“What the fuck is going on?” Caelan muttered, half to himself.
His gaze dropped back to the watch, and he froze again. Very, very still.
“Where did you get that exactly?” The question came out strange, tight, controlled in a way that suggested he was anything but calm.
“The watch?” I touched it reflexively. “My godmother gave it to me. When I turned eighteen. It was my family’s.”
“Your family’s.”
“My birth parents. I can barely remember them, but my godmother, she raised me after they died. She said this was the only thing she had of theirs.”
Caelan’s eyes were locked on it. His jaw was clenched so tight I could see the muscle jumping.
“What?” I asked. “What is it?”
“This watch.” He reached for my wrist. “Can you take it off? Let me see it.”
I unclasped it, handed it to him. He examined it closely, the ornate metalwork, the delicate engravings. His thumb traced the design. Then he flipped it over. “I’ve seen designs like this before.”
“So it’s valuable? My godmother said it was old...”
“It’s not just old.” He turned it over, studying the back. His breath caught. “There. Look.”
I looked. There was an inscription on the back, small, elegant letters I’d seen a thousand times but never really examined.
MIRABELLE
“I always thought that was the maker’s name,” I said. “Like... the company that made it.”
“It’s not.” His words were barely above a whisper. “Mirabelle isn’t a company, Riley. It’s a noble house… From Duskmere.”
The words didn’t make sense. I heard them, processed them, but they refused to form coherent meaning.
“What?”
“This watch, the design, the craftsmanship, the inscription, it’s the mark of Duskmere nobility. House Mirabelle. An old family, ancient bloodlines.” His eyes met mine, and there was a strangeness in them I couldn’t read. “This is a watch that would only be passed down through that family. From parent to child. Generation to generation.”
My chest tightened. “That’s... that’s not possible. My parents were human. They lived here. In the human world.”
“Are you sure?”
“My godmother...”
“Did your godmother ever tell you where they came from? Where they were born?”
I opened my mouth. Closed it.
No. No, Maris never did. She’d said they were private people. That they’d come from far away. That they’d died when I was young and there wasn’t anyone else.
“It can’t be right,” I said. “I’m human. I’ve always been human.”
Caelan was watching me closely. His eyes went wide.
“What?” I demanded. “What now?”
“Your eyes.”
“What about my eyes?”
