It was strange to hear my mother say, in her own way, that she valued me for something other than how well I cared for my family. I didn’t even manage to feel that way about myself.
“I’m sorry.” There was nothing else left to say.
She let go of her hair, and her hands dropped to her sides, helpless.
“I know you’ve never wanted to tell me how I came to be…dragon-marked.” I didn’t want to say the words. “But I need to know. I’m going into their world.”
She shook her head. “We can hide you.”
She didn’t sound as if she believed it. She sounded like she desperately wanted to believe.
“Mam,” I said, using the nickname that I had stopped using for her when I was five years old. I’d screamed for my mam to rescue mewhen the Fae took my magic, and when callingMammeant nothing, I’d dropped the childish name. “I have to go. Now. Please…”
“It’s better if you don’t know.”
“How?” I demanded. “What if I run into him? What if he knows something about me…”
She visibly shuddered at the thought of me meeting him. A creeping sense traced over my skin.
“He doesn’t know anything about you. If he did, I wouldn’t have been able to keep you out of the Trials. He would have taken you.”
“Ignorance has never served anyone,” I told her.
She let out a harsh, bitter laugh that sounded too familiar. It might as well have been mine.
“Look around at the world, Cara, and tell me ignorance doesn’t serve anyone.”
“Just tell me,” I said, hard and flat. “He’s my father. It’s my right to know.”
“He’s your father, but he’s my story, and I don’t owe that story to you.” Her chin had risen. “That man was a monster. I had thought he was something different.”
I was stunned, staring at her.
“Did he hurt you?” I felt shaken by the thought that I could be the product of my mother being hurt.
“If he knows who you are, he’ll hurtyou. Please trust me for once, Cara. If he knows you exist, he will find you and use you. You don’t want his attention. You don’t want to be claimed.”
“If he’s such a monster, I should know who to look out for,” I told her.
“They’re all going to be monsters,” she said. “Every one of those Fae is a monster. I tried to raise you as far from them as I possibly could.”
“Sorry,” I said again, hating to see her heartbreak.
Her vision rose to look at something over my shoulder. I twisted to see what she was looking at.
Fieran was down the road. Waiting. I was sure he’d been watching me for a long time, but now he was letting himself be seen.
“Don’t be fooled into thinking that one is different,” she said. “He’s a monstertoo.”
“Oh, I’m already aware,” I promised.
I wanted to hug her goodbye, but she looked as if she were on the verge of shattering. Her chin trembled, her eyes glassy. I didn’t want her to start weeping before she had to go in and take care of Lidi.
“I’ll try to come home,” I told her, so it wouldn’t feel so final when I left.
I turned and walked away from home, toward the dark figure whose unflinching gaze felt like being claimed.
Seventeen
