Kahol lifts his knuckles and wipes the woman’s shiny cheeks, and then he cradles both sides of her face between his fingertips and presses his forehead against hers. His mouth shapes words in a language I’ve never heard and yet understand.Our daughter will thrive, Daya, my love. Bronwen’s seen it. Our little raindrop will survive.
As their lips meet, I’m thrust out of the vision.
Or perhaps, I thrust myself out of it.
Chill after chill sweeps up and down my spine. My teeth chatter. My breastbone rattles from my runaway pulse. Although the abounding blueness is filled with noise and movement, my mind is stuck on the vision Lore sent me. It replays it and replays it and replays it until I think I will go mad.
I pull my arm from Syb’s and steeple my fingers against my forehead. “I don’t understand.”
Did the Shabbin woman lose her baby and then he made a new one with my mother, which he ended up naming Raindrop as well? How utterly messed up would that be?
That child lived, Fallon.Lore’s eyes are as dark as the sweeps of black powder he wears around them.
I have a half-sister?
No.
Then . . .My eyebrows bend, rise, bend. Is Lore saying— Is he— “Nonna saw me come out of my mother. Shesawme.”
Oh my Gods. I stagger backward. I’m a changeling!
Lore doesn’t refute my claim, which means— I lift my palm to my mouth to stifle a shout.
Marco was right. I’m half Shabbin.Shabbin!
Mamma didn’t suffer because she lost the love of her life or the peaks of her ears. She suffered because someone stole her child and gave her . . .me. Anger gores my chest, draining the lingering thrill of what I accomplished today.
I rake my hands through my hair, tugging at the roots.My whole life has been a lie!
Not a lie. A secret.
My vision blurs, turning Lorcan into smears of gold, black, and white. How can he justify what they did? It was cruel and unfair to so many. I drive the heels of my hands into my temples.
Nonna gave up her life and status for nothing.
Mamma lost her mind.
Glaring at Lorcan, I walk toward where Dante sits on a horse,myhorse, observing the dark shadow growing larger beneath the chaotic whitecaps. “Make room, Maezza.”
His gaze jumps to me before lumbering to a space beyond my head. I don’t need to turn to know who holds his attention. His answer takes so long to come that I’ve no doubt the man complicit in ruining lives is speaking to him. “I’m sorry, Fal, but I cannot take you back.”
“Then get off my horse, and I’ll take myself back.”
Dante’s mouth pinches at my lack of decorum, but I cannot find it in me to be decorous. He lowers his voice. “As your friend, I cannot let you return. It’s for your own safety.”
“My safety? Are you fucking kidding me, Dante?”
“You betrayed the crown.”
“To help you!”
“The Fae won’t see it like that. They’ll see you as the traitor who got Marco killed.”
I toss a hand in the air. “Then set them straight! For Cauldron’s sake, you’re the king now. Act like one!”
Tavo shoves his horse between us. “Watch your mouth, Fallon.”
I flip him off.
