Compounding Traumas (Artemis University Book 6)

a warpath. He’d not only made sure the guy who broke the rules and worked in that office lost his job, but he was fighting to get my number taken off the registry. People were losing their minds over me and as such, couldn’t be trusted. He petitioned for his office to be the guardian of mine and the numbers of anyone working for me, and tracking me should be their responsibility in an emergency.
Until then, we were bouncing our phones all over to keep from being tracked because it wasn’t only me they could pull this on. Next, it would be Ray or Zack… And were they ever furious. It was like a sacred emergency only thing of trust among supes to keep us safe and it was abused that way.
Which was why we made sure other councils and a ton of people found out. Holly was going to have some serious explaining to do with her family, and maybe even her council, as she was a vampire, and the vampire council were the ones in charge of handling all of this. And dayumn did this make them look bad.
My heart was bleeding for the corrupt fuckers for sure.
I wasn’t worried. Geiger would handle it, or we could just keep fucking with our signals and fuck them. I had a hard time not saying “I told you so” to the others as it had been a huge red flag for me that I’d brought up a few times.
The house in Spain was being worked on and was ready for us to stay there a few days after the party. It didn’t have a portal to Faerie though, so I still had to come back to the Townsend estate for that. The dogs were happy with that. I might bring at least half of them to Spain to switch out once the renovations were over. They were on edge with all the threats against me.
As was I, so I didn’t blame them.
When it was time, I met Professor White at the portal. She was going to work with me on how to let out my already stored power in the reservoirs and crystals in a better way that didn’t hurt me like last time. Today was our first lesson and I was excited for it. Anything to learn more control and do things better was time well spent to me.
The look she gave me when she saw the electric scooters was some of the best entertainment I’d had since the blowup and something I truly needed.
“I got you one with a seat to be nice,” I told her honestly. “Would you prefer to jog? It’s a distance.”
She sighed heavily. “I suppose I should be happy that’s the truth.”
I nodded. “It makes me happy. I just don’t know if I keep pumping energy into the same spots, if it keeps fanning out and I won’t be wasting energy. I’m hoping you might be able to tell me more working together so we don’t have to do this.”
“Wise.” She let me show her how to use the scooter and then I led us through the portal. She turned her face up to the sun and smiled. “How I’ve missed coming here. Wonderful to see you again, Faerie. It is my honor to help you heal.”
I blinked at her. “You talk to the world like it’s sentient.”
She was quiet a moment. “Think of the difference between normal animals and fae dogs. They’re more than animals and know a lot more. That’s how you should think of Earth versus Faerie. It’s magic down to its core and with that comes… More. It’s not simply dirt and grass and water. It’s more. You’ll see when it’s healed.”
I honestly didn’t have trouble believing that now.
She greeted Chief and the pack before we headed out, the dogs running with us. When we reached near the edge, I let her study the magic and filled her in on what I knew and had experienced, answering her questions. She’d already spoken with Geiger and they’d put their heads together, but not come up with anything yet. That was the problem with doing this all cautiously.
It wasn’t as if we could put all our time into finding answers or ask people who might know more. We couldn’t take the risk.
“Let’s start with showing me your setup from last time,” she said when she was done.
I nodded, pulling out the reservoirs and high-tiered crystals I’d grabbed as well. I set them up with the reservoirs in the middle around me and the crystals around them.
“And what happened? What went wrong?” she asked gently. “You set them up correctly, as magic ripples out, so your logic was perfect.”
“I couldn’t control it,” I admitted. “I pushed out the power like I normally do with the reservoirs, but it was exponentially so much more when it came out and doing it here, that it took off and was like trying to hold onto the back of a flying jet instead of me doing it.”
She nodded. “As I said, Faerie isn’t Earth and it’s desperate to heal.”
That made so much sense that I felt worlds better I wasn’t a failure or a horrible fairy. “How do I fix it? I mean, how do I get better at this?”
“You change your focus. Tell me your visual.”
I thought about it a few moments and realized I’d kept it simple. “Opening a door. I push my magic into the reservoirs and open the doors of them so the power comes out and can be released into Faerie.”
She nodded as I spoke. “You hit the gas too hard on that much power. Understandable, given how you like to drive.” She smirked when I snorted. “You need calmer. Have you ever worked with dough or seen the hobgoblins doing it?” She waited until I