Her smile widens.
“Welcome home, my darling. I told Queen Snow all about you. She can’t wait to meet you.”
Everything in me grows cold. Is this a trap? Is Isla going to accept? Is she going to change sides? Was she ever on my side to begin with?
No!
I need to stop this. I trust Isla. I know her. I meant it when I told Ferris that I had feelings for Isla. They’re real.
Isla’s face changes, the softness drains from it, replaced by something stricken and pale. Her lips part, but nothing comes out.
For a few beats, her mother doesn’t seem to notice. She strokes Isla’s cheek, her expression filled with what looks like genuine joy.
Then she stops, perhaps seeing something change in Isla’s expression.
“What is it? Aren’t you happy?” she asks, cocking her head, her eyes narrowing. “Please tell me you are happy to see me.”
“Of course I’m happy to see you.”
“Oh, Isla.” She pulls her in for another hard hug.
My heart starts to break for Isla. I don’t think that is the reunion she envisioned.
39
Isla
I let my mother hold me for a few heartbeats that seem to last an age.
Her arms are stronger than I remember.
One thing is for sure; she is not the mother I mourned all those summers ago.
Her embrace is warm, and for a few stolen moments, I am a child again, tucked against her chest.
I pull back before I lose myself entirely.
She thinks I am here to join her. To join the army and to serve Snow.
I don’t set her straight. Not yet. There are answers I need first.
“Mother…we need to talk,” I finally say.
“Of course we do.” She runs her hand down the side of my arm. “There are so many summers we need to catch up on.”
“I thought you were stoned to death,” I rasp. “The villagers took you away.” My voice hitches at the memory.
“They took me to the village common, right next to the church.”
“I remember it.” The flat patch of dirt where they held market days and passed judgment on those they deemed unworthy. I nod.
“There was a group of fae assembled.” She moves to the settee and sits, patting the space beside her. I don’t sit. I can’t. Not yet. She doesn’t seem to notice. “I realized very quickly that they were shadowfae. My own people. It was a stroke of fortune.”
She says it like a homecoming. Like finding your kin in the middle of a mob is the most natural thing in the world.
“I told them who I was.” She pulls up the sleeve of her linen shift. There, on the inside of her forearm, is a half-moon crescent, so much smaller than Sebastian’s eclipse mark. Far less elaborate. But unmistakable. “I showed them this. The mark of my house.”
I stare at the marking. It’s faded with age but is still visible against her skin.
