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“The pointy hats like to play that she’s a dud, that she’s never come into her magic all these years.” He stretched his legs out, crossed them at the ankles and then shoved his hands behind his head. “Been watching that one especially closely though. I’ve seen her use magic, just not the way her parents used it, and that’s what those pricks are looking for—a replacement for her parents. They are so focused on the left hand, they aren’t seeing what the right hand is doing.”

“They aren’t her fucking parents,” I hissed, territorial and jealous of her claim to a family that had never been hers. Green Man’s brow twitched, but he didn’t move. I softened; it wasn’t his fault she claimed a family that was by rights mine. “Is magic hereditary or something?”

“Not really. Each of them have their own relationship with magic. The average Fae uses their magic to do jobs. Like a tailor might be especially adroit with a loom or pattern making, weaving magic into the patterns to make armor, or glamours. It takes a special level of skill to weave spider silk, for instance. I met a Fae once who spent decades honing the skill to pour just enough magic into the loom and shuttle to weave silk strong enough to shatter swords and bounce arrows clean off it. Or a cheese monger might use it to cull and encourage the cheese bacteria to develop special flavors. Some of the drui and more erudite Fae experiment with making poisons, the especially skilled ones even brew intoxicants mixed with magic. Either which way, they don’t inherit it so much as they build their skills with magic to do whatever it is their job requires. That’s why the Far Darrig are the slavers—they are skilled with crafting flesh, some more so than others. They call it skin painting, I think.” He closed his eyes, and enjoyed the way his body swayed naturally with the breeze. “The peers of the realm, though, are different. Their magic is tied to their titles, the court they swear fealty to, and the god they kneel before. Since she’s supposedly the daughter of two gods and the only living heir of her court, they think she should be this magical savant. Should be slinging the shit left and right. So they don’t pay attention to what she can actually do.”

“And what’s that?” I whispered, enraptured by what amounted to my first true lesson of the power and breadth of magic.

“Ever listened to the bitch talk?”

“A few times.”

He opened one eye to watch me. “Didn’t like it?”

I narrowed my eyes on him. “No, I very much liked whatever she was saying at the time. I remember wanting to lean into her and touch her but I walked away hating her, and I can’t for the life of me remember what she said.”

He tilted his head with a grin cracking in his vines.

“She’s a Jedi!” I shrieked.

“Not sure what that is, but if those are like sirens, yeah. Seen her lay it on a few of the courtiers. Fae who didn’t even like her would go from plottin’ to slip a knife in her liver to feeding her grapes in a single afternoon. Not sure if that’s her only magic but I’ve seen it more than once.” A creak set in as he shifted. “So maybe you’re like her. Got a talent for pissing folks off, maybe that’s your magic.”

“Nah, that’s not magic. That’s just my exceptionally charming personality,” I quipped with a wink. “Did you know my parents? Did you see their magic?”

“I did,” Violet cut in from a few feet away where she was finger combing Emerald’s hair. Our dear silent friend had her head in the doll’s lap and seemed to be napping as she enjoyed the comforts the matriarch provided.

“And? What was their magic like?”

“Can’t say much about your mother. I only ever saw her and those coins.” She paused as if thinking. “Though I did once see her at a festival, passing out ribbons. She would pluck one of her own hairs from her head and braid it into the hair of the winner of the fire leaps and my mistress at the time wanted one real bad. Said that as long as Lady Airgetlám’s hair was braided into hers, she’d have whatever wish she could think of granted. She was a child, mind, but it seemed like a big deal. The Fae are an overly superstitious lot to begin with, so you learn to take half of what they claim as true and ignore the other half. But that one? It was different. Never seen the Fae so riled up and competitive for a tangible thing like that before. As for her coins, I never saw it, but I heard whispers that if a coin went missing, she was stealing your luck back to her, and if a coin appeared, she was blessing you.”

“And my father?” I knew next to nothing, and my greed for any little bit of knowledge about him was insatiable.

Violet grew silent and severe, her hand ceasing to brush through Emerald’s hair. “You don’t want what he had, I Don’t Know. If you have magic like your father, it’s best you don’t play with it.”

“Why?” I breathed. My mother had said he wasn’t like other Fae—she had hinted that something lay in the way he sculpted magic that was strange and unusual—but Violet seemed almost frightened by it.

“Because of all the Fae I have ever known, seen, or met, Túathal was the only one who haunts my dreams.” She shivered and leaned as close as she could. “Fae are just magic wrapped in skin, girl. Mind that. Túathal was the master of magic. He could turn a Fae inside out and shake out the magic. He could reclaim it and wipe them from existence for a single slight. He could build magic around him so powerful that he could create new worlds all together. He was not just the master of magic. He was magic itself—wild, capricious, temperamental, and prone to whimsy and violence in equal terrifying measures. There was a reason no one mourned his loss when he was killed, only annoyed by how it would inconvenience them.”

I frowned deep and looked away. Some strange blood loyalty pricked at me. How dare that little doll speak poorly about my father? “I think we’ve traded enough stories for now.”

I didn’t like the hiss of irritation in my voice. Violet had done nothing wrong. She had said nothing that was untrue. She wasn’t a liar. And that knowledge made what she had shared even more vexing. A father I had never met may have been a monster and I was like him—or so my mother had said. Did that make me a monster too?

“I mean no insult to your dead father, I Don’t Know,” whispered Violet, drawing my attention back to her. “I only mean to caution you. We don’t know what you’ll be playing at if you try to learn your magic. Could be that you favor your mother. Could be that you favor your father. Could be that all that time in Human has turned your magic in an entirely different way. Magic out here in the wilds of Magh Meall is already unstable, unpredictable. I’m only cautioning that we don’t know even in the best of conditions what you might be able to do.”

The crack and pop of branches and vines curling up into a rogue’s grin drew my head to Green Man. Madness ticked at the edges of his gaze for but a single breath before it fled. “Nothing to it but to find out. Besides, what do we have to do aside from play while the pooch is on his mission?”

He reached out and pulled me to my feet, guiding me out into the field, away from the horrified face of the little doll with the living gem’s head in her lap.

“All right, dear one, I’m not exactly sure how this works. They usually keep us out of the training rooms when the youngsters are learning, so I’m winging it.” He raised my arms and pointed me away from everyone.

“I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

“Where’s your sense of adventure? What’s the worst that can happen?”

“Oh, I don’t know—I light us all on fire or drop meteors from the sky right on all our heads?” Pops’ warning about the stability of magic was suddenly ringing in my ears like a struck gong.

“Well, think of something less murdery. I know that’ll be a stretch for you. Maybe just a little bunny?”

“This is a really bad idea.”