87)

I looked down at the mother of my son. My first, lost, love. “I never hated you Bree. I’ve just been angry for forty five years about… us. Not knowing what had happened to you. Why you left or who had taken you...”

I began to pace in what little space we had in the gazebo. “It seemed like you had walked back into my life and I had no more choice in how you did it than I had when you walked out on me.” I held up my hand as she started to speak. “Nope. My time to talk and your turn to listen.”

“John told me it was to save my life from your mother. So I understand why you did what did. But that understanding pales in all the frustration and disappointment I now got to deal with. I need time. Not explanations.”

She nodded and let me think. The year or so we had dated, and the months before that had taught her that much.

I stopped in place. “I’m strong at magic, almost strong enough I could have done at least some mumbo jumbo stuff. You’re a witch."

I narrowed my eyes at her in suspicion. “Why is John only an internal magic type? What did you do?”

She went a little pale and sat down abruptly. “I had forgotten how you can do that... John is just like you, he figured it out on his own before his tenth birthday.”

Starting to sniff again, she explained. “She tried to kill him again when he began to display signs of higher magic. I offered her another option and since my ties by blood were stronger than hers by being his mother…”

“I crippled my son.”

She resettled herself on the bench and smoothed out her dress. “He thanked me for it. Said it was better than dying and that he forgave me. Which made this only the second worst conversation I’ve ever had.”

I stared at her. “But It kept him alive.”

She smiled ever so slightly. “It also made him one of the strongest people on earth. No one who can do higher magic would waste their potential on self-development. Not when they can learn spells that would do the same thing. But for him, it’s already there, all the time.”

Bree looked up at me, still smiling. “He has a fearsome reputation. The Witch’s blade. It infuriates him that even his nickname is owed to her.”

I turned away so she couldn’t see my grin. My boy, the badass.

Then I moved on to the next horrible thought. “Do you intend to do this to Aran as well?”

She shook her head, huffed, and rolled her eyes all at once. “Not with his ability. No matter how well I knotted him up. He would be able to pick away at it from the inside until it unraveled.”

Shaking her hands in front of her in frustration, she explained. “You’ve been around him nearly a week. You have to know he would just. Not. Leave it alone. He would pick and pick no matter what anyone told him.”

After a moment, I asked. “I suppose it would be the same way if we turned him into a werewolf?”

She looked up at me abruptly, a look of hope on her face for a moment before it went crashing down. “No, I thought you might have had a solution. But he would work his way free from that eventual as well.”

Pursing my lips I suggested. “Vampire?”

She grinned at me for a second. “They keep all their magic, even develop more of it with age.”

I nodded. “The Ichibans?”

Bree tilted her head to one side. “What do you mean.”

“Well.” I shrugged. “Everything seems to be powered by the magic some people got inside them. If his dad, his mom, and the rest of his “Internal magic warriors.” train him in the inner magic stuff to exhaust him every day. Your mom might not notice he can do anything else.”

I sat down again. “Especially once Ami is done with her training and your mom stops taking an interest in that entire generation of her family. You can then train him in the higher magic under the excuse that you just want to spend time with your grandchildren.

”

Glancing over to the house. I wondered out loud. “She can’t live that much longer can she?”

Bree grimaced. “I think ever she has reached her limit without having to become something other than human. And if she goes down that path she will have even less interest in people.”

She stood up and glanced at me. “So to sum it up. I threw some luck your way to help you out with things if I had to send the kids your way. The luck got you tuned into a werewolf, which I take responsibility for. But you seem fine with it."

"And you are not going to give everything you've gotten and go off to lick your wounds somewhere.”

“Or do you feel the need to yell at me some more? I understand if you do and I can take it. It might even make me feel better later on when I stop crying since I still feel like I deserve it.”

I huffed at her. “Way to take the wind out of my sails Caine. No, I’m done, and besides. Junior is perched in the library window staring out at us with both of his hands fisted ups. I’m pretty sure he’s going to come flying out of that window without opening it if I make you cry again. And I don’t feel like getting into a fight with Goku.”

Bree burst out in laughter. “Goku?”

I gave her a concerned look. “Did I get the name wrong? Spiky haired kid, does ridiculously overpowered martial arts superhero stuff?”

She kept laughing. My boy relaxed his hands and let his daughters drag him away from the window. Inside the house, my brother was pulling the pop-up thing from the turkey.

We only had a few more details to figure out, then it was time to feed everyone and hopefully never see the Wicked Witch or the Grandfather of not ninjas again

.

And then this day would finally be over.