“So how did I get here again?” I asked. The two in front of me seemed to want to facepalm at the realization that they completely forgot the original topic. Never mind, Sam did in fact facepalm.

“You were under attack last night,” Victoria said. “You’re lucky to still be with us, if Sam hadn’t found you in time then who knows what would have happened.”

That only left me with more questions and fewer answers. 

“What do you mean? How was I attacked, I was just sitting alone on a park bench. Nobody was around. I simply lied down to fall asleep and I woke up here.” Then again, I do remember seeing a figure before falling asleep. But now that I think on it more, it did look slightly similar to Sam, so it was probably her who was walking up to me.

“It was a fae,” Victoria said. “A being from beyond our world, they are known to be tricksters and deal makers. A fae was nearby you last night, casting a spell on you. The first part of the spell was causing you to fall asleep, we don’t know what it would have done after that since Sam found you before it could happen. We had known there was a fae in the area for a few months now, and Sam has been patrolling the park regularly to find it.”

I felt dumbfounded. Their explanation for me waking up in their house was that a mystical fairy creature was attacking me.

“So a fairy was attacking me, I didn’t see anything that resembled a fairy. Or are you going to tell me that it was invisible as well?”

I realized that my tone was probably a bit harsher than I thought. It was just hard to wrap my head around the fact that they are clearly lying to me, right when I felt that I could call something home, this happens. 

“Not a fairy, a fae” Sam sighed. “Don’t tell one that, they are likely to take offense. And they are real too, I caught the one attacking you last night.”

“You caught it?”

“Yep!” Sam said, apparently proud of the fact as she puffed up her chest.

“Can I see it then?” I asked, just to see how far they’ll go with the lie. 

“I can tell you don’t believe us, Emma.” Victoria said. “I know it sounds like we're lying to you, but it's true. fae exists in our world, and it was trying to cast a spell on you. I know you want to see it, but I don't think that would be a very good idea. They are known to be tricksters and I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“If Sam can catch one, then surely if she accompanies me I’ll be fine, right?”

Victoria seemed to think on it for a second before sighing and agreeing that it should be fine if both Sam and herself followed me. She made sure to tell me to keep my distance from it, and try not to talk to it or make it mad.

I'm starting to think that just maybe they were telling the truth, or they were just really trying to sell the lie. It was hard for my brain to wrap around. Suddenly being told that magic is real, and there were otherworldly beings who could cast magic on random unsuspecting people. I think just about anyone would try and claim that they were lying. 

“Well, we're here.” Said Sam as she opened up the door into a small room. It held very little things inside it, a table and some chairs were lined up in the middle of the room. A bookshelf was up against the wall, next to a desk with papers spread across it. This was likely their study room, I realized. Surprisingly they had a cat in the room. I didn’t know Victoria owned a cat, it was a black cat just lying down on the table. It looked vaguely similar to the cat from last night, maybe Sam took it home when she found it next to me? 

Weirdly enough, the cat was lying in the middle of a pattern of chalk. The same sigil I woke up in earlier. I thought back to the thing I read online. How if you took duct tape and made a square on the floor, a cat would walk up and just sit down on the square. Cats are weird like that.

“So.” I start. “Where's it at?”

Sam just pointed at the table. Directly at the cat. 

“Seriously? And what's with the chalk, I woke up with that surrounding me.”

“It's to trap fae until it's safe to release them back to their world. We put it around you in case you were enthralled, it would keep you from leaving the circle. Since you left it on your own that meant you weren’t enthralled.”

I walked up to the table, just out of reach of the cat. “You're seriously telling me this cat is a fae. It's just a cat.”

“And you're just a human.” said a feminine voice right in front of me. From the cat.

…...

….

..

I think my brain shut down for a few seconds there. Before I could recover, the cat spoke up again.

“How long are you gonna keep me here, I am being illegally detained! I know my fae rights!” She said, pointing a paw up at Victoria and Sam.

“You attacked a human, one that doesn’t know magic. You know what you did.” Victoria said to the cat. The talking cat.

“You can speak…” I murmur, you could almost hear the gears turning in my head.

“Well of course, I didn’t waste all my time in school after all. I made sure to learn some things before I goofed off.”

I turned back to Victoria and Sam. “So you were telling the truth….”

“Yep””Mhm” came from the two.

I started to feel dizzy as my mind tried to find some way to make this make sense, but failed. Then, the cat spoke up. 

“Crap!” She said as I could see her eyes starting to shimmer before I felt suddenly less light-headed. I felt as if my whole world didn’t just get turned upside down. 

“How’d she do that!” Sam exclaimed with wide eyes. “The barrier should have stopped her from casting magic like that!”

