Chapter 61
Aunt Lenna stands there, a look of shock in her lavender eyes. She grips the door like it’s the only thing keeping her from falling over. “Esti?”
I fly into her, my arms wrapping around so tightly she lets out a grunt. As soon as I start hugging her, her arms wrap around me too, solid and sure. “Oh, my girl,” she cries, her voice going choked.
When she pulls away to look at me, her eyes are shiny. Mine are waterlogged, sopping my cheeks.
She looks me up and down critically, searching for anything amiss. “Are you okay?” she demands.
Her voice is tight, lips trembling. Since Aunt Lenna is always so stoic, the sight of her emotions so close to the surface makes my heart lurch. “I’m okay,” I reassure her before my words turn into a sob. “I’m sorry I left. I shouldn’t have gone that night. I should’ve stayed here.”
“Shh,” she says, gripping my face before I can hang my head. “You were taking care of your mother, as you always do. You have nothing to apologize for, understand?”
I nod through blurred tears.
“How are you here? The Pied Piper let you go?”
“He brought me here himself.” Her brows draw in with concern at my reply, but I take her hand and squeeze it. “I know. I have a lot to explain, but first, I want you to meet him.”
I pop my head out and call them in from the landing, and my aunt’s expression changes from a frown to wary shock. She takes in all four men, eyeing their red-tipped ears before looking back at me with fearful trepidation. “Esti . . . what’s going on?”
“Do you trust me?” I ask her in earnest.
She studies my face and gives a nod. “Of course I do.”
“This is Varrik—the Pied Piper.”
He moves forward and holds out his hand in greeting, and my aunt takes it, giving it an apprehensive shake. “You’re the Pied Piper?”
“I am. But you can call me Varrik.”
She looks him up and down, her lips pressing thin. “I sent the coin so you would return her, and you have. You can go now.”
Shock travels through the men until it breaks open with Frid snorting.
“Fates, I like her,” Conrad says before pushing himself forward with a grin. “Let me introduce myself. I’m Lord Conrad, and I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Maybe that beaming smile would work on some people, but not my aunt. She stares at him like he’s something she’d rather sweep off her floor. It only seems to make him even more delighted.
“Aunt Lenna,” I cut in. “Conrad is another Govern, and this is Frid and the Woodsman. They came to help get me back here, but it didn’t have anything to do with the money.”
She’s so tense she looks like she could snap like a branch. “Then what is it about?”
“I have so much to tell you, but Conrad has magic that can heal. He healed me.”
Her eyes sharpen. “Healed you? Why did you need healing?”
I shake my head. “That part isn’t important right now, but what is important is that he came along to see if he can help M?m.”
Her brows jump in surprise, eyes darting to him with alarm.
“As I said, very pleased to meet you,” Conrad says, offering another smile.
She turns to me, unconvinced. “Esti . . .”
“I know, I know,” I say quickly to reassure her.
I take her hands and turn her away so she doesn’t feel so on the spot.
“You said in your letter that she’s having a convulsion once a day.
And . . . we both know she’s been fading.
She’s so much worse now, and I can’t bear—” My voice cracks.
“I can’t bear to keep watching her wither.
If there’s even a chance that he could help, I have to take it. We have to try. Right?”
I look in her eyes, and she looks in mine, and there’s a world of worries reflected in both. We’re the ones who have tried everything under the polluted sky to help my mother.
Everything, except magic.
My chin wobbles. “This might be her only chance, Aunt Lenna.”
She hesitates, but then finally nods. “She has been . . . very poorly, Esti.”
I feel my throat clog. “I know.”
“She’s resting,” my aunt cautions. “It was a bad morning.”
Dismay dampens my heart, and I turn to Varrik.
“I’m going to go in to see her first,” I tell him. “I don’t want to overwhelm her. This will be a shock.”
He gives me a soft look. “Take whatever time you need.”
As I walk down the corridor, I’m saturated with familiarity.
The way everything looks, the way it feels.
I know exactly which spot of the floorboard will squeak when I tread over it, know right where the air drafts in from the unboarded window.
I can smell my aunt’s cooking and the soap we use to wash our clothes, and even the ever-present clinging scent of the paper mill that always follows us home.
When I reach my mother’s door, I hesitate, only because I’m trembling so badly.
I open it quietly and walk inside, my eyes instantly falling on her.
She’s lying on the bed asleep, her light blond hair loose and unbound. There’s a tea tray beside her bed, the cup only half drunk. I carefully sit on the side of her bed and look at her with my heart in my throat. My fingers come up to stroke back her hair, and I take in her pale, gaunt face.
Her lids flutter open instantly, pink eyes lifting to me.
My eyes flood. “Hi, M?m.”
She blinks, as if making sure she isn’t looking through the veil of a dream. And then she pulls in a shocked breath. “Esti?” she croaks.
Hearing her voice, seeing her eyes, it buckles me. Makes relief collapse through my barred ribs. I lean down, burying myself against her like I used to do when I was a little girl. And just as she did then, she lets me clutch on to her, her arms coming around to hold me tight.
“Esti, you’re here. You’re— home.”
I can hear her crying, can feel her tears drip into my hair.
“I’m so sorry that I was gone. That I wasn’t here for you,” I sob, my reality melding with the nightmare that’s followed me. “I’m so, so sorry that I left you.”
She runs a soothing hand over my back. “Don’t say such things, Card?ya Mel?sh. You are always here for me.”
“But—”
“No,” she says softly, and I lift my head up to look at her. “No apologies, my star.”
