29. Caly
29
CALY
“W hy does the outcome of the trial determine if I receive this present from you or not?” Had this blade been offered to me by anybody else, I wasn’t sure that I could have accepted it. It was so simple and exquisite. But it felt significantly less hard to take from my father who had abandoned me and left my family.
“Give me your finger. I need to prick the end with the blade. It’s the last and final step, and the blade is complete,” Zef muttered softly as he gently took my hand.
Mendax sat up in his chair. “Unless you are handing her that blade to slit your throat, I strongly suggest you move away from her.”
A soft chuckle came from my father. The surprisingly comforting sound poured inside my body and cozied up in my chest like a cup of hot tea.
“I can hardly imagine how Aurelius survived the journey with such a bewitched Unseelie at his side,” he said. His blue eyes softened a fraction when I returned his smile.
My smile then went to Mendax at my side. Even in this very moment, I should be scared to death that I would lose him. The thought alone made my heart shiver with fear. If I couldn’t get to Adrianna in Tartarus, then I needed to find a way to return her power so she could finally get to the Elysian Fields. At least Mom would be there waiting for her, so she wouldn’t be alone. If anyone could help me find a way to get the pendant to her in Tartarus, it was Mendax. He had mentioned on numerous occasions that he and Kaohs, the keeper of Tartarus, were close. He would help me fix all this.
I smiled wider, and Mendax settled back into his chair like a guard dog waiting for the command to kill.
“I’m quite sure he wouldn’t have had he not been tied to me,” I replied as it dawned on me, and I snatched my hand away from my father, causing Mendax to leap out of his chair. “You must speak with the Fates before our trial. I am going to request they sever the tie with Eli.” I swallowed, and it felt like shards of hot glass going down my throat. “But you have to make sure he remains alive.”
The room suddenly felt too small and tight with me inside it. The news of Adrianna being trapped in Tartarus threw out every plan I’d had of taking myself out of the equation and instead left me with a horrible situation that I couldn’t figure out. As soon as I said the words out loud, I knew the silence that met them meant it wasn’t possible.
“I’m so, so sorry, honey, but I’m afraid it’s too late.” My father grabbed my hand again and bowed his head with a grimace. “Severing the tie will kill one of you, just the same as cutting the bond will kill one of you—whoever it is that they decide should die. The Fates are ruthless. We will be lucky if they even let you free since you are a human with no powers in a fae realm. Humans usually don’t get the chance to go between realms and live to tell about it.”
“But why?” My voice quivered.
My father let out a long sigh and gently squeezed my hand. It was strange how comforting it was to be sitting with someone I’d spent my whole life hating.
As soon as I entered the house to kill him this morning and saw the pictures of me and Adrianna climbing so high they covered the ceiling, I knew he wasn’t the same horrible, hateful, and careless man I’d spent my life imagining him to be. I’d never thought for a second that he even knew who I was, let alone that he kept up with my life in the only way he could. It all made sense to me now why he had been trying to keep us out of Moirai. It had been impossible for me to believe anything but the worst, filling in the holes and empty cracks with all the reasons why it had been so easy for him to leave me. I’d never even thought that maybe he hadn’t wanted to. The simple idea was followed with the little glittering thoughts that maybe I was harder to leave behind than I had always thought.
In this moment, I knew I never really hated my father. I hated the character I had crafted in my mind and called my father. I used every gap or unanswered question and filled it with a driving hate that was easier to live with than the pain of not knowing. The first whisper of grief I felt hit my softness so hard, I had to turn it into something hard that could protect me, and nothing builds a tougher wall than hatred. The truth is I was a scared little girl who was left all alone and had nothing to play with but imaginary characters in my head. One of those was the character I had created for my father, but I never knew a thing about my father or his reasons for leaving me. I couldn’t help but look at him now in a different light.
“The Fates play life like a game of chess. It is far beyond any of our comprehension how or what they do. I stopped trying long ago to understand them. The Ascended Artemi help carry out some of the finer details of their plans when it is needed, but generally they are so far ahead of our wildest thoughts that we only get in their way. Before you were even summoned, they likely already knew who was going to die. All this is just a big, entertaining charade for them.” He held the tip of the beautiful blade up to my finger and waited.
