He belatedly catches on and points a thumb over his shoulder. “Shouldn’t we be there?”
“Why did we get here so early?” Ari squints down at her ticket. “Our train doesn’t depart for another two hours.”
“Actually,” I say, anticipation buzzing through me, “we’re right on time.” Though I can’t see the arriving train yet, the blare of its horn sounds in the distance.
Monty frowns down at me. “What’s going on?”
I take a deep breath and swivel to face him. “I sort of have a surprise. I’ve been working on it for a while now.”
“Surprise?” Ari says. “What surprise?”
I ignore her. Like Monty, I chose not to let Araminta in on what’s about to happen next.
“It’s rather last-minute,” I say, “but it ended up being perfect. I just got the telegram last week, and we arranged it?—”
“Arranged what?” Monty’s face flashes between confusion and concern.
I worry my bottom lip. I have no idea if this was the right thing to keep from him, but I didn’t want to get his hopes up or give him a reason to be anxious all weekend. But there’s no putting it off any longer. I’ll take his reaction, whatever it may be. “Monty, I found your mother.”
MONTY
No other words could have surprised me more. All sense flees my mind, and when I open my mouth, I can’t utter a single word. Daphne takes my hands in hers, grounding me. Anchoring me with her presence. Finally, I manage to speak my reply. “How?”
“It was a group effort,” she says, her tone a mixture of anxious and excited. I catch sight of the approaching train rounding the corner in the distance, and my pulse kicks up. She rushes to explain. “Briony Blackwood used her succubus magic to invade your father’s dreams and coax information from him. We learned your mother’s name. It’s Étaín.”
Étaín. The name echoes through my mind, sending a sharp pang through my heart. It’s a bittersweet agony, hearing my mother’s name. The woman I never got to know, save for the time when I thought she was merely my fox friend.
“We also learned your father has been paying her a stipend for her upkeep,” Daphne says. “I passed this on to Angela, and she spent weeks going through your father’s ledgers looking for records of long-time payments.”
Angie helped too? I was so terrified to tell her the truth about my lineage, about Father’s infidelity that led to my conception, about the burden he placed on me. The reason we’d always had at least a small wedge between us, keeping me from being the best brother I could be. She was understandably shocked and hurt by the secrets that had been kept from her. Furthermore by my lack of trust in how she could handle the truth. She knew I couldn’t outright tell her, but she desperately wished I’d helped her figure it out on her own. Yet it didn’t take her long to forgive me. The same goes for Thorne and Briony. My best friend hated that I’d kept such a secret from him—that I’d pushed him away in the past, acted like a complete ass at times to purposefully keep his friendship at a distance. But he understood better than anyone. He knew firsthand how family secrets could poison one’s heart.
But they’ve all forgiven me, and we’ve all grown closer.
I never could have imagined they’d come together to help find my mother.
Daphne speaks again. “Thanks to Angela’s research, we found several leads, but none were to a person named Étaín. I figured she was getting paid by an intermediary, but none of the leads I contacted replied to my queries. That’s when I reached out to a local detective who takes on private cases, even non-criminal ones. He’s been working on finding her for months now. Last week, he sent a telegram saying he’d found her in a small village in the Fire Court. Not only that, but she was eager to meet you. She too had been bound by a bargain with your father, but she’d recently received a letter stating he’d revoked it and would instead rely on trust in her discretion.”
“She…she wants to meet me.” My eyes flick to the approaching train that slows as it pulls into the station. “She’s on that train?”
“She is. Detective Whitwood is serving as her personal escort here.” Her expression turns more apprehensive, bordering on apologetic. “I know your feelings for her might be complicated, and maybe it was wrong of me?—”
“No, love,” I say, pulling her to my chest. My heart slams against my ribs, and with her ear pressed so closely to it, I know she can hear every anxious, terrified, joyful beat. She’s right about my complicated feelings about my mother, but I’ve never once balked at the thought of seeing her again. Meeting her—trulymeeting her—for the first time. I press a kiss to the top of Daphne’s head. “You did good. You did really, really good.”
She pulls away slightly, keeping her arms around my waist. “If things feel too tense, you can have a nice chat with her, and she can catch the next train back north. But if things go well, maybe we could invite her for a longer visit home with us?”
“Maybe,” I say with a hopeful smile.
“The two of you should really stop keeping secrets from me,” Ari says, reminding me of her presence. “Unlucky for you, I’m fresh out of confetti. How will we celebrate now?”
The train stops at the platform, sending my pulse racketing. “Oh, fuck,” I mutter. “I’m about to meet my mother. To see my…my fox friend again.”
“Deep breaths,” Daphne says, framing my cheeks with her palms and giving them a soft slap. It’s become a routine of ours when we need encouragement. “You can do this. I’m right here with you.”
I nod, gathering my resolve. We face the train, hands linked. After a few anxious moments, passengers begin to disembark. My eyes search the stairs, the ground, and it occurs to me the tiny four-legged creature I remember might not be my mother’s current form. There’s no way my strait-laced father had an affair with a fennec fox, and she probably only ever appeared to me as one because it allowed her to sneak onto my family’s property. Which means…
I cast a worried look at Daph. “I just realized I don’t know what she looks like.”
She squeezes my palm. “She’ll be with Detective Whitwood, and I’ve met him. I at least know whathelooks like.”
