“You two get back in hereright now.” Corbin poked his head out the door. “This guy’s talking a load of gibberish and he’s demanding I hold his bedpan.”
“Rob or Robert?” Blake called back.
“They’re the same bloody person!”
“No,” I whispered. “No, they’re not.”
Corbin stormed over to stand in front of the bench, his arms folded. “This is a lost cause. The guy’s completely deranged. We’ll have to go back to the letters and?—”
I held up a hand. “Just let me think for a moment. Both of you, tell me everything you know about fae compulsion.”
“What? Why? What’s that got to do with bedpans?—”
“Just do what the lady says, Mussolini,” Blake grinned. “I think she’s onto something.”
Corbin sighed. “I don’t know much more than you do. Compulsion is a fae power – Blake’s the only non-fae I’ve ever heard of able to do it. It involves slipping inside another person’s mind and giving them instructions, which they obey. The person can fight the compulsion, but it’s difficult, especially if you don’t understand what’s going on. Most people will submit and do the will of the compeller. But compulsion uses a great deal of power and fae can usually only sustain the bond for a few minutes, half an hour at most.”
“What happens to the fae while they’re in the other person’s head? Do they have to be asleep, or?—”
Blake shook his head. “It’s not like dreamwalking. You are inside your head at the same time, but you can’t focus on both minds at once. You go a bit blank. Powerful fae with decades of practice can maintain a coherent mind in both their own mind and in their vessel, but that’s rare.”
“And if a fae is inside a person’s head, would that person be susceptible to anti-fae wards or charms?”
Corbin shook his head. “No. We saw that with Dora. A compelled person can pass through wards, although I’m sure a clued-in witch could create a charm specifically to root out compulsion.”
“And what if a fae was inside a human’s head while they were, um, having relations with another human?” I turned to Blake. “Say, in the exact moment that a sperm impregnates an egg?”
“Then that fae would get a hell of a show,” Blake grinned. “I don’t know what would happen because that’s never happened. The fae explicitly warn against it. They say it creates a binding, but I don’t know what that means.”
A binding. Holy shitballs.
“What is this about?” Corbin demanded.
“This is going to sound insane,” I sucked in a ragged breath. “I think Robert Smithers was possessed by a fae when he lived at Briarwood. And I think he is my real father. Or, more correctly,oneof my real fathers.”
CHAPTER FORTY
BLAKE
“You’re right,” Corbin said. “That is completely insane.”
“It sounds like Robert isn’t the only one who should be committed, Princess,” I added. “Daigh is your father.”
“Do we have evidence of that? You know what we say – fae lie?” Maeve paced back and forth, her brow furrowed in that adorable way she had when she was thinking hard. Flynn called it her ‘Mad Scientist Mode.’ “I’ll have to take a DNA test to be sure, but I’m almost positive I’ve figured this all out.”
“Figuredwhatout? What’s going on?” Corbin was practically shouting now. A nurse wandered past with a cart of small pebbles in plastic containers and frowned at him.
“Hear me out.” Maeve sped up her pacing. “I have a hypothesis.”
I rubbed my head, the echoes of Robert’s scars still etched behind my eyelids. I didn’t know what a hypothesis was, but I had a feeling I didn’t want to hear what Maeve was about to say.
“Here’s what we know. Twenty-one years ago, Robert Smithers the painter came to Crookshollow to live at Briarwood with the coven. He knew it would be the perfect place to live a reclusive life where he could paint without his powers being discovered. While there, he falls in love with my mother.”
“Yes, but?—”
“Aline’s letters say how they have no idea how the fae got so strong or were able to do what they did. She said it was as if they were anticipating the coven’s movements. What if a member of the coven was somehow being controlled and possessed by a fae? By Daigh, to be precise.”
Corbin looked sceptical. “He couldn’t hold the compulsion for long enough to?—”