I pressed my finger into the sharp tip of the blade, welcoming the prick of pain that followed. Crimson blood immediately beaded at my finger. Instead of taking the drop of blood, like I had expected, my father gently pushed the bloodstained finger back to me, signaling he was done before pointing the frosted tip of the beautiful blade up toward the ceiling.
At my side, Mendax wrapped his hand around mine again. I waited for the feel of his palm to encompass mine, but instead, I felt his hot tongue glide over my fingertip. I whipped my head to look at him and was met by his unwavering, delicious blue eyes on mine.
Mendax had the ability to make even the most minuscule of things, like a pricked finger, lust-filled and dangerous. He was walking sin with wings of smoke and the body of a warrior. If I couldn’t be with Adrianna in the Elysian Fields, then I had to figure out what I was going to do if I was forced to live out the rest of this life, and I wanted Mendax by my side.
I wanted Eli to live. I needed Mendax to.
“There,” my father stated, redirecting my focus to the line of crimson that had dripped down the middle of the frosted blade. “It is finished.” He beamed brighter than the sun itself.
“My blood was for the dagger and not the pendant?” I asked, feeling the annoying prickle of curiosity crawl up my neck. Why was there blood inside it? What was special about this blade? I knew there was something. You could tell just by looking at it that it was one of a kind.
“Ah, yes, your sister’s ashes.” He set the blade in his lap and removed the pendant from where it had been tucked in his palm. His mouth straightened in a pained line. “It was nice to hold her again.” The thin line of his lips stretched, and his eyes gained a hint of gloss. He opened the latch of the necklace and waited for me to put my head down before he removed his hands and sat back. “It’s all done. Addy’s last drop of power is infused with the soul mingled in her ashes. The Fates will waste no time in getting this to her, I’m sure. I can barely stand to think of that sweet girl in that hole of iniquity.”
My lip pinched between my teeth, I looked away from him. I would find a way to make sure Adrianna got the pendant. That would be my only goal now. My blurry eyes snagged on a picture of Adrianna that made me stand from my chair.
Had I not thought about her big blue eyes every hour of every day, I wouldn’t have even recognized the woman in the painting. The detailed black frame pulled the darkened edges of the portrait to blend into the dimly lit wall, making it appear as if she were almost floating. Her golden-brown hair stopped at her V-shaped chin, making her bright blue eyes pop. She was looking to the right of the frame in a nervous sort of way that made my stomach tighten into knots, reminding me of my mother. “She is in Tartarus in this painting?” I looked to my father, now standing beside me.
“Yes,” he said solemnly.
“How have you gotten all these?” I took in the painting again, trying to memorize every freckle on the bridge of her nose that hadn’t been there when she was six.
“Being powerful has its perks,” he said softly as he set the beautiful dagger on the table and stepped out from the chairs.
My eyes froze on the white vine whose pot he had pulled the dagger from and the little purple mushrooms he had removed from the pot. They had pointed caps that rose so high that they bent slightly at the tips. The plant itself lacked any color, which meant that it lacked chlorophyll, but then how was it growing?
“The mushrooms,” I murmured, answering my own silent question.
“You are interested in the Monotropa uniflora vitis ?” he said with marked fascination.
“They’re getting their nutrition through parasitism, aren’t they? The mushrooms?”
His face lit up once again, and a stirring of something landed in my gut. “You enjoy botany still. I always wondered if it was just a different side of your mask.”
I felt Mendax’s eyes slide over my body from where he still sat in the chair, and a chill crept up the back of my neck.
Tell him what else you enjoy, pet.
I dropped the mushroom I had picked up as I whipped around to see Mendax rise from the chair nonchalantly and give me a wink.
The bond. We can still use the bond here? I sent back.
Of course. The bond isn’t a power. It’s just us. He licked his lower lip and slowly raked his eyes down to my feet and back up.
“The plants use a structure called a haustorium to?—”
“To penetrate their host plant, which drains nutrients,” I added with a smile as I turned away from Mendax and back to my father. “It’s a holoparasite, meaning that it cannot photosynthesize and depends on its host, the mushrooms, for food. The fungi draw sugar from the plant in exchange. That’s why it’s able to grow in this dark room with no sunlight,” I said proudly, which was weird. I never cared about impressing anyone before in my life until about one and a half seconds ago.
