I’m glad for the intervention for I really want to learn where in Mareluce my mother bobs. Or lies. “Can you two have it out later?”
Justus seizes the hem of his jacket and squeezes out what little moisture clings to the navy threads after our hours-long flight, muttering something aboutthankless buzzards.
“Justus.” I give him a warning look to play nice.
He releases his ruined jacket, stares obsidian daggers at Cathal, then finally says, “Meriam performed the spell that she did because she knew it was the only way Zendaya could be free.”
“What. Fucking. Spell?” My father heaves smoke.
Justus slips his lower lip between his teeth, as though he’s weighing the best way of delivering the information. “She painted a death sigil over Zendaya’s heart that immobilized her and made her body appear exsanguinated.”
My mind flashes to the cross Justus drew over his son’s heart days ago. Could it be the same sigil?
“No one knew of the tether that existed between the three Shabbin witches, not even I, so when I carried her exsanguinated body to Marco, he didn’t question her death. He was angry, though. Gods, he was angry. He’d had Pierre of Nebba and a recently widowed Vladimir of Glace engaged in a bidding war over her.”
Color leaches from my poor father’s face.
“I carried her out to the ocean and slipped her into it. Although I noticed another sigil drawn on her body, my knowledge of them was dismal, so I didn’t realize what Meriam had done until . . .” He turns to look at me. “Until word reached me that Fallon had befriended amareserpens. And even then, I didn’t put two and two together.”
I’ve started many a journey knowing my destination, but not the path that would get me there. In this case, I’ve not the slightest clue where Justus is leading us.
“It wasn’t until many years later, years during which Fallon formed a bond with this giant pink serpent, that I realized what Meriam had done.”
“What did she do?” Although my body’s made of flesh, it suddenly feels entirely made of breath.
“She performed the same spell your mother cast to keep you safe.”
My eyes spread wide, but not as wide as my father’s where the blood-marbled whites seem to devour the brown irises.
I blink. “She sent her into a Faerie womb?”
“Not a Faerie’s.”
Cian tilts his head to the side, his thick black hair sliding over his furrowed brow. “A human womb?”
My hand crawls up to my gaping mouth because I know . . .
I know exactly into whose womb Meriam sent Zendaya.
Forty-Two
Ipress my fingertips against my palpitating lips. “Oh my Gods.” The chills that spread over me are so brisk they crenellate the bare skin of my forearms. “Oh my Gods!Minimus?!”
When Justus nods, the goosebumps sink and spill into me.
“You’re certain?” I gasp.
“Meriam has since confirmed it.”
All this time . . . all this time, the woman who made me with the giant who stands frozen in shock, has been at my side, watching over me, healing me, caring for me, loving me.
Back in the vault, Phoebus had joked that Minimus was related to me. To think my friend wasn’t that far off the mark. To think that Minimusisrelated to me. When he hears that his jest wasn’t totally awry, that the serpent he joked was my brother is, in fact, my mother . . .
Oh.
My.
Gods.
