53. The Affairs of an Artist
CINDER
W e move to the shabby couch and chairs in the living room. I find the space is significantly more cramped than before. The ornately framed Ember of Midnight barely fits against the far wall. My heart twists painfully. The painting that once made my family whole now feels tainted by my father’s past and I don’t know what to think of it.
Snow is out, but Kai texted everyone that I was awake and okay. The text thread exploded in so many excited happy crying gifs that both Kai and I had to turn our phones to silent to hear his mother out.
“Your father wooed me the way he did everyone else,” Kai's mother begins. “He was brilliant, romantic, and saw the beauty in everything. Even a heartbroken, hollow Queen.”
“Mother—” Kai starts but she silences him with a lifted hand.
“We fell in love. And it was a torrid, wonderful affair,” she says wistfully.
I keep my expression neutral, though inside my mind is reeling with this new information about my father.
A sad smile tips up at the corner of the Queen's mouth. “Many months of sneaking around in Midnight began to bring me back to life. Your father was the embodiment of passion, and he lived it in his art and in his life.”
Kai scrubs a hand down his face, and I can sense his discomfort.
“But with that passion came volatility,” her voice darkens. “As time went on, he became more frustrated by my husband's unwillingness to turn him into one of us. He'd fly into fits of rage, screaming how it wasn't fair, how no one loves Midnight more than him. He'd fall into ramblings of how his dreams would never come true, and no wishing upon any Midnight star would get him what he wanted.”
I stiffen at her words. “That was our thing. We'd wish upon stars. We'd wish for things like ice cream, or to paint the greatest piece of art in the history of all time.” If there was any doubt as to her story about the affair, it dissolves with that detail.
The Queen nods as if finally understanding something about her past. “I see. Well, his devotion to me turned after a matter of months. I went from being the Queen of his heart to an adversary. He'd beat me.”
“You're a vampire,” I protest, my voice weak. It’s the same defense I laid out to Marisela, but it sounds far less convincing to my ears this time.
The Queen's brows knit together. “Just because we are fairies, it does not mean we are immune to pain or power.”
Kai stares at me, and I wonder if he's trying to convey that despite our differences, we both hold power over each other.
“Why didn't you go to your husband?” I ask.
The Queen and Kai exchange a look, a shared understanding of deep pain. After all, they’d been in the trenches together all these years under Valdor’s thumb.
“He did learn of the affair and he believed that I deserved every bit of pain. He did not care about me as a wife. We had not been intimate for decades. My husband made sure to tell me in explicit terms that he didn't care who was between my legs as long as I kept my affair under wraps because if the kingdom knew I was screwing a human, he would kill me.” She sounded like she was paraphrasing.
“Then something began to deeply bother your father,” the Queen continues. “I believe it was related to an argument with my husband, but he wouldn't tell me the details. I only knew that my husband offered him the thing he wanted most in exchange for a task.”
Valdor would change my father into a vampire if he trafficked human children into Midnight. I rub my arms as a shiver rips through me, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake.
Mei-Ling shakes her head. “He only became more agitated, keeping to his studio, sequestering himself to his art. But one night, your father came to my chambers. Consumed by jealousy and resentment and a madness I've only seen the tip of before, he took a pair of pliers, and he removed my fangs.” Her head is held high, but there's a tremor in her voice.
I shake my head and stand up, my hands rising to cover my ears. I pace, trying to absorb this new, horrifying information about my father.
I don’t want to believe it. This is not the man I knew. He would never do something like this.
Marisela’s words come back to haunt me. You wouldn’t know. Not his precious Cinder who he doted on. Not his darling daughter who was better than everyone else.
When I've calmed my nerves enough, I sit back down.
“The worst part was,” the Queen says softly, “I still loved him. I couldn't understand why he could despise me so, cause me so much pain when I was so devoted to him. But I learned to fear him more, and that act was the final thing that broke me.” She folds her hands in her lap and looks down at them. “So after he left, I fed, and my fangs grew back, and then I decided what had to be done. I found him in his studio. He was distracted from a fight with my husband. I didn't waste any time. I told him I could give him what he wanted. I could change him. I lied. And then I drained him. It was easy to bribe the undertaker to make it look like a heart attack, and that was that.”
A heavy silence falls over us, the weight of the past, the violence, and the regrets pressing down. If only I’d known what my father was. If only Kai knew what was happening to his mother. If only there’d been another way.
“I don't expect you to forgive me, but I seek your forgiveness regardless,” the Queen says to me, her eyes glassy and full of remorse. “I robbed you of your father, and I now see I subjected you to a fate worse than what I endured. Had I the chance to do it again, I would have chosen a different course of action.”
I stare at her, my mind working to process everything. Part of me wants to lash out, to make her feel the pain I've carried all these years. “You fucked up my childhood,” I finally say, deciding to be direct.
“I did,” the Queen admits softly, open remorse in her voice.
“I had no way out and no one to help,” I continue, as she listens intently. “And that kind of sounds how it was for you, too.”
I see a glimmer of hope in Kai's eyes.
I hesitate to forgive the Queen. Part of me wants to hold onto my anger. I paid a heavy price for her decision. But another part recognizes the trapped, desperate woman she'd been. Wasn't I fighting against that same kind of powerlessness?
“I'm not sure I forgive you,” I say carefully. “But I understand why you did what you did. I understand the fear of someone else having that kind of power over you, even if it was my own father.” I close my eyes and swallow hard, still struggling to reconcile these new facts about my father with the man I thought I knew.
