“Explain it all to me, won’t you, Zeph? How you two ended up together, and about his brother, and Julian. Why did you kill Julian?”
He sighed. “I am, as you have probably worked out, not actually human.”
“Yes, the scales alerted me to that.”
“I’ve inhabited—or haunted—Elegy Island for centuries. Most of the time, I can shift in and out of my nix form at will, but when the moon is full, I must transform, and when I do, I am not myself. Marwenna, the queen of Ashkendor, liked to maroon her enemies on my island when the moon was full and then watch from the sea as I destroyed them one by one.”
“Oh,” Magdala gasped. She realized it was rude and covered her mouth with her hand.
“Your father was my warden, your grandfather as well, and back and back for generations.”
Magdala’s neck warmed with shame. If her father had kept the house, would she have been Zephyr’s warden, too? She turned away from the thought in horror.
“And then, one day,” Zephyr continued, “I was in my fits, prowling the beach, and I came upon a little boy.”
Magdala’s jaw dropped, and she looked down at Asherton. “How did he end up on Elegy?”
“Fearing the curse and the superstitions of the people, Queen-Regent Madelaine sent Asherton to live with Tiernan—his father—in Ashkendor. But what Madelaine did not know is that Marwenna, Tiernan’s queen, was not the legitimate mother of her only son. Evander was born of another of Tiernan’s mistresses, and so Asherton threatened her line. And in so doing, threatened her claim to the throne.
“And so she intercepted Ash’s boat, took him from his guards, and left him on my island. To be devoured by me. She is a vicious woman. And so, one night, as I prowled the beach, I came upon a child kneeling on the sand. I remember the moonlight on his face,” Zephyr continued. “He was holding a bullfrog in his hands, and as I approached him with my teeth bared and madness in my mind, he thrust the creature in my face and said, ‘It looks like you!’”
Magdala snorted. “That sounds like something he would do.”
Zephyr laughed softly. “It jarred me so profoundly that I shut my teeth and stared at him. He wasn’t afraid of me, and he began to circle me, prodding my scales, bending over to stare at my webbed feet. The indignity of it undid me. Never before had I known mercy in my fits. I did not know I had the capacity for it. But, perhaps because he was not afraid of me, or perhaps because he was so small and abandoned and his wonder reached me in my soul, I recalled myself.
“The waves sang on the beach as I reached out my hand. He put his little fingers in mine, pointed toward the house, and said, ‘Is that home?’
“I was shattered. I swept him up in my arms and I carried him into the forest. When I awoke in my human form, he was asleep on my chest. I sent a message to Queen-Regent Madelaine and told her what had happened, and while I waited for her reply, I built him a little hut in the woods, and I fed him berries and mushrooms and laughed when he turned his grubby nose up at them. And, worse of all, I told him my real name.”
“Why is that worse of all?” Magdala asked.
“Because a nix is a kind of faerie and our names have strong magic. Anyone who knows our name may control us. When I gave him my name, I gave him power over me. Any command he gave, I had to obey.”
“Is that the name he used for you in the river?”
Zephyr nodded. “Don’t get any ideas you can use it. Overhearing the name doesn’t give it power. I must tell it to you.”
“Then why give it to him? If it had such power?”
Zephyr lifted one shoulder. “Because I feared I might eat him. And if he had my name, he could stop me if I tried.”
“And that is why you could not tell anyone you killed Julian,” Magdala mused. “Because he forbade it.”
For the first time since she met him, Magdala saw Zephyr’s age in his eyes. “He had never invoked my name before. Not once. Even when he was a child and could have made me do all manner of ridiculous things. But after Ikilled Julian, he turned on me and invoked my name and told me I could not tell anyone what had happened.”
“And the house? How did you get the house?”
“By the time Queen-Regent Madelaine sent someone for Asherton, I realized I couldn’t trust his mother in Allagesh or his father in Ashkendor. So I frightened her messenger away and told him to tell the queen-regent that I would keep her inconvenience here on Elegy, if she would let me have the house. She was all too eager to hide her shame. Tiernan owned the island, and he was happy enough to let her use it. Marwenna dared not go against them, or else threaten the dragon trade. And so I became Asherton’s guardian, and I raised him to be more nix than human.”
“So it’s your fault my father lost the house,” Magdala said with a smile.
Zephyr shrugged. “Your father is not a good man. I know that is hard to hear.”
Magdala didn’t reply. She wished it was hard to hear, but it felt like wondering if you’re ill and then having a doctor confirm it—a bitter kind of relief.
The door creaked and Seamus leaned in. Asherton stirred.
“I’ve made some porridge," Seamus said. “Magdala, come and let me see to your eye. It looks angry.”
