“Children of magic are never alone,” she recited the Vaukore motto quietly.
Mal’s eyes met hers. And they understood one another.
“You are able to trace your exact bloodline aren’t you?” He asked suddenly.
Maeve nodded.
“Could you trace mine?”
“Possibly.”
“I’ve searched every book in the library attempting to find the Peur bloodline.”
Maeve bit her bottom lip. “Perhaps they weren’t students here. Perhaps they didn’t attend any magical school.”
“You mean perhaps my father was a Human too?”
Maeve didn’t respond.
Mal stared at the table between them. Maeve thought it must be maddening to not know where one came from.
She knew from Abraxas that when Mal’s mother gave birth to him, before she died in a darkened alley, she wrote his name on a dirty piece of newspaper.
Malachite Peur was all she wrote. The name of her baby boy. She knew she wouldn’t live long.
An old lady whom lived in an apartment nearby said she called herself Mary Peur. That she was a delusional prostitute who insisted her husband was a powerful nobleman.
She was a whore who lived what could have only been a deprived and miserable life.
To die in an icy back alley at the age of seventeen.
Mal didn’t speak of it. Ever.
Maeve only knew because she was nosey. Their first year together at Vaukore when Mal soared past her in every subject she traveled to the archives at The Orator’s Office and pulled the newspaper describing his birth. The headline stuck with her:
Magic Prevails This New Year: Magical Baby Boy Born Unto Human Woman on the Dark Snowy New Years Eve Streets of London.
Maeve pulled herself from her thoughts.
“I can research in our private library over Christmas break, if you like.”
“Yes,” said Mal, his voice eager.
“You’ll be staying here, I presume?”
He nodded. “I’d like you to bring me back everything you can get your hands on. Every book, anything.”
“Consider it done.”
“And this conversation never happened,” said Mal darkly.
“What conversation?” Asked Maeve with an innocent expression.
Chapter 9
The Volaticus dorms were decorated with shades of sapphire silk and crystal. A large fluffy tree covered in gold and white ornaments sat at the center of the room. Snow piled up on the window panes outside as the cold mountain air slammed against the glass.
Maeve attempted to slip past Lavinia and the rest of her book club where they sat on fluffy pillows around the fire, drinks in hand.
