Winters said a lot of words. A
lot of words. And Edam knew that eventually she would process the rest of them, but at the moment,
in the moment, her brain had caught on just the one word:
Jealous.
"I'm
sorry?" Edam said, rising, color coming to her cheeks. "Did you just--
jealous? Of you?" Edam didn't know whether to slap her, shake her, or find some ancient inter-galactic bit of whatever to slingshot directly into her head, for all the good it would do her.
"I am not
jealous of you, Winters. I wouldn't trade being
me for being you for
anything in the world. I wouldn't go back to being your age if they
paid me." Did Winters know? She couldn't know. She couldn't possibly know that for their entire lives, the twins had been so, so alone, and now, for the first time ever - they had
friends. They had people they could trust. Edam might have hated this whole thing for the danger it put her friends and family in, but the worst day since Mason became Blarney was still a much better day than pretty much any other day that came before it.
"Even
accusing me of that is
so immature. You don't even
listen--I don't care about your magic! I'll get my own, or I won't, and that's fine, I don't care! This isn't a flipping
game, Winters, and I guess it's going to take more than a demon missing your carotid artery by
inches for you to get--"
Edam paused. Blinked. Words - processed, skipping the middle and going straight to the end, echoing in her brain like a cymbal in her ears. "Wait. Wait. Wait. Did you say that--that the person who had the bug--he's
here?
Now? Who? Where? Which one?" Edam demanded, starting toward Winters as if to grab her by the arms. She stopped herself, groaned, rolled her eyes to the ceiling, and instead darted toward the door, peering out of it surreptitiously before she shut it, firmly.
"Having this
stupid fight," Edam hissed as she returned to her cousin, "could put us
both in danger, because we were talking about being
family, and now any of those people,
especially the one that you
already fought with could use that against us! They could go after Blarney to hurt me, and hurt me to go after you, and vice versa. We have to be
careful."
Edam came to a stop in front of Winters, eyes searching hers beseechingly. "I don't want to fight with you, Winters, I really don't. I'm--" more words buffered, and Edam deflated a bit, "--I'm really glad you've been working hard and training. That's
really good and really important. I'm--I'm proud of you for that. That's really good." She wanted to say something in her defense - deny what she'd said to her brother, or say that Winters had misunderstood--how had she even
heard that conversation, she was out like a light--or something, but Edam had said it, and meant it, and she wouldn't stand there and lie to her baby cousin.
It was just that she also meant that really,
none of them should be out fighting the forces of evil. As advanced in years as 18 felt compared to 15, they were all just kids, and none of them were soldiers.
Edam let out a sigh and shrugged helplessly. "I'm not jealous of you. I don't even know why you would think that, but--I'm not. I'm glad you're practicing, and I'm glad you're getting stronger. I just want you to be safe, Winters. That's all."