But the impossibility of it begins to fade under other memories. My mother, who always had a medicinal remedy for any neighbor who’d become sick. My mother, who sold tonics in town and cures for animals and crops. Always picking flowers and crushing herbs. If she could perform minor miracles with nonmagical items … then what could she have done with actual magic? What horrors could her rage have unleashed when someone so clever was given something so damning? And Kieran Ceres had his magical blood and the ill will and determination to use it.
But that was all before my father was taken; she’d been a shell for long since. I’d remembered only the beauty of her from that time before, the singing, the everyday magic.
“The Curse and the Selection are the only thing that have kept this world in tentative peace since the War.” There’s no apology in her voice.
“The Selection ruinedour lives.” The force of my voice echoes in the ensuing silence.
Hot tears spring forth, flowing over my cheeks like lava.
Her voice is steady. “If they find me, Rune, they’ll try to make me undo it. I’m the only one left alive who knows how that blood magic worked. That knowledge will put all changelings at risk. The rest of the mortals, too. The immortals’ vengeance will be a lot worse than the Selection once they no longer need us.”
I can’t even look at her. “Draven, we need to free her. Protect her,” I insist.
His lips are parted in half a snarl, his brows coming together in frustration. “It’s not that simple, Rune.”
She looks at Draven, a cold acceptance in her eyes, the slump of her shoulders. “If you cannot take me with you, if you cannot barter me, you should kill me.”
“Don’t you dare ask that of me.” He shakes his head, disgusted.
“They could use Rune to get me to undo the Curse.” My mother’s eyes narrow on him, leaving me out of the conversation entirely. Why is she goading him with this? “And you? You look so much like your father. It’s either a miracle or complete ignorance that King Silas hasn’t noticed it. But what’s to stop me from remarking on it when Altair comes for me?”
“Mom!” I scold, furious.
“They already know.” Draven glares outright, eyes flashing red at the threat.
I stare at him in surprise, but it makes sense they’d know, that they tortured Ceres before his death with his son’s immortal transformation.
“Do your people?” she fires back.
Draven’s fists clench.That’s not common knowledge,he’d said about his adoption. Let alone his heritage.
My mother turns to me, a challenge in her eyes. “He knows I’m right. I’m a danger to all of you. Save me or end me.”
“We’ll find a way to get you out of this.” I don’t know how, though, and I turn back to Draven. He doesn’t move, just clenches his jaw, attention fixed on her like a hunter finding his mark. Everything feels tenuous, dangerous as balancing on a spider’s silken string over a chasm. I grab his jaw and move his gaze to mine. “Right?”
Draven blinks rapidly, his eyes so dark there’s no color at all. Finally, he forces out, “Right.”
“Without your father’s blood, it might be impossible to undo the Curse anyway. Yours likely wouldn’t work now that you’rean immortal, and no one ever found your brother, did they?” she whispers.
Draven’s eyes scan her, then flit across the wall, as if he’s searching his memory. “He’s likely dead.” A muscle ticks in his jaw. His eyes go to his boots.
Liar.
My mother only looks relieved. “Maybe then we can’t undo the Curse. Not without the help of Nox.”
“Who is that now?” I ask, exasperated. At their silence I demand, “Any more vital secrets about the world to reveal?”
“She’s the druid’s reluctant goddess of night, sympathizer to the mortals’ uprising.” Draven bares his teeth as voices float and drift down the hallway. He moves toward the door, listening.
“She was also Kieran Ceres’s lover. And Kallos and Adonis’s mother. Didn’t you know you were in the presence of a demigod?” My mother’s words twist like a knife, and he freezes, jaw clenched.
That … makes a lot of sense. Since I first laid eyes on him, he’s felt like something other, something preternatural, and his eyes are unlike any immortal’s I’ve seen. Ancient power trapped in a young man’s body, sculpted by a god. Or a goddess.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake! You’re partgod? What happened to no lies between partners?” My tattoo burns. It wasn’t a direct lie, but one of omission. How many more of those lie between us like land mines?
“My mother was an ethereal. Some call them gods, but … it doesn’t matter.” He clears his throat as I shoot him a contemptuous look. “Any power given to me by her is gone or lays dormant and has since I was turned immortal.”
I step away, suddenly exhausted by all this, by both of them. The woman I was, standing at the Selection, desperate to choose my fate seems like a fool now, unaware of the journey she wasabout to embark on. The Wraith of Westfall, hoarding others’ secrets, knowing none of her own. The betrayal that seeps into me slowly burns, until it’s eating me alive.
