“How can you say this?”
“I’ve been doing this for a long time, Avery.” Her eyes go misty. “When Kassandra was a baby, she had the loudest howl I ever heard. She could scream for hours upon hours upon days. Back then, I changed the soiled sheets and her clothes, bathed her, and did other nightly duties. But no matter what I did, she would just wail. She wouldn’t stop because…well, she was hungry.” Briar frowns and continues, “It’s custom for High Fae lords and ladies to only be fed by their mothers. I’ve heard in the countryside they allow wet nurses and goat’s milk, but not here. When I slipped Kassie sheep’s milk, she immediately spit it up. I thought it had something to do with being a High Fae babe. Something different that their genius needed. She was hungry, and I felt helpless.”
“And the late Lady of Illusion?” I ask.
Briar shakes her head. “She would rarely nurse. She only visited when Kassie was too weak to cry. It was torture—for Kassandra, and for me. My whole body would ache. I couldn’t stand it anymore. And then one day, it happened. My breasts produced milk.”
I gasp. “How?”
Briar looks down at her empty hands. “I always wanted a child. I still do. But Kassandra found me just as much as I found her. I can’t explain it other than that. Sometimes, I wonder if she’s so frail because of me—my faerie milk. Other times, I feel like keeping her alive has been my greatest challenge and accomplishment.” She clears her throat, dropping her voice. “Do not make an enemy of any of the Morellas. They are strange, unfeeling fae.They are not like the royal bloodline; they fought, fucked, and fabricated their way into the Upper Court.”
My mouth dries out, my palms slick with sweat.
“I know,” I tell her. “I know.”
But I did not understand. Not until now, when two of them despise me.
“Briar, what if there’s a way we can save Kassandra?” I finally ask. “More than just redirecting.”
—
A towering, lithemale lingers by my door. The image of Dominik flickers back to me, vicious and lethal. I stop short in the dark hallway, my genius flickering to awareness.
“Avery?” Jeremee asks.
I sag against the wall in relief. In a moment, he’s in front of me.
“I heard the servants were dismissed for the day. Did something happen?”
Images of the night tumble through my mind. “I—”
It’s as if glass marbles roll up my esophagus, blocking the sentence until it dies in the back of my throat. I swallow and try again. “It—”
I gag.
Jeremee steps back. “The fucking blood oath.”
My eyes sting as I wait for the magic to subside, a hint of metallic blood in the air. With all the secrets I keep these days, lying has become easier than breathing. Yet this blood oath makes me bear the truth in sullen silence.
“Are those bruises?” There it is again, that angry glint in his gaze I’ve seen twice this week, but rarely before. The blood oath means I cannot tell him anything, and a newfound fear grips me. A deadly force lives inside me—and it is not my own.
“Please,” I manage.
He swears again, rubbing his jaw with a rough hand. We stare at each other. Finally, I slip the coin into his palm. When he holds it up to the dim light, the silver shimmers.
“Avery, no.”
“Yes.”
“I can’t take it.”
“I can’t give it to Benji; there are no tips in the stables. The teller will assume he stole it. Butyou—you’ve been a servant in the palace for years. Someone could’ve easily offered silver for your silence.”
“Like someone did for yours.”
Something sharpens in me, a frustration I’ve never felt toward my best friend.
“Just let me help, okay?” I snap.
