“That’s awful,” I said softly. “I can’t imagine being okay with that injustice.”
He looked up, and his eyes met mine. “Truly? You can’t? It happens in your world all the time. Earth is full of selfish people who do things for selfish reasons.”
I was taken aback by the accusation, but as much as I wanted to dispute it, I knew he wasn’t totally wrong. “Maybe so. But I’m going to do what I can to fix that.”
Something shifted in his expression, but once again, it was some emotion I couldn’t decipher. He didn’t give much away. He wasn’t as guarded as Syrion. His emotions were spelled across his face. I just wasn’t able to read them yet.
“Then perhaps Earth is lucky to have you as their Queen, whether they know it or not.”
I smiled a bit. It was the first compliment he’d paid me since we met, certainly since he’d come to the Moonstone Castle.
“What else can you tell me about Bahz?”
He tilted his head a touch. “He’s certainly ruthless. I trained the man since he was a boy, and he was promoted just after I was. I’ve never had a closer friend… and yet he sentenced me to prison without asking my side of the story. He has a weakness for sex demons and a hatred for non-fae. Certainly not the qualities I would lead with to set him up with a matchmaker.”
At that, I couldn’t help but laugh as I tried to imagine how something like a dating app would work amongst these non-human creatures.
“Do you have any more questions to interrogate me with?” he raised an eyebrow. I sensed the slightest hint of teasing in his tone that made me feel at ease to continue.
“How much do you know about Minerva’s interactions with the council?”
As soon as my conversation with Kalian ended, I excused myself, and before I knew it, I was flying down the hall towards Daath’s room. I felt my heart race both from the exercise and from the adrenaline after learning what Kalian had to say.
“Daath,” I said, bursting through his door. He looked up from some documents when I opened the door. His bedroom was actually quite bare. I suspected that it was because he didn’t spend much time hanging out there. He was usually with Syrion or me, or out of the castle entirely. There was a large, lavish bed, a desk covered in letters organized into neat piles, and an armchair. Aside from a pitch-black rug, that was the extent of decor.
“What do you need, little owl?”
“I was talking to Kalian about the fae council.” I sat across from him in the armchair. “I think some of them might know something.”
He sighed softly and set his work down. He’d been trying to get me to ignore what I thought about the council, warning me about distractions, but I couldn’t. Even with other arguably more pressing concerns, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about this. The sight from the Floor of Dreams of the fae world in some sort of civil war wasn’t helping much either.
“Please, share with me what he told you,” he uttered. I frowned a bit. I was trying to understand where Daath was coming from and that he had more experience than I did in matters like this, but it was hard when he was so hell-bent on not agreeing with me.
“I know you want to dismiss this,” I said as I shook my head, “but just listen. Kalian said there had been rumors for centuries that Minerva repressed the memories of those around her in order to keep secrets. We know she can, because she did it to me, along with the wraith and the reaper that she sent after me. They’re only rumors, but he remembered a specific instant about eighteen years ago.” That caught his attention. Eighteen years ago was when Minerva destroyed my family.
“Kalian said there was a period where the council members were all acting strange, that usually at least one or two of them were missing from meetings or just from the palace. Then, apparently, one of them got stuck on Earth and broke his leg. He was too weak to world jump on his own, so Minerva sent Kalian to go get him, someone named Oli.”
“Oli?” Daath raised an eyebrow. “He was very close to her. But I can’t imagine a good reason he’d be on Earth.”
I nodded. He was starting to see my point. “So when Kalian went to get him, Oli told him specifically how he got injured and said something about the Queen acting the same as she did last time, but when Kalian asked him about that further, he said he couldn’t quite remember. So he ran into him the next day and asked how his leg was doing, and Oli told him he couldn’t remember how he broke it.”
A look of understanding spread across Daath’s face. “So, she really was controlling their memories?”
“I think so,” I nodded. “So if that’s true, you could unlock them, right?”
“That depends,” he said as he rested his hand against his chin, “on how long ago the events were and how strongly she locked the memories away. But it would be worth a try.”
A wave of relief hit me. To finally have Daath back on my side and not thinking I was in the wrong was a weight I hadn’t even realized I’d been shouldering. “Great! So, where’s Syrion?”
“Syrion is traveling. He’s trying to contact some other ancients and see if
