Kaleidoscope (Faylinn Series) by Mindy Hayes

darkest secret and he didn’t even know why.
    How was I supposed to answer him? He would kill me if he knew that I had gone that far into the woods. He would be even more furious that I had run into two grown men and didn’t go running for my life the instant they spoke to me. Granted, they didn’t look much older than me, but I had carried on a full-blown conversation with them both. And they had actually been armed.
    I couldn’t speak.
    He set his eyes sternly on me. “The idea of being a faery didn’t come out of nowhere, Calliope.” His jaw clenched as he struggled to control his anger. “Who put the idea of faeries in your head?”
    I hadn’t thought that one through very well. I couldn’t lie to him or keep the truth from him either. What was the point now? If they had known my father, he might have known them as well. And maybe. . .just maybe if wouldn’t completely fly off the handle. “Kai and Declan.”
    Dad swiped a hand down his face and looked back at me. “You went deep into the forest didn’t you?”
    I swallowed and nodded reluctantly.
    “Of course those two would be behind this,” he muttered through deep breaths. Before I probably wouldn’t have been able to understand him, but my ears were becoming keener on sound. It’s not like I could hear the flap of butterfly wings in the distance, but I knew he had barely let those words out of his mouth. A normal person wouldn’t have been able to understand him. “How did you see them? Did they just appear or. . .?”
    I recalled Kai’s confusion. “Kai said I could see him without his consent.”
    My father’s breath hitched slightly.
    I had to know. The question alone made me feel stupid to ask, but it was necessary. I had to know what I was. “Am
I
a faery?”
    His cloudy green eyes held concern, the crinkles around them squinting. He didn’t know. He really wasn’t sure. “Why do you think you’re a faery, Calliope?”
    I swallowed. “I hear things in the trees. All the time. I’m not sure what it is I hear, but it’s not just the birds and the wind. And it’s not like what everyone hears. It feels like my ears are extra sensitive to every sound. And I feel this. . .pull—this yearning to be a part of the forest. It’s been happening for years now. I try fighting it, but it keeps bringing me back to the trees. It has become stronger and stronger every day. If I was. . .normal, like every other human—” I swallowed. “I don’t feel normal anymore.”
    My dad sighed and closed his eyes. I did my best to wait patiently, but this wasn’t like just waiting for an answer to go to the movies or to hang out with Lia or Cam.
    “Am I?” I repeated.
    “Sit down, honey,” Dad directed, helping me into a seat at the kitchen table where he sat across from me.
    He pressed his lips together, watching me, his arms folded across his chest in near defiance. His eyes closed for a moment and I tried to calm my breathing and seem comfortable. When his eyes opened back up to me, they glistened. My father’s eyes had always been a beautiful green, but now that I knew why, they shined a faintly faded chartreuse color, completely inhuman. He really had been one of them.
    “It appears to me that the changes are starting to take place. So, yes, Calliope,” he said. “You are a faery.”
    I gasped. “How is it possible? You lost your abilities or whatever. And I don’t have any of the physical features,” I pressed.
    “They still might come,” he said, anxious. I’d never seen my father physically afraid before. “They come with age. I actually wasn’t sure if they would ever come. You are past the normal age of faery maturity, so it’s possible that they still might not come. Or you may simply be a late bloomer.”
    Kai’s term came rushing back. The walls of my world had come tumbling down. “What do you mean late bloomer?”
    “Faeries get their ears and wings during their adolescent years, which is similar to puberty for