After the Queen leaves, returning to Midnight via her charmed necklace of transport, Kai goes to the kitchen. The shiny new espresso machine and milk frother look so very out of place on the chipped laminate counters of the kitchen.
“You learned how to make lattes for me?” My heart squeezes to a near-painful point despite not pumping anymore.
He shrugs with a half-smile as he pours out the pumpkin spice syrup. “It’s nothing.”
It’s definitely not nothing.
I sit at the counter watching him make my drink, pulling a carafe of blood from the fridge labeled “Red,” in my friend’s handwriting.
Kaison passes the coffee cup to me and I stare into it for a while, my thoughts a tangled mess of confusion, hurt, and a tentative understanding.
“I don’t know what to think of my father anymore. For so long, he was my everything. My hero. Nothing could knock him off the pedestal I put him on.”
“And now?” he asks hesitantly.
I lick my lips slowly, feeling pain and confusion and a hurt I’ve never known before tumble around in my chest, making my temples throb. “Now, I see what he was, or at least more of him. He was greedy, abusive, and a temperamental manipulator whose behavior I chalked up to him being an artist. My father made beautiful art and committed horrible crimes against my kind and even yours. I can’t say I blame your mother, which hurts even more.” When my mouth goes completely dry, I pause to drink the deeply satisfying concoction Kai made for me. “Do I absolve him of any of his sins because he drew a line at children? Does he get any points for loving and protecting me? I don’t know how to add up the score.”
Kai rounds the counter, taking my hand to lead me back to the couch with my drink in hand. “You’re trying to make it black and white, and I think it’s because you might be trying to figure out if it’s still okay to love him.”
A bubble swells inside my chest and I feel the sob trapped there. Kai is right. How can I love someone so. . . so fucking awful? But how can I not love my father who was the shining star of my childhood?
I don’t even know how he treated my mother. If he’d always been a bastard or if maybe my mother’s death inspired a fall from grace? I’ll probably never know.
“I won’t lie to you,” he says, “I struggle to relate. My father has never possessed redeeming qualities, but I still yearned for his approval. The closest I can come is that while I love and adore my mother, I don’t think she did the right thing either. She shouldn’t have entered into an affair with your father. She shouldn’t have suffered in silence. She certainly shouldn’t have murdered him.”
“Shouldn’t she have?” My vision blurs from the tears gathering, but I refuse to let them fall.
Kai goes silent. Maybe he’s thinking of the man who assaulted me and how he killed the king because it was better for everyone. How he has made similar choices and while it doesn’t make him good, it doesn’t make him wrong.
“There's two ways to this that I see. You land on a side of love or hate and let go of everything else to reinforce that decision to give yourself peace. Or two, you won’t ever make sense of your feelings about him, and you have to live with the messiness, the jumble of confusion where your adoration for him and his despicable behavior will always be at odds inside of you.”
Ugh. That sounds so hard, so awful and confusing.
“The second path is certainly much harder, and most people would choose number one. It’s easier to narrow the scope and force everything else out to give yourself certainty and peace. But,” he pauses, taking my hand into his. “I have a feeling you’ll end up taking the second route. Because only the strongest people can hold things that are at odds inside themselves for the sake of truth rather than comfort.”
A tear drips onto our entwined hands as I laugh a little. “I hate how well you know me.”
“No, you don’t.” The words come out husky and serious.
“No, I don’t,” I repeat. Meeting Prince Kaison Charming’s intense gaze, I let him in to see all of me. No matter how ugly or conflicted, or hurt or broken he teases out the beauty of it all. He empowers me in whatever way I need.
To the world, the Prince of Midnight is this two-dimensional caricature, but to me he is everything. Funny, serious, thoughtful, protective, intelligent, and of course, charming.
“So what now? Are you going to rule Midnight?” Or run away from responsibility and your power?
I know he can’t hear my thoughts, but he shoots me a knowing look at what I’ve left unsaid. Kai sighs heavily.
“I never wanted to be King.”
“True.”
“And this realm would be better left in the hands of the Mice.”
“Maybe.”
“But they keep going on about how I show leadership qualities that can help us all transition to a new Midnight.”
I flatten my lips to keep from putting in my two cents.
“They think instituting a parliament structure will help bring new balance. A house of Midnight fairies, a house for beaters, and the monarchy. Which means I would be taking a leadership role, but I would be sharing a great deal of the responsibility and decision-making with the other houses, so I could still live my life. To be honest, there’s really only one real thing holding me back from committing to becoming King.”
“What’s that?”
“What my Queen thinks?”
A lightning bolt strikes through me at his words. Queen.
“We don’t have to get married right away,” he rushes to say. “I’d be happy courting you all over again, for real. But the important thing is that you're by my side. Sniping me down when I get too cocky or unfocused, and I’m not ashamed to say holding me up when my knees get wibbly wobbly under the pressure I’m not used to. But mainly, because if you don’t want to build a life in Midnight, I’ll give it all up in a second and move in with you and Snow in this shitty little apartment where I’ll get a job flipping burgers and make it my goal to scour the city for pumpkin spiced anythings to lay before you.”
I press my lips to his as my non-beating heart clenches tight again. I believe him. He really would leave it all behind to slum it with me.
“It depends,” I say seriously, putting my mug down on the coffee table.
He perks up. “On what?”
“Would I be known as Queen Spooky Babe or Queen Goth Girl?”
When he goes for my throat, tackling me back on the couch, nipping and kissing, I can’t help but laugh.