Victoria started whispering something in a language I’ve never heard before. I could see her eyes shimmering just like the cats before said cat spoke up again.

“Calm yourselves ladies, I simply helped the poor girl before she fell over and hit her head. Would have been a nasty bruise.”

That made me curious, how’d she know that I was a girl. It made me ecstatic that maybe fae could see into someone's souls or something like that. That's how it works in fantasy, right? 

“How’d you know I was a girl?” I said, barely hiding my excitement.

“Well, obviously I can see your true self, Emma.” I started to smile, that was right before she started laughing. “Sorry! Sorry! I just have good hearing, so I heard your conversation earlier.”

She kept laughing, but then realized nobody was laughing with her. “Sorry, it probably was in bad taste huh?” She looked back towards me and continued with an apologetic tone. “Sorry, us fae have a different taste in jokes, we especially like to tease each other. I should have realized the differences in culture, so I hope you can forgive me.”

The cat bowed down as if it was a human. The sight left me surprised, it was weird seeing an animal suddenly act all human-like. I guess that shocked me more than it talking.

“I-its alright,” I say, still feeling weirded out by the cat. Then I realized that this was the same cat who comforted me, the one who saw me cry myself to sleep. Well even if it was the one who caused said sleep to come around.

“So uh, you saw everything last night huh,” I said with a frown. “Why’d you attack me when I was at my lowest, you even started to comfort me beforehand. Was that just to get my guard to drop?”

She looked at me, before walking straight out of the chalk circle sigil thingy. Still not sure what it is. Seeing her move about caused another two gasps of shock from the two behind me, guess she shouldn’t have been able to do that so easily. She walked as close as she could to the edge of the table before jumping off. I saw her entire body shimmering before she even hit the ground. 

One second there was a black cat, with piercing blue eyes. The next was a girl that looked my age standing in the exact same spot, wearing a black t-shirt and jeans. She had long black hair, with those same piercing blue eyes. The eyes were still slit like a cat's. She had two triangle-shaped cat ears on the top of her head, black as her hair. I could vaguely see a black tail swinging behind her. Her face was beautiful though, she looked like royalty or a model or celebrity. Maybe even all three combined into one.

I couldn’t get any more of a look before she embraced me in a hug. You’d think I'd get over the shock of random hugs after today, but I guess not.

“I'm sorry about your family.” She said, “I didn’t plan on casting a spell on you at first. I was just trying to comfort someone I saw suffering. I would have spoken up, but I felt like that would just cause you to panic.”

I tried to respond, but Victoria and Sam spoke up first.

“Let go of her you dumb ca-” Sam tried to say as she was cut off by Victoria.

“Sam, let me handle this.” She said before turning to the half cat half girl that was still hugging me. “Who are you? Not just anyone can walk right out of a fae entrapment spell like that. Or are you going to say we just did a bad job?”

The catgirl looked at them and then with a smile said, “Nonsense, that circle was practically perfect. If I was any other fae, I would have never escaped. I’d have been at your mercy.”

Victoria seemed to sweat as she seemed to have realized something, she asked one more question. “You didn’t answer me, what's your name?”

“It's Kat, and before you laugh at the irony of a cat fae being called Kat, It's actually short for Katherine.”

Victoria seemed to pale, “Sam, leave her alone. She's too much for us to handle.” 

Sam, with a confused look, asked “What do you mean? I’ve never seen you react to a fae like this before.”

“Sam,” Victoria said with a fierce tone. “She’s royalty, Sam. We’d need an entire coven to handle her.”

“Royalty…” Sam muttered, her eyes going wide as she looked back towards the fae.

I felt annoyed. Hearing them talk about more and more magic things that I had no idea about, I hated feeling left out of the loop.

“Why is that such a big deal, is she going to summon an army of cat fae’s to come charging in here,” I say.

Kat giggles, a cute laugh that caught me off guard. “As if I need an army. Just me would be enough.” She says as she does a fake flex and grabs her arm. She seemed to realize I wasn’t kidding, that I didn’t know why a fae being royalty was a big deal in terms of strength. “To explain in simple terms. A fae’s magical strength is determined by their bloodline, and those of the royal and nobility bloodlines are at the peak of said magical strength.” 

“I see..” Not really, I guess I kinda understand but the talk of magic is still leaving me confused for now. What would a strong magical fae even look like compared to a weak magical fae? I was now even confused with how if she's so strong how’d she get captured.

“So, how did Sam capture you if you're that strong?” 

“I let her.” She replied as if it was the most obvious answer of all time.

“...You let me?” Sam asked. She sounded dejected, she must have really felt proud of capturing a fae.

“Yeah, I wanted to talk with Emma more,” Kat says, before turning back towards me. A grin on her face. “So Em, wanna know why I tried to put a spell on you?"