“Howdidshe save me? Did she fish me out of the puddle of blood?”
“Daya placed you inside Agrippina.” Lorcan says this slowly, as though believing that the pacing of his delivery may help my mind make sense of his ludicrous explanation.
“What do you mean,she placed me?”
“Your mother sent you inside Agrippina’s womb.” At my rumpled brow, Lore adds, “With magic.”
Wait . . .what? I look between my father and Lore a great many times. I was magicked from one body into another? Although I sensed I was a changeling, the news of how I swapped wombs is stupefying. It does explain how my grandfathersawme come out of Agrippina, though.
I’ve lived my entire life surrounded by people with elemental power, yet the concept of being transferred like a virus is utterly mind-blowing. “How did she do it? Did she click her fingers andpoof?”
Lore smiles. “Shabbin magic comes from your blood, so there’s no clicking of fingers. There is much pricking of fingers, though, for sigils are drawn with blood.”
I study my fingertips, expecting them to shimmer, but all that shines is the coarse skin atop my calluses. Although I doubt my father or Lore will wrinkle their noses at my decidedly unfeminine hands, I slot them beneath my thighs. “How do you know I’m truly Daya’s daughter?”
Lore drums his fingers. “Besides the fact that you share most of her traits?”
“I used to think I shared many traits with the woman who birthed me.”
Lore shifts forward in his seat, making his leathers creak. “Daya sent Bronwen a vision before Meriam bound her magic so that your aunt could look after you and send you to wake me when it was time.”
The emotion glazing my father’s eyes is so potent that it rips tears from the giant man. As they carve through his makeup, he murmurs words in his tongue that sound soft in spite of their guttural pronunciation.
Is he swearing a lethal retribution upon all those involved in the ambush, or is he crying because I was saved?
“What happened to Agrippina’s child?”
“Agrippina was with child?” The bear of a Crow across from me scrubs at his wet, bristly cheek, smearing the black.
“I’m a changeling, which means I was changed. Is . . .” My tongue slips out and wets my lips. I cannot bring myself to utter the wordmother, much less think of the Shabbin who gave me life as such. I have a mother whose name is Agrippina. Though she may not love me—may neverhaveloved me—I cannot find it in my heart to replace her just because we do not share the same genes. “Is Daya raising Agrippina’s baby?”
“Agrippina was never pregnant,” Lore replies calmly.
My eyebrows all but collide. “I don’t—I thought for there to be a changeling, babies had to be dickered?”
A mild smile plays on Lore’s mouth. “Shabbin magic is rather extraordinary.”
Rather?It’s wholly bewildering. “Where is Daya? In Shabbe?”
“That’s the one place we know she is not.” Lorcan pinches an asparagus from atop the stack Connor deposited on our table and raises it to his lips.
“How?”
“Because we’ve been flying around the Shabbin wards for days, and have seen neither hide nor hair of your mother.” Kahol must grind his teeth because his jaw is all harsh angles.
I frown. “How is that possible?”
“Bronwen believes Meriam may have bound Daya’s magic.” Lore snaps off the crisped spear with teeth that flash white against his dusky lips.
“Meriam?” Why does the name sound familiar?
“Meriam was Costa’s Shabbin lover. The woman who doomed us and whose blood fuels the wards.”Lore’s explanation makes the memory of our conversation whizz around my mind. “Meriam is also Zendaya’s mother. Your grandmother.”
My back straightens as though my articulated spine had transformed into a serpent tusk. “I’m related to the sorceress who damned your people?”
“Ourpeople. You may reject your heritage, but you’re no less a Shabbin or a Crow, Fallon.”
I roll my lips, not feeling like I belong anywhere or to anyone.