My father clapped his hands together excitedly. “Perhaps some fae did get through your mortal veins after all,” he laughed.
The expression fell from my face to the floor. “How is Mom in the Elysian Fields? Earlier, you said you had too much to tell me. Tell me now. How could she get in as a human? Were you two ever married? What?—”
“Okay.” My father held up his palms and spoke softly. “You deserve and have the right to know everything.” He glanced at the door. “And I hope I am not foolish in the hope that we will have another, possibly many more, chances to spend time together. However, we are on limited time before the trial, and someone will be arriving any minute with your clothes for tonight. So might I encourage you to ask the most pressing of your questions for the moment?”
My brain was about to short-circuit with the number of questions I had. My mouth opened and closed as I tried to decide on the most important.
“Your mother and I were never married,” he stated, no doubt taking pity on me.
“Were you in love?” I don’t know why I asked it. It didn’t really matter, but a part of me needed to know.
“Very much. She joked about getting my face tattooed over the skeleton’s face on her chest,” he laughed, and it transformed his eyes into happy, sparkling globes. “I told her that Kaohs would probably fight his way out of Tartarus just to remove it,” he chuckled.
My expression fell. “What?”
Unholy fuck! Kaohs gave your mother a tattoo with a skeleton? Why have you never mentioned this to me, Calypso? Mendax shot through the bond.
My brows knit together. I didn’t have time to deal with him being mad that I didn’t tell him a detail of my life. Nosy fuck. “What do you mean Kaohs would remove it?” I asked my father. Unsettling tingles covered my arms as my nerves picked up.
“Mom’s tattoo? The skeleton holding skeleton keys?” Zef smiled wide.
Fucking stars, Calypso! Your mother was a ? —
I swatted the air at Mendax with a scowl.
“Yes, I remember Mom’s tattoo. Why does that have anything to do with Kaohs?” My voice had risen an octave, but I was still trying to remain calm.
Zef’s face turned serious as he tilted his head slightly. “She never told you.”
“Told me what?” My voice shook. “She never told me what?”
Your mother was a changeling.
I whipped around to Mendax, who had moved to the chair next to the table with the dagger.
Changeling. Changeling. What the fuck was a changeling? I’d never heard the word before. My mouth hung open as I faced my father again.
There was a knock at the front door.
“Yes, leave them at the door,” he shouted, keeping his worried eyes on me. “Didn’t she ever tell you how we met?” Hurt threaded through his voice like a gust of wind.
“She never told me anything about you other than that you left us after Adrianna was born,” I snapped. My chest was pounding so hard, I worried the Fates had decided to take me out early.
Realization seemed to dawn on the older man. “Oh my…”
“Your beloved mother was one of Kaoh’s bond servants,” Mendax said with the hint of a smile.
“I–I don’t know what that is.” I rushed to get the words out, needing one of them to tell me these details about the woman I loved so dearly.
“Your mother was stolen by Unseelie when she was just a baby,” my father said softly.
My head snapped to Mendax.
He held both palms up and grinned. “As you know, I’ve always found humans detestable.”
My father glared at Mendax but continued speaking. “Unseelie would occasionally steal a human baby, back when they could get through the veil, before they were sent to Tartarus. They would leave one of their own offspring in its place. When things were the worst between Seelie and Unseelie, they would try and balance the power by swapping out the babies of the opposing royal family with a human child so they would grow to be powerless, tipping the scales for the other side. No one wanted them, and they were sent to Kaohs in Tartarus, where he used them for cooking and cleaning until they were older.”
“What did he do to them when they were older?” I asked Mendax.
His cold eyes danced with malice as one dimple popped. “I’m betting you can guess.”
“Kaohs tattoos all his…favorite possessions. They aren’t allowed to leave Tartarus or him, ever.” Zef rubbed the back of his neck.
“But…then how did she get out?” I asked as I looked between the two men.
“I met Kaohs during the war. We were hoping to get his word that he wouldn’t assist the Smoke Slayers.” He glared at Mendax. “I’m sure you can already guess how that turned out. He had brought a few of his bond servants to the meeting, and your mother was one of them.” He looked off into the distance, and you could almost see the memories dancing through his mind. “The moment I saw her, I was in love. I tried to leave with her then and there.”
