Chapter 228

Audrey

The girl’s question seemed to hang in the air, making the nearby guests go silent. Or maybe it was just the sound of my own blood rushing through my ears that was drowning everything else out.

“I….. Um…” I stammered, unsure of what to say. The little girl’s enormous eyes were pleading, tiny hands clasped together, and the thought of telling her ‘no-telling her that I wouldn’t heal her, not because I didn’t want to but because I couldn’t- seemed impossible.

Thankfully, Edwin jumped in before I had to.

“Healing a condition like cancer could take a long time,” he said, dropping to one knee in front of the little girl. “Where are your parents? I’d like to talk to them.”

To my relief, the little girl’s face lit up and the nearby guests returned to their conversations, satisfied by that response. “They’re over here!” she exclaimed, taking my hand and leading me away.

As we made our way over to the clusters of tables, I shot Edwin a glance over my shoulder.

“What the hell are we supposed to do now?!”

“Relax, his voice replied through the Mindlink. “We’ll handle this.”

Ididn’t bother to hide my frown. Now, more than ever, I wished that he had told me about whatever it was he’d been

keeping from me when it came to shifting-and I’d be having words with him about it later.

A few moments later, the girl led us to a table where a middle-aged man and woman were seated.

“Ivy! There you are!” The mother jumped up and ran to us, her eyes widening when she saw me. “We’ve been looking all over…”

“I found the Silver Star!” the little girl, Ivy, exclaimed. “She’s going to heal my cancer!”

Oh, Goddess…

The mother looked at me, mouth agape. The husband, who’d just run up to us as well, looked like he might pass out. “You… You’ll really…”

“We’d like to do anything we can to help your daughter,” Edwin said quickly, placing a hand on my shoulder. “But as I was explaining to her, healing a condition like this is not immediate. It would take some time.”

The parents exchanged glances, both too astonished to speak for a moment.

I, too, felt too stunned to speak.

Finally, the father said, “If there’s anything you can do to help, anything at all, we’ll take it. Even if it would take some time.”

you everything we have-our savings, our house, our car- if it means

worse than I thought. I glanced at the little

Edwin. “We shouldn’t

“We won’t. Technically.”

Chapter 228

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to respond to that. All I knew was that somewhere through the blood rushing in my ears, Edwin was saying something to the parents about keeping their money, exchanging business cards so they could keep in touch, and leading me away as the mother collapsed onto

Edwin guided me away-like my chest might cave in, like the floor would disappear out from under my feet and I’d go hurtling straight into Hell where I

pay for their

they get the best of the best,” Edwin

“It won’t be the

away and turned on him, feeling my eyes flash silver. “Whatever it is that would help me shift…

opened and closed a few times, as if struggling with what to say. Finally, he murmured out

have to

into my gaze. To think that he had some potential key to unlocking my ability to

tell

it’s complicated,” Edwin

scoffed. “More complicated than a little

clenched his teeth and shook his head. “I thought that lying about you shifting would be harmless. That it would buy us enough time to figure stuff out.

wasn’t as if either of

make it

need some air,” I replied as calmly as I could. Edwin hesitated, but then nodded and released his grip on my hand. I gave him a squeeze, a silent promise that I wasn’t angry but rather frustrated with everything, and

my frayed nerves. I inhaled deeply as I stepped back out into the courtyard, closing my eyes

it; he promised to pay for

me and I was failing them. I hadn’t-neither of us had-thought about the consequences of lying about my shifting. It was as Edwin said: we thought it would buy us time, keep Coldclaw off my back, until I could finally shift, whenever

hurting people in the end. Leading them to believe that I was some

And I wasn’t.

kept it from me. Even if it didn’t work, he should have told me. How bad could it have been? Surely not worse than having

time, whatever it was, if

lying for a lot

08:32 Tue, Oct 15

Chapter 225

Failure.

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air and when I did inhale, it felt like water in my lungs. I stopped walking and pressed my palm

panicking a little,

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