I soak up her love as she tucks my hair behind my ear. “Are you okay, M?m?”
“I am now,” she replies, with a smile that shows her dimples. “Because you’re here.”
As if all is right in her world. She loves me that much.
“M?m, there’s so much to tell you, but I—”
A loud bang in the other room makes us both lurch up. My mother looks at me with alarm as I leap from the bed. “What was that? What’s happening?”
“Let me check. Stay here.”
I yank open the door and turn down the corridor, instantly seeing the source of the commotion. We’re no longer alone.
City patrol has kicked in our door.
“What’s the meaning of this?” my aunt demands as multiple patrolmen enter, shoving their way in.
But then our Govern, Lord Havlon, comes striding inside too.
He has on a mustard-colored vest over a flouncy-sleeved tunic, and he’s a head shorter than Varrik but bulging with anger. His gaze sweeps the room, which is now crammed full of people—too many for our small space.
“Piper,” he says in a seething greeting as he faces Varrik. “I didn’t think it would actually be you—that you’d have the nerve to return.”
Varrik looks around blandly. “Quite the welcome,” he replies as the rest of his group stands beside him near the sofa.
Havlon’s yellow mustache curls with his sneer. “Last time you were in my city, you threatened war.”
“Did he?” Conrad claps Varrik on the back with a smile. “Piper here can be a bit spirited.”
Havlon’s eye twitches. “Who are you?”
“He’s Lord Conrad Acker, Govern of the Lauber territory—and my ally,” Varrik answers smoothly.
That name holds weight; I can tell by the way Havlon falters—but only for a moment. “I have allies too, Piper.”
I frown. Since when?
“You’ve no right to barge into my home.” My aunt steps forward, pushing her way past Frid and the Woodsman to pop her fists on her hips. She stares at Havlon with utter distaste. “Your boots are muddying my floor, Govern.”
Oh, Aunt Lenna.
My eyes fly to him, my heart skipping with a beat of worry.
He darts a look at his feet before he can catch himself, and then anger washes over his features. “Your home, is it?” he asks with spiteful calculation. “So, you’re responsible for housing rival Core fae.” He flicks his hand. “Arrest her.”
Panic bursts from my gut.
Two patrolmen surge toward her, but I shove myself forward, my heart beating out of my chest. “No!”
Before I can get to her, Varrik grabs hold of my arm, stopping me. He looks at Lord Havlon like he wants to crush him beneath his boot. “If you arrest her, Lord Havlon, you and I will have a very big problem.”
His threat isn’t loud. It isn’t even angry. It’s stated simply. Evenly. And that in itself makes it all the more terrifying.
It even makes Havlon hesitate.
The patrolmen halt, looking between the two Governs, like they aren’t sure what to do.
Tension is thick enough to chew.
It seems Havlon does some better calculations in his head, because he gestures for the patrolmen to wait, while my aunt stands rigidly.
“Piper, why are you here?” Havlon demands.
“Private business.”
He bristles at Varrik’s dismissive answer. “You are hereby blockaded from my city. I want you out, do you hear me?” Spittle casts from his lips and he wrenches a finger toward my aunt and me. “Including them.”
“You can’t kick us out,” my aunt protests. “This is our home!”
“Havlon,” Varrik says darkly. “Think very carefully about your actions.”
The Govern looks fit to burst with outrage. “You have some nerve!”
“I helped rid your city of Plagues.”
“You stole my citizens!”
“The citizens you allowed to die in the streets after months of Plague?” Varrik bites back with contempt. “Those citizens?”
Havlon’s face has turned such a shade of red that his skin nearly matches his stained ears. “How dare you!”
“What’s going on?”
I jolt, turning to see my mother leaning her weight against the corridor wall, her eyes wide with worry.
“M?m—”
When she steps farther into the room and sees everyone gathered, she goes pale, the strength draining out of her right in front of my eyes. I lunge forward, knowing what’s coming, but I’m too far away.
She crumbles, and I know she’s going to hit the floor hard.
But Varrik is there in a blink.
His hands catch her by the arms before she can collapse. “It’s alright, I’ve got you—”
There’s a shocking, searing surge of light.
Of magic.
Both Varrik and my mother cry out, their voices blasting with pain. My eyes go wide as red-hot light suddenly glows in their veins like streams of lava, and power seems to singe the air.
Varrik instantly lurches back, staring at his glaring arms in shock.
My mother falls to her knees, those fiery veins crawling up and up, past chin and cheeks, fissuring into her forehead, and delving beneath her hair.
I watch in horror as she gasps and clutches her head—
And then a pair of pale, twisted antlers sprouts from the top of her skull. They’re bony and branched like a deer’s, the spurs gleaming like pearls.
Just as quickly as it erupted to life, the surge of magic cuts off. The molten veins in her and Varrik go out, like a fire doused.
My mother’s shaky hand lifts to touch the antlers now perched upon her head, and her tear-stained eyes meet mine while I stare frozen, unbreathing, unblinking.
No...
“Wh-what . . . This is . . . unimaginable,” Havlon blurts, his voice shuddering, his face blanched.
Varrik lifts his head slowly and his eyes land on my mother. His complexion is drained of all color, his eyes wide with pure disbelief.
My stomach drops down to my feet.
“It’s impossible,” Conrad croaks. “She’s . . . she’s . . .”
Varrik finishes the thought like an anvil dropped, taking the weight of an entire world with it. “She’s a Bane.”