Chapter Forty-One
I cannot sleep, and my restlessness leads me to the horrible, mirrored bedroom once more. There is nothing for me there but horrid memories. Thrace’s head presented to me, stealing my dreams. Bathing the poisoned honey and the king’s blood from my body in the water from the faery baths. Even that water reminds me of Kathras.
There is nothing at court, however, to remind me of Luthian. At least, there wasn’t, before he sent the honey flower bush.
Was that his purpose? To hurt me? To remind me of him, every time I see it?
He knows I love him. He loves me. And yet, I stand on the precipice of an event that will forever change my life, and he does nothing. Worse than nothing. He mocks me for it with his cruel gift.
I don’t know what intent brought me to the queen’s chambers, but I do remember where Parphia’s journal is hidden. That is a link to Luthian, I realize. I can feel his love through the dead queen’s words. A love that I wished to have, but which he refused to give me.
He can’t stop me from loving him. And he can’t stop me from reading what it would be like to be loved by him.
I sit on the bed and pull the journal from its hiding place inside a pillow cover. I worried for a time that it would be found in my possession, but I couldn’t let it go. Now that I know Cassan better, I’m certain he will not punish me for having the journal, but I’ll still keep it a secret. Something of my own, my private connection to Luthian.
I open to a page at random and read.
Never have I experienced such a perfect day. We made love in the grove of sweet trees, while their petals fell all around us. Luthian never rushes our pleasure. Today, he took his time touching every part of me, leaving the most delicious places until the last, and then he explored those with his lips and tongue. I have never experienced rapture with Arcus the way I experience it with Luthian.
Perhaps, she should have tried killing him. That certainly brought me pleasure.
The entry goes on. I told Luthian how I begged Arcus for a child. His sons are all he needs to secure his line. How I envy their mother, for she knew the joy of bearing their creation light. Luthian won’t give me a child, either; he says it’s too cruel to bring another faery into the court while Arcus rules it. But when I imagine who that faery might be, I see her so clearly. Skin of snow, hair of fire, beauty that will bring the court to its knees.
The queen wanted a child, and Luthian refused her? I know nothing of faery conception, beyond the need for living essence, or what it might mean for him to make that refusal, but he granted my mother’s wish, didn’t he?
But then, my mother was not a part of Arcus’s court, and he was never any danger to me.
“You were born for it.”
The words taunt me. No, Arcus was inevitable. Luthian had been patient, far beyond the boundaries of time, and carefully planned to bring me to this place, simply to kill the king he loathed.
But for all the love he bore Parphia, he did not give her a child, for the next entry reads, Luthian will not budge in his stance against my child. It isn’t fair that Arcus should have two and I should have none at all. If he will not help me, there are hundreds of courtiers who will. I will order one to my bed and take his light. I will have my daughter. I will have my princess. All I need do is convince Arcus that it happened while he was too drunk to control himself and he spilled living essence. That I begged him not to, and that my pleas drove him into a lustful frenzy. He will not disbelieve that. It’s too like him.
I devour the next entries. Parphia’s selection of a young faery with the attributes she desired in her child. Copper hair, pale skin, a wry smile and laughing eyes. She took him in the labyrinth, during the monthly ritual, and commanded him to give her his living essence.
Her plan was successful.
There are entries about her pregnancy, her labor, the wisp of light she birthed and took to the nursery to be nurtured. She has such hopes for that wisp of light, a daughter she named...
After the Cenere tree I labored beneath, tended by a midwife of the Court of Seasons.
I throw the book aside as if burned, lurch from the bed and double over, vomiting up my dinner onto the pristine marble floor. My head swims. I am dizzy with the truth. Not the truth. The coincidence. It must be a coincidence.
I was born of a wish. Luthian gave me to my mother to fulfill her wish. She named me after the tree I was born beneath. She raised me, a human child...
A human child that she taught the ways of magic. Of flying. Raising plants from the ground. Listening to the birds. Noticing the flowers.
A human child of no consequence, raised by a faery woman who desperately wished for her.
But it is my name on the pages of this book. My appearance. My birth that is described. My mother named as midwife.
This cannot be.
It cannot be.
I have no wings. I have no magic. I am human, in all respects. I age. I bleed with the moon and burn beneath the sun.
I am human.
I am human.
The diary lies like a viper, waiting to strike me once more. My hands tremble as I lift it and trace the loops of my name, written in my mother’s hand.
My real mother’s hand.
Then, I turn to the next entry and read on. Luthian is furious. He thinks me too foolish to understand the consequences of my actions if I am found out. But how will Arcus find out? He believes the child in the faery nursery belongs to him. He celebrated her with a banquet and beamed with pride. He already has suitors lined up for her when she comes of age and returns.
I laugh with hysterical, giddy relief. Of course, it’s all a coincidence. Luthian was banished from court for five-hundred years, after Parphia’s death. I am not five hundred years old.
The cenere tree must have held special significance to Luthian because of Parphia. That’s why he granted my mother’s wish there. It probably wasn’t even the same tree, just the same, common type. There are cenere trees all over Fablemere. It is a coincidence.
That is what my heart wants to believe. My mind, however, accepts the grim likelihood that that diary I am reading belonged to my mother.
I’m drawn back to her final entry.
There is one person I can seek out to learn the truth of it. Not Luthian, for he will merely pile more lies upon the lies he already led me to believe.
I need Firo, and our meeting cannot wait until morning.
“Take me to Firo,” I order the palace walls, and stride to the door.
