“Does your brother show any special abilities?” I asked.
“No. I think my biological mother’s time powers only passed down to me, because I’m her female offspring, and her heir. My brother couldn’t inherit them, because he’s male,” Kallie said.
“It still has to be a shock,” Charlie replied.
Kallie nodded. “I was pretty pissed about it all, at first, but Ava’s surgery and coma put everything into perspective. I hate to admit it, but I think my parents did the right thing. The fae world is so cruel, and if anyone knew I was the daughter of a goddess, things would’ve turned out bad. There’s no telling if me or my brother would’ve survived.”
“You still have the right to be mad at them,” I pointed out.
“Maybe. I’m not sure.” Kallie shrugged again. “The worst part is that I’m not actually related to my dad. We’re really close. Finding out I wasn’t his biological daughter was crushing.”
“I can’t imagine.” I’d go nuts if I realized Daddy had been lying to me my whole life about being his child.
“And I have no idea who these people are, these people that gave life to me,” Kallie continued. “My parents talked about them every now and then, but not enough to know who they truly were. I think it hurt my mother too much to bring them up, because she and her brother were attached at the hip. She never got over his death. But I really want to know more about them. I’m just too afraid to ask.”
“Will your brother remain king if the public finds out?” Charlie questioned.
Kallie bit her lip. “I don’t know. Adoption is fully accepted in the fae world, because our illusion magic is our intention. Blood doesn’t matter much, because once youproclaima child to be yours, they are, no matter if you’re blood-related or not. That’s how adoption is seen, in the eyes of the fae.”
Kallie crossed her arms. “But my parents lied about our origins to keep us safe, and worse than that, they fabricated legal documents and gave false royal decrees in order to do so. That woulddefinitelycall the crown into question. The governing body in Malovia would want to do an investigation, and that could potentially kick my brother off the throne.”
“So we need to keep this a secret, so your brother stays in power. We don’t want anyone governing Malovia that we don’t know and can’t trust,” Charlie said.
“Exactly.” Kallie let out a short breath. “But that’s not all. My mother told me that during the Malovian Revolution, when I was just a few months old, I accidentally created some sort of time portal and transported her, myself and my brother forward nine months in time.”
“Ancestors. I can’t believe it,” I breathed.
“Neither could I, but my dad told me they had proof— the three of us vanished for nearly a year without a trace, and no one knew where we went until my mother reappeared at the same spot she’d vanished in. To her, it’d been like seconds had passed, but for the others, months had gone by.” Kallie shook her head.
“If you’ve got that kind of power, we need to utilize it,” Charlie said firmly. “There’s no telling how we could change things if you can go forward and backward months, or even years in time.”
“I don’t know. I didn’t think it was possible before, because time magic is so difficult. I can’t understand why I was able to transport myself and two other people through time effortlessly as an infant, and I struggle to make time stop for even a few seconds now.” Kallie’s voice was thick with frustration.
“You must’ve been triggered by something as a child, and it threw the magic into overdrive,” Marcus theorized.
“That’s what my dad thinks, but we have no way to confirm it.” Kallie shook her head. “I wish there was a way to talk to my biological mother. I’ve tried performing ceremonies and meditations to speak with Neva, and it’s like she doesn’t hear me, because she never responds. She’s a goddess— why is she ignoring me? I’m her daughter. I just want to understand who I am.”
Marcus squeezed her shoulder. “I’m sure that your mom would talk to you if she could. There must be something going on in the spiritual realm that’s stopping her from contacting you.”
Kallie glanced at Marcus. “I just hope that by investigating my biological mother, I can learn how to control my own time powers. I almost wish my brother had demigod magic, too, so we could figure it out together. We’ve combined our magic to make spells before. But I don’t think he’d be capable of helping me pull off time manipulation spells.”
“Maybe he could. Twin magic is weird,” Marcus said. “Rishi and I showed that down in the Underground.”
“Uh… Rishi’s a cat,” I said. Rishi let out a loud meow.
“He is, but in Miriamic culture, we believe that the souls of our loved ones come back to us in the form of cats after they die,” Marcus said. “I’ve had Rishi for a long time. He’s more than just a cat. He’s actually my identical twin brother, Dean.”
I was stunned, but tried to keep the shocked look off my face for Marcus’ sake. I wanted to ask how his brother died, but that would be way too invasive.
Kallie, though, was an obnoxious fae, and failed to tone down her reaction. “You had atwin brother? What the fuck, Marcus? Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“It’s not exactly something that’s easy to talk about,” he snapped back, and he pulled his arm away from her.
“You could’ve toldme,” she insisted.
“He did tell someone,” Charlie added. “I knew about it.”
Kallie huffed. “Wow. You’ll tell Charlie, but not me. I thought we were closer than that. What other secrets are you keeping?”
