Bronson clears his throat. “I’ll give you some privacy and wait right outside the door.” He exits the jail but doesn’t close the door behind him.
Lorelei squeezes my shoulder. “I’ll give you some space as well.”
“Thank you,” I say. Lorelei takes a seat on the bench at the other side of the room, and I return my attention to my mother. I want to hug her through the bars, to make sure she’s hale and whole, but my words are already tumbling from my lips. “What in the name of iron is going on? Why does the human council think I’m fae?”
She presses her lips tight, and I hold my breath for the answer. “Because it’s true,” she finally says.
There it is. Her confession. My blood feels like it’s rushing from my head, and I think I might be sick. “How is this possible?” I say with a gasp. “Who is my father?”
Her brow furrows. “Your father? I told you who he was. His name was Howard, he was a good man—”
“You never told me he was fae.”
She shakes her head. “He wasn’t.”
“Then how the bloody...” My words dry in my throat as logic pieces itself together in my mind.
“I’m the one who’s fae, Evelyn.”
This time, the blood really does leave my head, and I slide to my knees at the base of the cell. “I don’t understand.”
Mother joins me, kneeling down and reaching her hands through the bars to grasp mine. “I’m half-fae. My mother was human but my father was originally from Faerwyvae.”
“So, Amelie and I...we’re a quarter fae.” My heart races to admit it out loud. Mother confirms my understanding with a nod. “Who wasyourfather then? You told us you were born on the mainland. How did a fae male from Faerwyvae sire you?”
“I was conceived on the Fair Isle, but my mother gave birth to me on the mainland.”
“She left your father?”
“I suppose you can say that, although it wasn’t her choice.”
“But...I remember you mentioning your father. You loved him, he was kind and strong. If your mother left him, who is the father you spoke to me and Amelie about?”
“My father didn’t stay on the isle. He was exiled to the mainland.”
“Foxglove said no fae has been exiled this century.”
She gives me a sad smile. “Evie, I’m over a thousand years old.”
Her words send me reeling, blood turning to ice. “A thousand years old,” I echo.
“My father was King Caleos.” She says it like it should mean something to me, but the name doesn’t spark recognition. A sigh escapes her lips. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t have heard of him. They consider his name taboo in Faerwyvae. You’ll know him as—”
“The exiled Fire King.”
She nods. “Before King Ustrin, my father ruled the Fire Court.”
I close my eyes, trying to recall everything I’ve learned about the war, about Faerwyvae. Most of what I know, I learned from either Foxglove or Cobalt. “The Fire King had an affair with a human woman. The humans executed her when they found she was pregnant with the child of a fae.”
“And he burned down her village in retribution, killing everyone who didn’t flee in time.”
“That sparked the war,” I say.
“Yes. The war went on for decades, and my father was exiled at the end of it. That’s when he was reunited with me and my mother.”
“Reunited...are you saying...but his lover was killed. You just said so yourself.”
“My mother was executed, burned at the stake, but she didn’t die. Can you imagine why?”
