Thorne Blackwood isn’t my primary concern. He’s second to the reason we’re gathered in this parlor.
My parents.
Their identity.
The impossible words Agatha spoke when she entered the kitchen.
You’re going home.
Sister Nessie, a stout dryad with barklike skin and leafy hair escaping from beneath her wimple, finishes pouring tea into Sister Marsh’s cup. Now that she’s served tea to everyone, she makes her way to the door, her pace agonizingly slow. Though many fae appear ageless no matter how old they get, some fae seem elderly beyond their years. Nessie is like that. I know her to be a couple of hundred years old—young for a fae born before the isle was unified, whereafter fae began to reach maturity much faster—but she walks like she’s on death’s door. Every shuffling step might as well take an hour for how quickly my anxiety climbs.
My teacup rattles harder in its saucer, and I give up holding it altogether. I set it on the tea table beside my chair and face my three teachers, all of whom sit side by side on the faded beige-gold couch.
With a forced smile upon my lips, I say, “If someone doesn’t start talking, there’s a chance I’ll lose my mind.” Though my words are a clear exaggeration, using the phrasethere’s a chancecircumvents my inability to lie. There’s always a chance for just about anything to happen.
Sister Agatha’s eyes dart toward the door where Nessie finally makes her exit. Once the door is firmly sealed behind her, Agatha releases a sigh. “Forgive us, Miss Rose. Your situation has always required great secrecy, due to your identity and the bargain we swore to.”
I didn’t think my heart could race any faster, but it does. “And…who am I?”
Marsh clears her throat and sets her tea on the table. “Your name is Rosaline Briar, and you were brought to us when you were a baby. We took a binding vow to keep your true identity—and that of your parents—a secret.”
I swallow the sudden dryness in my throat. My next question is one I’ve yearned for an answer to all my life. “Who are my parents?”
Sister Spruce dons a placating grin, one I recognize from years of her soothing care. It does nothing to calm my nerves, for I know that smile means her next words will cause me distress. “Your parents are Horus and Divina Briar. Your father is the Seelie King of Lunar, and your mother is the queen.”
I sit forward in my chair. “The seelie fucking—” I swallow my words at the horrified expressions on my teacher’s faces. Under my breath, I try again. “The Seelie King and Queen of Lunar. You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I know this is shocking, dearest,” Agatha says. Her eyes dip toward my hands, which are clenched so tightly around the armrests of my chair that my knuckles have turned white.
I loosen my grip and place my hands palm-down on my lap instead. “Does that mean…am I…” I can’t even utter it out loud. It’s ridiculous.
“A princess, yes,” Marsh says, in her straightforward way.
I try to bark a laugh but all I manage is a strangled sound.
For the love of the stars, I’m…a princess.
An honest-to-stars princess with royal fucking parents.
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep my inner commentary from leaping off my tongue and appalling my poor teachers again. I’m almost of a mind to ask Marsh to repeat herself, just to be certain she was telling the truth, but of course she is. Pureblood fae can’t lie.
And yet…how is this possible? Every young girl who enters the convent, particularly those who believe themselves orphaned or abandoned, dreams of being claimed by royal parents, discovering they’re a lost princess, or being rescued by a dashing prince. I was no exception. I can’t count the number of daydreams I’ve constructed to play out every one of those scenarios. But I gave up on them years ago, after reality became too solid to ignore. For if I had royal parents, then why…
With a deep breath, I finish my thought out loud. “Why did my parents wait so long to claim me?”
Spruce dons one of her placating grins again. “The king and queen arranged things so not even they knew where you were hidden. They did this to keep your location safe should someone try to force the information from them. To find you again, they had to go through layers and layers of protocol that they’d set in place, working through the agents they’d established between us.”
A tangle of emotions writhe within me, bright hope mixed with cloudy shock, both smothered beneath a rising tide of something unexpected: anger. I narrow my eyes at my teachers. “You let me believe I was orphaned.”
Marsh purses her lips, but when neither Spruce nor Agatha reply, she says, “We agreed to many things in the bargain we made when we took you in, all to ensure your safety. One of the terms we had to uphold was keeping the truth from you. We could only speak on the matter after confirming, over several weeks of authentication protocol, that your parents had sent for you and deemed our bargain fulfilled. Which is why we are talking about this now.”
“But you…you let me participate in the bridal competition in Lumenas last year. If I’d won, I’d be married to Brother Dorian. How does that fit into the bargain you made?”
This time, Agatha answers. “We knew there was a chance that your parents wouldn’t send for you before you were out of our hands, for we were told they would only do soifthey found it safe for you to return. According to our bargain, we were to allow you to live as you chose, so long as during your time in our care, we protected you. If you’d married Brother Dorian, you’d have remained safe, protected by the Church of Saint Lazaro. Setting you up as a governess also would have fit the terms of our bargain.”
“And if I’d taken vows as a sister?” I ask, my tone adopting a bitter edge. “I’d be stuck here. I wouldn’t have been able to go home if they’d sent for me a day too late.”
A look of hurt crosses my teachers’ faces, which in turn cools my ire. I don’t mean to take my frustrations out on them, but I’m still so confused. Hurt, even. All my dreams of being claimed by my parents were accompanied by joy and laughter. Not secrets, bargains, and dangers I don’t understand.
