24. Cheated

"But it's not fair!" I protested. "Why won't you teach me that spell?"

Kelly sighed again, "Because if you use it, mom will ship us to opposite ends of the country and we'll never see each other again."

I pouted, "I won't use it, I promise."

She frowned, "You literally just said you were going to transform Professor Craig into a lingerie model as soon as you learned the spell, Tegan."

"It was a figure of speech?"

She rolled her eyes and shook her head.

I sighed and pouted again, "Anyways if that spell's such a big scary deal, how come she taught you and Keira?"

Kelly blushed slightly then admitted "She didn't. We uh, got our hands on some 'forbidden knowledge'..."

That caught my attention and my eyebrows went up. "Oh? Do tell, this sounds interesting!"

She sighed as she looked like she was thinking it over. Finally she grabbed herself a hard lemonade and got me a can of cola. "Have a seat, I'll tell you the story."

I grinned and accepted the soda as I sat next to her on the sofa.

Kelly had a sip of her drink then said, "Ok so the summer when me and Keira were fifteen, our mom decided she needed a vacation. So she shipped the two of us off to live with her dad for a month. Now, our grandfather's an ok guy, he was nice enough to me and Keira, but he had no idea what to do with a couple fifteen-year-old girls. Especially girls who were more human than fae."

She paused and had another sip of her lemonade, then continued. "So the two of us wound up with a lot of free time on our hands, and of course we were bored. And of course we wound up looking for things to do, ways to get in trouble or whatever. Now, neither of us could work magic at that age. We knew about it, mom had been training us on this stuff most of our life? But we were too young to actually work it."

"Grandfather was living in a big old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. So we were really, really stuck for things to do. We wound up exploring the house. And we found where he hid a bunch of his fae stuff, like stuff he'd brought over from Otherworld. And among his things, we found some actual spell books. It all seemed super-cool to us, and of course it was stuff we were very not-supposed-to-mess-with. So we messed with it."

Kelly was smiling now at the memories. "We ended up figuring out which spell book was the most forbidden, the one with the nastiest naughtiest spells in it. And of course we couldn't cast any of them, but we could read it. So what did we do?"

She grinned. "We used our phones and took pictures of the entire book. All eighty-four pages. Then we put it back, so our grandfather never even knew we'd found it. Later on, after we were back home again, we spent the next couple months transcribing it from our pictures. We each did half, then we combined the results. We basically made our own ebook, of some nasty forbidden fae knowledge."

Kelly smiled proudly, "Fast-forward six or seven years, and now we're both able to work magic, and suddenly remember we have that old ebook full of nasty, naughty, forbidden magic."

I'd been quiet through the whole story, sipping my cola and smiling along with her. Now I stared at her, "Kelly, you have got to give me a copy of that book!"

She bit her lip, as a conflicted look settled on her face.

"Please!" I begged. "I'll do whatever you want. You can't tell me you've got a copy of a whole fae spell book then not let me read it!"

Kelly had a deep sip of her drink and finally said "Let me think it over. I'll sleep on it, and let you know tomorrow. No promises! But we'll see."

She added with a naughty smile, "If I do give you a copy, maybe I'll take you up on that 'whatever I want' offer."

I grinned widely "Thank you! I swear you won't regret it!"

"Don't thank me yet," she stated. "I haven't made a decision."

I nodded, but I still had that grin on my face as I sat a little closer to her, so we were cuddling.

We were both quiet for a bit as we enjoyed our drinks. Eventually though I commented, "I know I talk about wanting to zap some of those jerks at college, but you know I couldn't do it even if I did know the spell. I mean, how long did it take you and Keira to prepare it? You said you had to charge up a bunch of magical energy into that crystal thing? I wouldn't be able to stay angry at them for long enough."

Kelly sighed, "Two weeks. It took me two weeks to charge up the amethyst with enough magic to power the transformation."

"Right, so even if I did really lose my temper and want to do it, I'd have like a two-week cool-down. Plus I'm sure you'd notice if I was trying to charge up a crystal."

I added, "Actually I'd have to get you to show me how to do that first. So yeah, you'd know what I was up to regardless."

Kelly frowned slightly, with a thoughtful look on her face. After a few moments she said softly, "I'm not so sure you'd need to do that."

"What?" I asked. "Which part?"

"Store up energy in a crystal," she replied. "I'm just a quarter-fae remember. You're the real deal. We've already seen how much stronger you are than me, you're even stronger than my mom who's half fae and has decades of experience. And you pick magic up really quick too. Me and Keira took weeks to learn each spell when we were just starting out. You're learning them in an hour or two in a single evening."

She hesitated again, then admitted "You might actually be strong enough to just cast the transformation spell whenever you wanted."

"Huh," I frowned. "Is that normal?"

