My eyes widened. A thousand years old? Was she kidding? Penelope was over three hundred years old, and I thought she was ancient.
The old lady’s eyes turned to me. They were violet, like Kalen’s, but so full of wisdom that I was momentarily taken aback.
She gave Rafe a sharp look. “Is she the one Silverthorne has been waiting for?”
Rafe nodded. “Yes, Maggie, it is she. I must say, I am surprised you know about her.”
“I know many things. But Silverthorne did send me a raven with the news. I have been expecting her.” The old fae lady chuckled.
Rafe raised his eyebrows and smiled.
“Serena, my child, come here,” she said to my aunt.
Aunt Serena went over and hugged the old fae lady. “Maggie, it’s good to see you.”
The old lady smiled. “How is your father?”
“The same.” Aunt Serena gave her an exasperated look. “Grumpy as ever and running about the kingdoms as if he were still a young warrior-mage.”
The old fae lady burst out in a fit of laughter that sounded like a hacking cough. Aunt Serena laughed with her, as if only they were privy to their private joke.
“Well then, all is right with the world for now,” Maggie said finally, her voice scratchy. “If Silverthorne is on top of things, I do not worry much.”
She turned her violet eyes on me and stretched out her hands. “Come here, my child.” She held my hands in her old, wrinkled ones and looked at my face. “Yes, it is she,” said Magdalene after a perceptible pause. “Let me see the amulet.”
I threw a glance at Aunt Serena, who nodded slightly. I pulled out the Amulet of Auraken. The old lady fingered it with her bony fingers and mumbled a few words in a language I couldn’t understand. She looked like she was reading the inscription.
Finally, she looked up and gave me a toothy grin. “So, young princess, I’m glad that all my work was not in vain.”
“What do you mean?” How did she know me?
“Come, sit, and I will tell you. Be a dear and bring over the stool from by the window, please.”
I did as I was asked, and soon Aunt Serena and I were seated on small wooden stools. Erien sat on the floor, and Rafe lounged against a wall. It wasn’t every day you met someone who had lived for a thousand years. The amount of knowledge that she had accumulated over the centuries must have been immense, so I listened intently to what she had to say.
“When you were born, you were a little menace,” Magdalene said, chuckling to herself. “In your first month alone, you stunned three of your nurses, and their memories had to be modified because of it. By the time you were a few months old, strange things had started happening all over the palace. Old dogs were turning back into puppies, and cats were turning into birds. Once when you were taken to the gardens for a walk, the stable grooms complained that all the horses in the stables had turned into pigs.”
I burst out laughing at that one. “So it was me? I did all that?”
Magdalene nodded, her expression becoming more serious. “That and much more. Even as a baby your fae magic was stronger than most, and mages don’t come into their powers until they turn sixteen. You were a nuisance in the palace. Your mother was forever being blamed for the mysterious fae magic that was alarming the people of Illiador. Many times she would take the blame for it, and because everyone loved Elayna, they chalked it up to the mischievous streak of the fae. Your parents finally got so worried that your mother came to me for help. They were afraid that, once people found out their child was a fae-mage, you would be killed before you could even grow up. It was I who gave them the amulet that you now wear around your neck. I had come across it in my travels through the Old Forest.”
“Maggie,” said Aunt Serena softly, “if you knew all these years that she was a fae-mage and wore the amulet, why didn’t you tell any of us? We would have kept searching for her. We gave up hope because there was no magical trace left of her when she was sent to the other world.”
The old fae woman looked straight into Aunt Serena’s eyes. “It was not her destiny to be found by any of us.” Her eyes turned the color of icy pools. “Her destiny was set long, long ago, before she was even born. There are powerful forces at work here, forces you cannot even begin to comprehend, forces that have shaped our world from before the dawn of time. Everything is not always exactly as it seems, and it is ultimately Aurora’s choices and strength of character that will determine her fate and the fate of all of Avalonia.”
“And what is my fate?” I was too intrigued to remember my manners.
“There is a long road ahead, and soon you will find out where your true path lies. But not today,” she answered, her eyes turning back to a calm shade of violet.
I nodded. As usual, I rarely got a straight answer in this world, but I was thankful that Magdalene shared that much with me. It was a glimpse into a life that I did not remember. And it made me realize that my parents must have loved and cared for me before my aunt cruelly murdered them.
I stared out of the window, thinking about my parents and what they must have been like. I could picture them in my mind now, since I had seen portraits of them at Silverthorne Castle. I did look a lot like my dad: jet-black hair and striking green eyes with heavy lashes. But my heart-shaped face and wide full lips were so much more like my mother. It was quite amazing to see the