It opens onto a room full of clocks. Hourglasses, great tall, ticking things, smaller ones that rest on mantles and tables. All around me is the chaotic clicking of gears, faces without numbers, or with the numbers in the wrong order. Pocket watches dangle in the air; some of them have no numbers upon them at all. The ceiling appears to be missing, replaced, instead, with a swirling purple mist and a void somehow illuminated by darkness.
And in the center of it all stands Firo.
I wipe my eyes hastily on the sleeve of my robe. I’m a queen or will be in a few hours. I must occupy the role.
He doesn’t ask why I’m there. He simply says, “You could not know until the correct time.”
I open my mouth to protest, to demand how he knows and why he did not tell me. But he is from the Court of Time and Destiny. The only answer he will give me is the one he already offered.
Instead, I ask, “What does it mean?”
He gestures to a table, a huge clockface under glass. I do not recognize the hundreds of symbols around its edge and spiraling into the center, and I don’t know how to read the multitude of hands, some of them moving slowly, some quickly. Firo pulls out a chair and directs me to sit, then takes his place across from me.
“It means that you are the daughter of the late Queen Parphia.” He frowns. “You did read that diary, didn’t you?”
“Of course, I did! Why would I be here if I hadn’t?” I snap.
“I worried that I revealed the secret too soon.” He sits and conjures a fire in the hearth. The warm light lines the angles of his face. He looks more tired than I’ve ever seen him.
“I woke you,” I say, ashamed of my rudeness. That I am a queen is no excuse.
“No. I knew when to expect you.” He points to a symbol beneath the glass. A thin arm draws the eye toward it. “This is you, now. And this...” he strokes his fingers backward on the spiral, “is where Kathras left you the diary.”
I suspected he might have done so on purpose. “You told him to?”
“No. I don’t interfere with destinies. I merely watch them. I can no more influence the future than I can prevent it.” He meets my gaze with serious intent. “And I cannot, and will not, tell you what happens next.”
“Because it will alter destiny?” I ask.
“Because it hasn’t been written.” He touches the glass again, above another of the clock arms, and traces its quick, steady circle around the spiral. “This is possibility.”
“For me, or for everyone?” It seems unlikely that such a clock exists for everyone in Fablemere.
“For this court, and its history. For Arcus and Luthian and Kathras and Cassan. For Queen Theeda, for Queen Parphia. And for you.”
I shake my head, tears flowing down my face. “No. This can’t be. Luthian granted my mother’s wish.”
“No, he didn’t,” Firo says, and offers me his handkerchief. “He gave you to the faery who raised you and paid her in wishes to raise the queen’s child.”
“A child,” I remind him. “There are no faery children.”
“That’s true. Which was why it was so important to hide your faery nature. It was your mother, your true mother, Queen Parphia, who placed the enchantment upon you that stunted your growth and made you appear human.” He looks down at the symbols again. “It was her last act before the inquisitors took her.”
“That was five hundred years ago,” I protest. “Certainly I have not lived for five hundred—”
My mother. Not Parphia, but the mother who raised me, changed the seasons on our lands. A year could have lasted as long as she wished it to.
“You’re beginning to see the truth,” Firo says softly. “You understand now, yes?”
I touch my chest. “I’m a faery.”
“Under Parphia’s spell, you’re a human,” Firo corrects me. “When the spell is lifted, you’ll be a faery.”
“Then lift the spell,” I say without hesitation. I’ve spent my entire life not knowing quite what I am. Born of a wish, a human with a faery mother, there was never anyone like me. Now that I know what I am, I want to fully embody my faeness.
Firo shakes his head. “It’s not that simple. I can’t break another faery’s spell.”
“Parphia is dead,” I protest. “Surely, there’s some loophole—”
“You would need to speak to someone who knew the spell that was used. Unfortunately, Parphia cannot be questioned. Your mother might have known. The only other involved was—”
“Luthian.” He doesn’t want to speak to me again. Now, he doesn’t have that choice. He put a similar spell on Brujon once. He knows how they work.
“Cassan might be moved to help you,” Firo says. “He’s quite besotted with you.”
“He’s besotted with human pussy,” I snap, then offer Firo an apologetic glance. “I’m sorry. I’m tired.”
“You’re not in a position that I envy. But the power that you gain from this revelation…” He’s studying the clock face. “I can’t tell you what you will do next. But I can tell you that you’re smarter than you give yourself credit for, and stronger. You braved all of Luthian’s games. You survived Arcus’s torments. You can handle whatever comes next.”
I don’t feel smart, or brave, or strong. I’m confused, frightened, and angry.
“Why did Luthian bring me here?” I ask, for I know now that Firo has more knowledge of the plot than I ever had. “For revenge against Arcus, or to win the kingdom for Parphia by installing me on the throne?”
“Both,” Firo says. “But I don’t think he intended to fall in love with you along the way.”
A tearful laugh catches in my throat. “Would that he hadn’t. Would that I hadn’t.”
“You could wish for it,” Firo suggests.
I have no wishes left. Luthian tricked me into giving the first away. I used the second to free Kathras.
But perhaps there is hope. Perhaps I could get another wish, somehow. “Do you think that if I wish for Parphia’s enchantment to be broken, I could be restored? I could be a faery, as I was born to be?”
“Wishes are the strongest magic there is,” Firo says. “I doubt even Parphia could have created a spell strong enough to withstand it.”
A wish is an important thing. They don’t come along every day.
One must be careful what they wish for.
One must be mindful of the consequences.
“What I truly wish for,” I begin, knowing that my wish is not guaranteed, “is to see Luthian again.”
And then he is there, standing before me.