His posture stiffens. Slowly, he lowers his head to meet my gaze, eyes narrowed.
“I overheard your conversation on the train platform,” I explain. I hadn’t been certain then, but I am now. His reaction makes it clear.
His expression flashes with apprehension before he speaks. “After my engagement to Briony ended, I assured my father I would never marry. I convinced him I would mess it up again and again. That I couldn’t be his heir. He was at his wits’ end and made the only good choice he’s ever made—disinheriting me and naming Angela his heir. But not before I made a bargain that I would return to my place if I ever settled down. In precise terms, I would return to the family if I courted someone. I would reclaim my role as heir if I married.”
I reflect on his words, replaying them, stacking them up against everything else he’s said. He really meant it when he said he couldn’t marry. He’d made a bargain not to. Yet this can’t be the big secret he unwittingly sold to his moneylender. He said he physically can’t tell anyone that secret. Which means this marriage bargain is only secondary to whatever he’s hiding. Yet how did he make these bargains in the first place?
Keeping my voice even, I ask, “You used a bargain broker, then? To conduct the bargain between you and your father?”
A bargain broker is necessary for bargains forged between humans. Or even between fae, if a formal record is desired to make the bargain both legally and magically binding.
Monty stills at the question, shoulders tense. His eyes go wide.
Like cornered prey.
The remaining pieces click together in my mind.
I heal quickly.
I’m a little sensitive to rain.
My eyes rove over his rounded ears, then the bruises marring his skin. It only occurs to me now that while I’ve seen him beaten up and noticed scabs on his knuckles, his wounds have never been there long. Why would a human consider himself a fast healer? Why would he be sensitive to one of the elements?
My heart clenches tight in my chest, the answer spilling from my lips. “You’re half fae.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
DAPHNE
He steps back so suddenly, he looks as if I’ve punched him in the chest. “You can’t know,” he blurts out. His hand flies to his chest, his breaths turning sharp. His face contorts with pain. “I can’t tell anyone. I can’t let anyone find out. I can’t…”
Alarm rushes through me as I realize what’s happening. Everyone knows breaking a bargain is deadly, but one of the first repercussions of breaking a bargain—or coming close to it—is physical pain. I close the distance between us, my mind whirling to find a solution. I place a palm on his jaw, opposite where Gabby punched him. “You didn’tletme, Monty. Do you hear me? You didn’t tell me and you didn’t let me find out. I found out all on my own with no help from you, just like your lender.”
His breaths remain sharp for a few agonizing moments, then finally start to calm. Thank the All of All. With fae magic, intent and personal belief is everything. So long as Monty acknowledges that he didn’t do anything to compromise his bargain, he’ll recover.
Once his breathing returns to normal, he steps back until he comes up against the alleyway wall. The mushrooms on the opposite wall continue to glow, while curious dust-sized fire sprites in the same colors as the fungi flutter around us, descending from the mushrooms they’d been nesting on. Monty keeps his eyes closed, head thrown back, the drum of raindrops pounding relentlessly outside our refuge.
I stand before him, studying his face under a new light. Monty is half fae. That’s the big secret he harbors. The one he couldn’t tell his friends and loved ones. Not even Angela seems to know, nor do Briony and Thorne.
When Monty finally opens his eyes, they’re full of pain. “No one can know.”
“I won’t tell anyone.” I bite the inside of my cheek, gathering the courage to pose a potentially dangerous question. I lower my voice to a whisper. “Which of your parents is fae?”
He says nothing, but the answer is obvious. If both Lord and Lady Phillips are well-known human figures, then one of them was guilty of infidelity. And the parent he despises…
“Your father had an affair. Your mother was fae.”
He sucks in a breath, but again no answer.
I study him, the rain slicking his skin, the shivers racking his shoulders. He’s sensitive to rain but not necessarily water. It’s being drenched incoldwater that makes him unwell. “She’s some kind of fire fae, isn’t she?”
His eyes turn down at the corners, his posture sinking with something like relief. He’s probably never had a soul to talk about this with. He rubs his chest, as if checking for any sign of pain, any sign that he’s compromising his bargain. But if his terms only required that he not tell anyone or intentionally let anyone find out he’s half fae, then the danger has passed. I already know the secret, just not the details. He gives me a sharp nod.
“Did you never meet her?
“I knew her for a time,” he says, voice weak, “but I never learned her name and I had no idea she was my mother. I couldn’t have known. I was raised to believe Angela and I had the same mother, yet Lady Phillips is the reason I found out the truth. She was overly fond of drink and made an inebriated comment about how I was just like my mother, and it was a shame she couldn’t watch me grow up. When I confronted Father about it, he tried to play it off, but I refused to give in. Finally, he explained the truth. That my mother was a courtesan, and he coerced her into giving me up upon my birth, convincing her I’d have a better life as a respected human couple’s son than the bastard of a fae prostitute. By the time he told me this, I was fifteen and my mother was long gone.”
“I don’t understand. You said you knew her for a time.”