Mendax snorted. “I’m sure that went well.”
“Your mother ended up making her own deal with the god of the dead. In exchange for her freedom, which included that she be granted access to the Elysian Fields, far, far away from him when she died, she would leave her soul with him.” Zef suddenly looked exhausted and uncomfortable. “I took her to the human realm, where Kaohs cannot walk, and hid her and myself, foolishly believing I had outsmarted everyone and would get to live a happy, quiet life with my family until I was called to ascend.”
“Wow,” I mumbled in the quiet room.
Zef grunted in a way that reminded me of a small tantrum. He walked out of the room, and a few moments later, I heard the creak of the front door.
I stared at a line on the plaid rug and tried to process everything I had just learned. My anger at my mother was fleeting. I was nine when she and Adrianna passed. That information didn’t seem like something you told your nine-year-old daughter, if ever.
“Are you all right?” Mendax moved the hair at the back of my neck and kissed the curve softly. “You want me to stab Kaohs when I see him tonight?”
I let out a deep sigh. “Unfortunately, I doubt stabbing him will help get my sister out of there. Wait—tonight?” I turned around and gripped his arm. “No. You are not dying, do you hear me? I don’t know what to do, but I will figure it out. Neither you nor Eli are dying tonight or anytime soon!”
“I am the only one who can get to Tartarus, Pet.” He ran his fingers through the hair at my temple before gripping the sides of my face in his hands. After a minute of the most intense look, he whispered, “Never forget me.”
I shoved his hand down and away from me. “Stop it!” Anger boiled so hot, I grabbed the beautiful dagger from the table and pressed it to his throat as I tried to calm my heavy breathing. He just watched me, a slightly sad look in his eyes. “Leave me and I will…I will marry Eli and fuck him three times a day.” I pressed the frosted edge of the blade harder against his skin. I had never been more serious about any other threat in my life, and I knew he felt it through the bond…but I could also feel how serious he was about leaving.
“No, you won’t,” he said confidently as his eyes remained hooked to mine.
“I will. If you leave me tonight, I will become queen of Seelie.” My heart was going to give out. I was sure of it.
The corner of his mouth lifted.
“I will.” I swallowed deeply. My angry facade fell. “Please, you have to promise me you won’t die tonight . Please. I need you with me.”
“Oh my fates! Put the blade down, dear!” My father’s voice came from the doorway as he reentered the room carrying a tall stack of folded red cloth. He tossed it on a chair as he grabbed the blade from me with a panicked look on his face. “You must be careful with this!”
I scrunched my face at him. “I thought it was mine.”
He shook his head and moved it to a table so far away from me it was almost at the door. “I made it for you, but it’s dangerous, and we need to speak with the Fates before I can officially give it to you, as I think it may interfere.”
“Why?” This was turning out to be quite a day, and to be honest, a beautiful dagger might help make it a fraction less shitty.
“The blade is made from the blossom of the—” my father began.
“Oh my stars, if I have to hear any more about plants, I’m going to kill us all,” Mendax said with a dramatic groan.
“Would you now?” my father said with a soft rumble of power flowing out from him.
Oh shit.
Mendax glared but didn’t say a word.
“This blade gives its owner, you and only you, the power of anyone that it kills. I couldn’t make you Artemi, but I could make this blade, and it is the next best thing. The plant was made so that only one bloom could ever be harvested, and I’ve gone to great lengths to ensure that another weapon of this kind can never exist and could never harm you,” said my father.
“What if someone steals it and they use it?” Mendax chimed in.
Zef shook his head. “No matter who wields it or who they kill with it, the power can only go to Calypso.”
I thought I saw a small grin from my father, but if I did, it was gone before I could focus my eyes on it.
“Obviously, I’m going to do everything in my power to ensure that you are safe tonight, but unfortunately, I’m not sure if there’s anything to be done. They delivered your clothes for the trial. Could one of you take Eli his robes? Your tickets will arrive when it’s time to go to the hall, so I suggest being ready as soon as possible. I’m so sorry. I wish I could spend more time with you, but I need to speak with the Fates and do what I can to help.”
He handed us the pile of red fabric and sent us out the door and into the hallway of the main house.
“I need to talk to Eli,” I said as I sorted through the red robes and ignored the fiery look Mendax was giving me. “Alone.”