“Do you?”
“Yes. It smells like you.”
He shot me his condescending look—narrowed eyes, lips drawn tight—an expression that made me feel as if he were smarter than me and he knew it.
“You’ve come to visit me because you’ve found a common hair tie?” he asked. “One that you believe belongs to me because of its scent. I fail to see the seriousness of this conversation.”
“Because it was in my room and it had no reason to be there.”
He took his time as he sipped his tea.
“Something of value has gone missing,” I said. “I thought you might know where it is.”
“Ah,” he said. “I see. What was this valuable item? A hair comb that smells of Wult body odor?”
“Ha. That’s really funny.” I couldn’t believe it. Had he just made a joke? Perhaps this wasn’t my father at all—for all I knew, I could be speaking to a goblin in disguise. “I can’t tell you what it is.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Then how do you expect me to find it for you?”
“I don’t want your help,” I said. “I want an explanation. Why were you in my room?”
“You are jumping to conclusions. You say you found this hair tie in your room. You suspect that it belongs to me, but it does not. I will ask you politely why you are accusing me of being in your room when I have never stepped foot inside.”
He was lying. This was a first. I was sure he’d never lied to me before. He’d always dodged the truth or withheld information, but he’d never told me a bald-faced lie. “Father, why are you lying to me?”
He arched an eyebrow. “I am not—”
“You are.” I crossed my arms. He could push, but I could push harder. I took the hair tie from him and placed it on the table’s center, directly between us. “I still have half my magic. I can do a possession spell right now and find out if you’re telling the truth. Shall I?”
He flinched.
Aha, I was getting somewhere. Holding my hand palm down over the hair tie, I readied a spell. My magic flowed within me as I called it to the surface. It came sluggishly as usual, and I wasn’t sure I could control it long enough to complete the enchantment, but I was hoping I didn’t have to.
Closing my eyes, I prepared to conjure the magic word when my father stopped me.
“Olive,” he said. “It will do no good.”
I opened my eyes.
His shoulders sagged. “What I did was for good reason.”
I blinked. “Are you admitting to being in my room?”
He took his time before answering. “Yes.”
“Why would you lie to me?”
“I felt it necessary. I would rather not involve you in my personal affairs. Elven politics are complicated and have become quite dangerous.”
“What do politics have to do with the orb?”
He threaded his fingers together. “Orb?”
“Yes. The orb. You were trying to find it, weren’t you?”
“No.”
“But you just admitted to searching for it in my cabin.”
“I admitted to being in your room. I admit to taking something, but it was not the orb. One day, you will realize that what you see is not always the truth. You believe I was in your room to steal the orb, although your assumption could not be more wrong.”
“Then why were you there?”
He sipped his tea. “I was there to retrieve an item that belonged to me.”
“What?”
“My memory charm.”
“Memory charm? Why didn’t you just ask me for it?”
“Would you have given it to me?”
“I—” Would I have? I’d considered other uses for it. It was a far-fetched plan on my part, one that involved Kull—a solution to our current problems. My life would have been much less complicated if Father hadn’t taken it from me.
“Possibly.” Probably not.
“That memory charm is a powerful talisman—more powerful than you realize. If it had fallen into the wrong hands, the consequences would be unimaginable.”
“Yeah, I get it. But why did you have to tear my room apart to find it?”
“I didn’t.”
“You didn’t?”
“No. When I entered your room, it had not been touched, and I left it the same way. Whoever else entered your room did so after I left.”
I rubbed my forehead, feeling a headache throb. “When, exactly, were you in my room?”
“I went there directly after finishing my evening meal.”
After the evening meal, which meant that whoever had tried to find the orb must have come after dinner and had most likely been there during the fire. Heidel had helped to put the fire out, so it couldn’t have been her. And it hadn’t been my father. Who else would have had reason to search for it?
“It was important for me to have the charm in my possession,” Father said. “Soon, after the magic has been restored, I will use the memory charm to journey back to Earth Kingdom in order to erase your mother’s memories of Faythander.”
“I still don’t understand what the big deal is,” I said. “What’s so horrible that she isn’t supposed to remember?”
“I cannot tell you—”
“Stop,” I said, feeling my anger rise. “You entered my cabin without my permission. You took the charm. You’re planning to take away my mother’s memories just when I feel I have a chance to get to know her. She’s been irreparably damaged by your mind-altering spells. Stop playing these stupid games with me. I want to know the truth about my mother. Why is it necessary to take away her memories?”
He eyed me, as if seeing me for the first time. Sighing, he stared at his cup of tea without speaking. “You are right,” he finally admitted. “I have become accustomed to guarding the truth, but perhaps the time has come for you to know who your mother is.”
“Who is she?”
He paused. “Your mother is a witch.”
My blood ran cold. “Witch?”
He nodded. “As you know, witches are born both in Faythander and Earth Kingdom, although true witches from Earth Kingdom have become very rare. Many of them were burned to
