missing child,” my father said. “In the end, I accepted his word.”
My mother sat in silence, staring off to the side. I moved off the chair and sat beside her. “I didn’t want it to come out this way,” she said.
I put my arm around her and kissed her temple. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“We wanted another child so badly. I had just lost one when Nigel came to us,” she said.
I kissed her again. “It’s okay. You’re my mom. Nothing will ever change that.”
I stood. “I need a moment. I’ll be right back.”
I passed Callin’s room. The Clure stood at the window. I don’t know if he saw me, but I continued down the hall to another waiting room that was empty. I leaned my hands against the windowsill and breathed deeply. I had no idea what this meant to me. I had spent my entire life thinking one thing, taking it for granted actually, to find it was untrue. The people I thought I knew were not the people I thought they were. I was not the person I thought I was.
Joe appeared behind me, his essence flashing pink in the window. He fluttered up, trying to see through his reflection. He hovered close to the glass, intent on a smudge.
“You never said anything,” I said.
He licked the window and frowned in disgust. Unlike him, I wasn’t surprised. “Your mum asked me not to,” he said.
Joe had been around my family for generations. He was an Old One, one of the few confirmed people I knew who had come from Faerie. He didn’t remember much, mostly people he had known, but larger events escaped him. Not that memory loss bothered him. Flits remembered what they cared about, and what they cared about didn’t always make sense. He was around when Nigel showed up with a mysterious baby. He knew my mother hadn’t been pregnant with me. He had been my companion, from birth I thought.
“Did you know Nigel was involved?” I asked.
He settled on the windowsill. “He visited a lot when you were a baby.”
“Did he ever say anything about my parents?”
“He trusted them to raise you,” Joe said.
“No, I meant my biological parents.”
“Oh. Not that I remember. Connor, you seem upset.”
“I just found out my parents aren’t my parents. It changes things, doesn’t it?”
He shrugged. “I don’t see how. Tom and Mom are bestest parents. You could have got stuck with mine.”
“They did name you Stinkwort,” I said.
He tilted his head at me. “Exactly. Really, who cares, Connor. We end up who we are for a lot of reasons.”
“What if it turns out that Meryl and I are brother and sister?” I asked.
“What if you are?” he asked.
I glanced down at him, wondering if he were that indifferent to the ramifications. He smirked at me. “Okay, fine, I’m overthinking the situation,” I said.
“Again,” he said.
“Well, I’d like to do a little of that alone. Can you give me some space?” I asked.
“I’d say you have enough space between your ears, but I know how crowded it is in there.”
“Thanks. Come get me if I’m not back when the surgery’s over,” I said.
He winked at me and popped out. I stretched out on a couch and stared at the ceiling. People walked by the door, their body signatures growing and fading as they went about their business. Someone entered the room, a Danann fairy with a strong signature. I shifted on the couch to see who it was. From behind, the man’s wings obscured his features. The wings were huge, multilayered, and vibrant with essence. Even without his fey aspect, he was physically imposing, tall, and muscular. He seemed to be waiting for someone. I settled back and closed my eyes.
I snapped them back open when I sensed the shot of essence. As I sat up, the Danann put the finishing touches on an essence barrier across the door. When he faced me, a shiver went over me, one part surprise, one part fear.
“Brion Mal,” I said.
An assured, maybe smug, smile crossed his face. “I’m flattered you recognize me,” he said.
Flattered, as if he couldn’t possibly know his fame among the fey. Brion Mal was leader of the High Queen’s Fianna, the greatest fighting force in the world. When people talked about elite fairy warriors, they spoke of Danann security agents with their menacing black outfits and blank silver helmets that hid their identities. They spoke about ability levels they could only dream of having. They spoke in tones either hushed in awe and fear or raised in anger and bitterness. When Danann security agents talked about elite fairy warriors, they spoke of the High Queen’s Fianna.
The Fianna served the Seelie Court, regardless of High Queen or King. They came from ancient clan lines, the sons and daughters of powerful leaders and warriors. Their reputations preceded them, They didn’t hide their faces behind masks. They wanted people to know who they were. The mention of their names instilled fear and dread in whomever the Fianna targeted.
“Somehow, I don’t think you’re here for my brother,” I said.
“Your brother concerns me even less than you do,” he said.
Whatever his intention, he was going to succeed. I didn’t think I was a match for Brion Mal even at the peak of my abilities. I didn’t bother activating my body shield. He would break through it with ease and leave me bruised in the process. That didn’t mean I was going to go down without a fight. I rubbed my calf, using the nervous gesture to bring my hand near my dagger.
“Don’t struggle,” he said.
I never touched my dagger. Essence leaped from his fingers, a fine mesh that spiraled through the air and settled over me. The binding immobilized me without pain. Mal didn’t need pain to control me. He blew a deep breath at me, the binding shivered, and my mind clouded. I was asleep before I finished falling off the couch.
27
I woke up in a room about ten feet square that was sheathed in glass and steel. Stretching, I dropped my feet from the bed to the floor in the empty surroundings. From the small size and low ceiling, I guessed I was in a safe house, one of many the Guild had scattered around Boston and its suburbs. Safe houses were two-edged swords. Good to be in when someone was hunting you down. Bad to be in when the Guild didn’t want anyone to know what it was doing to you. Under the circumstances, the latter was more likely, so not so good for me. At least, I had gotten some sleep, and I wasn’t dead.
From the inside, holding cells looked the same, so I had no idea where I was. Unlike the police, the Guild needed safe havens with the added level of glass-and-steel sheathing, which slow down someone with essence ability and give the guards time to defend the room. Cost wasn’t an issue, but secrecy was. It wasn’t easy building one without the neighbors’ noticing. The Guild didn’t like abandoning them unless they had good reason.
I didn’t have to wait long to find out what I was doing there. The door opened, and Ryan macGoren entered without ceremony. He raised an essence barrier between us, dividing the room in half. He wasn’t taking any chances. I didn’t blame him after our last encounter, but the barrier said more about macGoren’s paranoia than about the threat I posed. He was a Danann at the height of his ability. I had a stone in my head.
MacGoren had been injured in the catalyzing event of the Guildhouse destruction. He bore scars from a blast of pure essence that had hit him. His once-handsome face, which had turned heads on the fey social scene, had been scorched smooth. The bones of his cheeks stood out, hard-edged and bleached. His hairline had been burned back, the hair that he had prided himself on was now an odd sweep of blond that hung lank from the top of his head. The most dramatic change, though, was that his eyes had crystallized. The same thing had happened to me, but only my irises had been affected. With macGoren, the eyes had vanished beneath an almost insectlike faceted layer of glittering membrane over the entire surfaces.
