training. If he’s seen something like this before, perhaps he can provide some insights. If you don’t mind."

I nodded. "I don’t mind at all. I hate not being able to understand this."

She laughed softly. "Yes, I think I got that." She wrote something down in her notebook, then flipped the page. "So, next topic…how are the anger management issues?"

I grimaced. "Mostly under control. I had a little outburst last week when I got frustrated with a spell that was giving me trouble, but the techniques you taught me and Athena had it under control before it really got rolling."

She nodded, smiling a little and writing in her notebook. "That's good. What about what we discussed about learning to channel your anger constructively, like you described doing in Swindon last September."

I held up a hand and rocked it back and forth. "Some days very well, some days not so well. I've learned to do it on command easily enough…it just requires me to get angry about something. But the results of spells cast when I'm channeling my anger are a bit uneven at best. Sometimes they're tightly focused and impressively powerful, other times it's like sticking your thumb over the end of a garden hose and turning it on all the way to get a wide spray."

Dr. MacMoran winced. "Ah. That doesn't sound very good at all."

"Let's just say I'm glad that Hollis lets me use his spellcasting chamber. If I were doing it anywhere other than in a room specially designed to contain energy, some of my attempts would have been absolute chaos." I drew in a breath and let it out slowly. "As it is, there've been some pretty wildly unexpected results. I think - and Hollis agrees with me - that it's best done when I'm not just angry but focused on something specific. Like when I was dueling Sergeant Malone this morning…I was able to do it then without any trouble."

"That sounds very reasonable," she agreed. "Hopefully you won't have to try it very often anyway."

"Indeed," I said fervently.

"And how are you feeling about your half-sister these days?"

I felt a myriad of emotions at the thought of Brenna. Anger and hate, over the way she had harmed and threatened to kill my mother and the closest thing I had to a real father. Fear, because of how close she'd genuinely come to killing me, and how woefully unprepared she'd shown me I was for a serious challenge. Those were the emotions I expected.

But I also felt sadness, for opportunities lost. Had we grown up together, how different would our lives would have been? For good or for ill, there was no way to know…but like all people presented with such news, I'd played the 'What if' game more than once. What would it have been like to have had a sister while growing up? I liked to think we'd've grown into a relationship not unlike the one I had with Athena.

And I felt pity, for a young woman who hadn't had the same opportunities I'd had. Brenna had grown up abused…desperately abused, if what I'd pieced together from her rambling rants and the fragments of memories and nightmares her spell had embedded in my brain for a while was accurate. Nobody had ever loved her or showed her any kindness. Even her familiars were, by her own admission, afraid of her. Though with a bit of advice from Athena, Artemis and me, she'd been improving that relationship slowly but surely.

Those emotions still surprised me.

"Ambivalent," I said finally.

Dr. MacMoran tipped her head. "Oh?"

I nodded. "I'm still angry at her, and I'm still kind of afraid of her…but I also feel sorry for her, and I regret the opportunities she never had that I did."

Dr. MacMoran smiled. "That's a very healthy attitude, Alys. I'm glad to hear it. Are you still exchanging letters with her?"

"Yes, once or twice a month usually. Sometimes more often, when she's feeling particularly chatty." My lips twisted into a lopsided smile. "I still don't have any idea where my letters go when I post them, or where hers are coming from. Her address is just an anonymous postbox in a London office. Ben quietly looked into it for me, and as near as he can tell my letters never actually get to that address, and nobody has ever seen anyone leaving the mail that’s sent from there. They just appear and disappear."

I also hadn't asked how he'd found out. It was none of my business, and I was pretty sure his knowing that information wasn't entirely legal without having gone through the courts to get a warrant first.

"Well," Dr. MacMoran said with a smile that seemed almost as uneven as my own must've been, "don't hesitate to recommend me to her if she decides she wants professional help. She sounds frightening at times, but she also sounds like she needs someone like me to talk to." Her smile became a bit more genuine, touching her eyes. "I think you'd agree that it helps."

I nodded fervently. "It most assuredly does. It was tough at first, but I'm glad I stuck with it."

"I am too," she closed her notebook and set it aside. "I'm also pleased to declare you about as stable as any Wizard I've spoken with, and quite a bit more sane than some." She winked and rose, offering me her hand.

I rose as well and shook it warmly. "Thank you, Doctor. I think."

"I'll let Superintendent Reid know that I feel you're fit for field consulting again. I'm sure you're eager to get back to exciting work."

"I'm a bit weary of running errands for Hollis," I agreed. "But the time to heal was important. I recognize that now."

"As I said, a very healthy attitude." She walked me to the door. "Don't be a stranger, Alys. Call me any time you need an ear to bend, or even if you just want to meet for lunch sometime. I'd like to catch up with how you're doing once in a while."

I smiled. "Thank you, Doctor. I'd like that too."