Chapter 13
The next morning, I felt lighter than I had in weeks. It was weird—carrying all of that guilt, all of that awfulness inside of me, and then vomiting it all up. It actually felt really, really…good.
Maeve hadn’t been home last night, but she sat at the table this morning, eating something that looked like mashed up rice in milk while skimming a stack of papers in front of her.
“Morning, Maeve,” I said, grabbing a bowl and the box of cocoa puffs that Mickey had procured for me.
Maeve frowned as the puffs pinged into the bowl.
“Good morning, Kella.”
I chomped down on my crisp, chocolaty goodness.
Maeve scanned me with her eyes. “You seem to be taking everything well.” The first thing Mickey had done when we’d gotten home yesterday was call Maeve about what had happened. She’d been in a council meeting at the time, and it’d turned out to be a long one. This was the first chance we had to talk after I found out about the fae.
“Well, yeah, why wouldn’t I?” I said. “This means I’m—” I opened my mouth to continue but nothing came out. Not a word. I sighed and said instead, “This means I’m not going crazy.”
“Of course you aren’t. Why would you have ever thought that?”
I tried to open my mouth to explain the shadows, but my jaw stayed firmly in place. I shrugged and gave Mickey the evil eye as he walked into the kitchen instead. Seemed like he didn’t tell Maeve everything, and now couldn’t do anything about that.
Stupid fae promise.
Mickey pulled a chair up to the table.
“Hey, Maeve,” he said, smiling. “How’d it go last night?”
Maeve sighed, pushing aside the papers. “Well enough, I suppose—given the message I delivered to the council.”
“Wait, your council isn’t a regular town council, is it?” I said.
Mickey shook his head. “Since we don’t have a queen at the moment, they rule the fae in her place.” Mickey turned back to Maeve. “How’d they take the news?”
Maeve shrugged. “As well as expected. We were, as you know, hoping to keep her ignorant for her own sake. We’ve been worried how someone with her mental instabilities might react to this sudden shift in world view.”
“Um, I’m still here, and I’m not unstable. Mickey, you know I’m not,” I said, waving my spoon in his face.
Mickey swatted it aside. “Yeah, Maeve, Kella thinks she’s stable.” I wanted to smack him with my spoon. Why did Mickey want Maeve to still think I was crazy? I glared at a spoonful of cereal before I chomped down on it. At least it was only for a few days more—stupid fae promise.
“And what about Kella being Magicless?” Mickey asked Maeve. “What’d they say about that?”
Maeve’s lips thinned. “Only that once word gets out, we will need to redouble our efforts to protect her.”
“Protect me? Why?” I asked between bites of cocoa puffs. “Do some fae have it out for non-magical humans?”
Maeve’s eyebrows shot sky high. “Mickey, I see you failed to explain a few key details.”
Mickey looked a little sheepish. “Well, I figured she’d had a lot of revelations already. I was hoping to spread the rest out a little more.”
My stomach clenched. “What revelations?” My voice came out calm, and I gave myself a mental pat on the back.
“Mickey.” Maeve’s tone was censuring. “Now that she knows, there are repercussions she needs to prepare for.”
Maeve leaned closer and took my left hand in hers, like she was trying to comfort me. But it had the opposite effect. My stomach churned. She’d used the word repercussions. And repercussions always meant bad stuff was about to happen.
“Kella,” Maeve said, looking me in the eyes. “You aren’t human. You are one hundred percent fae.”
I stared at her, waiting for an uncharacteristic punchline that would show she was joking. It didn’t come.
“But my dad…”
“He wasn’t your dad.” Mickey’s voice was rough, final.
“Not my…” My world started to spin. “But how? I’ve got a birth certificate, a social. I look just like him."
Maeve shook her head. “Forgeries and glamour. You are what we call a changeling—a child we tricked a human family into raising. We fae can create glamours that would make a fae child appear human.”
“But that means…” I let the sentence die off, not able to bring myself to finish it. If I was a changeling, then I wasn’t Caleb’s sister.
But as quickly as I had the thought, I shoved it down. I was his sister. We’d grown up together, we loved each other—I was all Caleb had left.
But maybe that was my fault.
If I hadn’t been around, could things have been different for Caleb? I was the one Dad had hated. If the fae hadn’t tricked him into raising me, maybe Dad would have been a different kind of dad. A better dad.
Mickey and Maeve watched me as I processed this information.
“Yes,” Maeve said, completely misinterpreting whatever expression I had on my face. “This isn’t your true form.”
I wanted to laugh. Did she really think that was my first thought? But I latched onto her comment anyway. I didn’t want to think about how Caleb’s life might have been better without me.
I looked down at my body, at my hands. “If I don’t look like this, then what do I look like—a giant green ogre with wings?” I seriously didn’t have a clue. It wasn’t like the shadows showed up in reflections. My thoughts bubbled over with images of stick-like druids and razor-fanged pixies.
Maeve’s lips compressed. “You are an elf like us, Kella.”
I sagged in relief as images of Legolas replaced visions of a freak-show on steroids. Elf. That I could live with. And then I realized that, aside from their basic outline, I had no clue what elves looked like in real life. I mean,
