Otto’s serpentine eyes sparkled with smug amusement. “Odd for achoreographerto be carrying a sword, don’t you think?”
Mireille would never forget that grinning skull pommel. She’d never seen its like, despite all the missions she’d executed for the IA.
Otto stalked to an overstocked shelf and fished out a tiny book.
Mireille’s fingers trembled as he handed it to her and she beheld the title, scrolled in golden print across the tattered fabric cover. One of the few titles written in the common tongue rather than Aramaelish.
A Comprehensive History of Ethyrian Weaponry.
The air in the room thinned, and a pounding rush overtook her mind as her lungs tightened.
“Turn to page one-hundred-and-ninety-four, if you’d be so kind.” Otto returned to his seat.
Mireille did as he asked, arriving at a page with an illustration of her father’s sword with all the parts identified—fuller, edge, cross-guard, point, grip.
And pommel.
Mireille’s vision swam as she attempted to read the words.
The skull pommel represents mortality, a common symbol used across various human weapons.
This had to be some kind of trick. This book couldn’t be real, just another of Otto’s lies.
Her breakfast threatened to crawl up her throat as Mireille gripped the edge of the desk, certain she was about to pass out.
“You lied to us the other night, Mireille,” Otto said, basking in her confusion. “Your father was not a choreographer. He wasn’t even Fae.
“Your father washuman.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Mireille’s entire childhood flashed before her eyes.
Her mother’s insistence that she control her emotions. Her irrational fear of Mireille shifting. Her determination to keep Mireille away from anyone who might be able to sense what her daughter was.
“Did you know?” Otto asked.
“No.” A choked whisper.
Her wolf snarled at Otto’s gleefully smug grin.
Mireille pushed down the rage, the grief. Calmed her wolf. Smoothed everything over with that glacial detachment she’d always found it so easy to conjure. “This is why you invited me.”
“We’ve met so many interesting individuals in our travels throughout the continent. Including a rather forthcoming wolf pack in a small village in Akti a few decades ago. One wolf in particular told us the most incredible story about a female named Vivienne Valois who’d fallen in love with a human, then fled her pack in fear when she realized she was with child. They tracked her down eventually, of course. But the fierce female—and her even fiercer daughter—fought them, chased them away. Though not before both females sustained some rather nasty injuries. Including a gash to the younger she-wolf’s front rightleg.” Otto gestured to her scar. “Valois sounds anawfullot like Valette.”
Mireille could barely breathe. Who else knew about this? The Empire had claimed they’d discovered her father’s identity. If so, and if they knew she was half-human, why hadn’t she been arrested? Unless they’d suspected Otto’s plans all along, had thrown her in his path on purpose. Used her, yet again, for their own gains.
“When we saw you at the ballet last week, saw that scar on your forearm, we knew. And your lies at dinner the other night, not to mention your revelatory vision in the Halfway, only confirmed our suspicions.” Otto steepled his fingers atop the desk, leering. “We have been searching for you for quite some time, Mireille Valois.”
She raised her chin, refusing to show Otto how much he’d thrown her. “Why?”
“We’ve sought Fae with human heritage for centuries. Sometimes we are wrong, but more often than not… We were correct about nearly every guest this weekend. Their visions confirmed it when they were visited by their human ancestors. Though most of their mortal blood is removed by several generations. They possess seeds of elemental power, but their magic will not be as strong as yours. We have different plans for them.”
“Whatplans?”
“So many questions,” Otto chuckled and Mireille fought the urge to call upon her wolf and kill Otto right here, right now. Stop all this madness.
But her wolf was just as shell-shocked as she was, reeling from the world-altering information Otto had just shared. Why had her mother never told her? And did Otto know more about her father? His name, perhaps?
