Chapter 12 #2
“What have they been saying?” I asked as I mentally added the Underfae to the list of people allowed into Blood House.
I could still keep track of everyone, but the larger the house got, the more I understood why the other house heads had a few chosen people who could also add or remove house members.
Once this was a community of thousands, there would be no way for me to keep track of who was coming and going.
“That you actually want to help people.” The pixie’s eyes grew bright with tears, though she was smiling. “We’d all forgotten how to hope.”
Moved, I pressed my hand to my heart. “I do want to help. I will help.”
The enormousness of the responsibility pressed on me, though.
Hope was a flimsy reason for them to put their lives in my hands, and the concept wasn’t an easy one for me in general.
Life had taught me that believing in something without any tangible reason to—like the kindness of strangers, the shape of my father filling the doorway after years of absence, or a cure for my mother’s illness—was asking for disappointment.
It was getting a little easier to hope, though, mainly because I’d stopped thinking of it as a wish and started thinking of it as an action.
Hope wasn’t just believing that the world could be good and beautiful and kind.
It was knowing the world was awful and likely always would be… and trying to fix it anyway.
After they left, I silently communicated with the Blood Shard. I want Lara to be able to add house members. Can she do that without magic?
Yes , the Shard replied. She is part of the whole, and just as the house will feed her or rouse her from sleep, I can also speak with her if you wish it.
The Blood Shard’s voice in her head was a small benefit compared to the powers Lara could have wielded, but at least there was a tiny piece of magic left in Mistei for her—and a large responsibility to go with it. I want that.
Then it is done.
I told Lara, and her eyes widened. “You can’t do that,” she said, pressing a hand to her throat.
“Why not?”
She looked overwhelmed. “Because…because you can’t .”
“Who was able to add members to Earth House?”
“A few of Oriana’s closest advisors. Alodie, but only when it came to the servants.
And Leo, when he was alive.” Lara’s brother, who had died on the king’s wards trying to find a way out of Mistei for his lover and child.
Lara’s eyes grew sorrowful. “Oriana was going to give me the ability after I passed the trials. That’s why you shouldn’t do it. ”
“You’re my closest advisor,” I told her. “I’m not going to change my mind.”
She pressed her fingers below her eyes as she did when she was trying not to cry. “Fine. How do I do it?”
I struggled to explain how I experienced the connection with the Shard.
“You know how it feels to wish for something in the kitchens?” She nodded.
“Well, it’s like that—setting an intention and sending it outside of you to something that’s listening.
I think of my connection with the Blood Shard like a lake I’m throwing stones into.
I toss out questions and see what answers float back up. ”
She was silent for a moment, brow furrowed, and then a look of wonder crossed her face. “It spoke to me,” she breathed. “It was faint, but I heard it.”
Bittersweet joy filled my heart. I wanted so much more for her, but at least she had this. “Then you can add the next few faeries to Blood House.”
Our next interview was with a Light nymph, beautiful, glowing, and nude except for the wisping white mist that covered her breasts and hips.
She told us she didn’t want to stay in the fracturing Light House and was terrified of what Rowena and Torin might do once they prevailed over Gweneira—because there was no way they wouldn’t, not when they were capable of anything.
“I think Rowena poisons the servants who displease her,” the nymph said, clasping her arms tightly around her body.
“They always get sick. And…” She hesitated, shuddering.
“Torin forced me to dance on broken glass for her once. As a present, he said, because the normal type of dancing had grown dull. She laughed the entire time.”
The story was sickening. It sounded like something Osric would do.
The nymph wept when I told her she was welcome in Blood House, and then she threw herself on the ground and kissed my shoes, promising she would dance whenever I wanted her to.
When I told her she should only dance if she wanted to, she looked at me with overflowing eyes and said, “I don’t understand, my princess. ”
That broke my heart, too.
The stories from the rest of the Underfae followed a similar theme.
Servants who had been mistreated, those who feared the war to come, those whose loved ones had been killed in the solstice punishments.
People in search of a home. As I listened to them, my mistrust of the Light and Illusion faeries faded.
Where they’d been born and who they’d been forced to serve wasn’t their fault.
I’d only ended up in Earth House because of a king’s whim—I just as easily could have been one of them, mutilated and despairing, longing for an escape.
We saved the five Noble Fae from Earth House for last so as not to set a precedent that they were inherently more important than the others.
Even within the strict hierarchy of the Fae, everyone deserved the same respect and dignity.
Thankfully, those five faeries seemed to be in agreement, and after hearing their pleas to become part of a house that was willing to take a stand for a righteous cause, they were easy to welcome, too.
I watched the last faeries pass through the spiked door, guided by Maude and Triana.
The house thrummed with happiness, its invisible threads of magic vibrating in welcome.
That joy was infectious, but my own happiness was woven through with worry.
These humans and faeries had risked so much to come here.
Now I needed to figure out how to keep them all safe.