Kelly shrugged, "I have no idea, Tegan. You're the only full fae I've ever met, apart from my grandfather. And he never used magic around me and Keira, and I don't know how fast he learned stuff. I don't even know what it was like when he was teaching my mom."

We were both quiet for a bit as we continued sipping our drinks. Eventually I asked, "What do you want to do for dinner?"

It was Friday night, the last Friday of October. Tuesday would be Hallowe'en, but we had no plans. Apart from the usual, stay home, study, and learn fae stuff.

I knew there were some parties going on tonight and tomorrow, but neither Kelly or I were interested in hanging out with a bunch of boozed-up guys from college.

"Friday-night favourite?" Kelly asked with a smile. "I feel like sushi and stuff."

I grinned, "Sounds good."

Our condo was too far away to order from our old favourite delivery place, but we'd found a new one nearby that was similar, and it had quickly become our new number-one delivery choice.

I grabbed my phone and opened up their app, and a few minutes later I announced, "Dinner will be served in forty-five minutes."

Kelly giggled, "Such a talented chef."

I giggled as well, then said "Actually my mom was bugging me, she thinks we order-in too much. She was threatening to come over and teach me to cook so we could have some healthy meals for a change."

I was expecting her to laugh, or tease, or even just roll her eyes. Instead, Kelly got a sort of thoughtful look on her face.

After a few moments she suggested "Maybe you could get her to teach you how to sew and clean too. Then you could forget about those mean old men at college and just stay here, be my perfect little housewife. Or my cute little maid..." She followed that up with a cheeky grin.

"Hey!" I protested as I swatted her arm. I tried to act indignant, "I'm fae nobility you know. I'm nobody's maid."

"What?" she acted all innocent. "I thought you liked it when I bossed you around?"

I blushed and gave her a grumpy look. Then we both just giggled.

After we settled down again, Kelly smiled "I get she's concerned but I mean, she's not going to teach you how to make any of the stuff we actually like to eat."

"I know," I agreed. "We have way better selection, and fewer dishes to wash afterwards. I think she's mostly just worried that we're eating healthy? Or maybe she thinks take-away is all just junk-food."

Kelly shrugged, "I mean, some of it's kind of questionable. But we don't just eat the same thing every day, and I think enough of it is good for us. It's not something I'd worry about, and I don't think my mom worries about our eating habits either."

"Is that another fae thing?" I asked. "Like our metabolisms or something?"

"I'm not sure, to be honest." Kelly frowned as she thought for a bit. "Keira and I certainly had our share of sweets and junk food when we were kids and teens, and we never had any trouble with weight, or skin problems or anything. So maybe it's something to do with fae biology."

She pulled me closer and gave me a kiss, then added "I don't think either of us are going to complain about it."

"Nope," I smiled, kissing her back.

We continued cuddling as we both finished our drinks. The food arrived right on time, the driver texted from the lobby and I buzzed him up. Kelly answered the door when he knocked, and I got out some dishes and napkins. And some more hard lemonade for the both of us.

Kelly returned to the sofa and sat back down, "Tim said to say hi."

I grinned. Of course we already made friends with all the regular drivers. I helped her open the various little containers, and the two of us dug in.

"So what's the lesson tonight?" I asked, then popped a piece of sushi into my mouth.

Kelly grimaced, "Another boring one tonight. Sorry babe, but it's stuff you need to learn. How to do business with fae."

I frowned, "It's different than doing business with humans?"

"Yep," she nodded. "Best advice for making deals with the fae is: Don't."

I was still frowning, "That's not really practical though is it? I mean, there's going to be times we have to deal with them."

She ate a bit more then nodded, "Yeah. I mean there's that whole 'shadow economy' we already talked about. Fae, part-fae, and fae-aware humans, working in government or bureaucratic jobs, even in banking and stuff. There's even fae doctors. You'll have to deal with some of them sooner or later, it's kind of unavoidable. So I'll give you some pointers and stuff, to help you survive."

As we continued with dinner, she explained that most of the 'shadow economy' people would either deal for cash, or for favours. The cash prices were always expensive, sometimes outrageously so. But they were almost always cheaper in the long run than any other option.

She went on to describe how they did expect you to haggle a bit. So that was a good skill to have, knowing how to bargain and negotiate and stuff.

The bottom line though, was not to trust any of them, never agree to give an unspecified favour, and basically try and avoid making deals with the fae in general.

She added, "At the end of the day, a lot of them are a bunch of untrustworthy tricksters. Some are just greedy, some are kind of evil, most are just in it for themselves."

I frowned, "That doesn't make me feel so great about being one of them."

"Sorry babe," Kelly gave me a hug. "You're not like that, you were raised human. I guess it's a bit of culture shock for you."

I sighed, "Yeah. A bit."

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