41. Wren #2
“You are still Princess Runara Aurelthane,” I tell her. “Nothing about this test will change that.”
“You’re still my sister,” Cassiel assures her, patting her head.
“And my friend.”
She nods, though she doesn’t look convinced.
“All right,” she says.
Cassiel helps her prick her finger. She winces, but doesn’t pull away.
The droplet falls.
We all step back.
This time, the potion doesn’t explode, but it does react. A soft shimmer ripples through the liquid, like moonlight disturbed on water. It glows faintly before it settles.
Ru blinks. “What does that mean?”
I exchange a glance with Edwin, knowing with near certainty what this means. A part of me had expected this outcome, and oh stars, do I love the irony.
Alessandra is going to have a fit when she wakes. “Well, I’m no expert,” I say, “but I think that means you do have fey blood—but you aren’t a half-blood. One of your ancestors was one of the Fair Folk.”
Ru exhales, the tension draining from her shoulders. “So… I’m not… like—” She glances at the shattered glass.
“Not like me,” I finish. “No.”
She looks relieved, and then deeply curious. “So… I am my father’s daughter?”
“Almost certainly,” I say, and hold up the final beaker. “Want to test yours, Cass?”
Cassiel freezes. For a moment, I think he’s going to refuse. This is rather a lot for him to process, I’m sure. He’s no doubt trailing up through his family tree in his mind, trying to work out who it could possibly be…
“Probably… probably a good idea,” he says.
He takes the pin from Edwin without ceremony and pricks his finger as if it’s nothing. Not even a flinch.
The drop falls.
We step back again.
The reaction is almost identical to Ru’s—a faint shimmer, a whisper of light.
Cassiel stares at the contents. “I’m—we’re—part fey?”
“Apparently,” I say, grinning.
“You—how—”
“A good question.”
“You… you don’t seem surprised by this.”
“No,” I tell him. “It makes a lot of sense to me.”
“What—why?”
I shrug, not fully knowing myself, but the longer I think, the more little pieces seem to fall into place.
“You heal quickly,” I explain. “And your senses are incredibly sharp. I know we attributed it to the whole blindness thing, but what if it wasn’t that?
You’ve always seemed to just know where people were. ”
Cassiel pauses. “That’s a fey trait?”
“It can be,” I tell him. “There’s also the way you were in the forest. You came alive there, Cass. And the forest responded to you—it moved roots, let you pass. Listened to you, like it recognised that you were one of us.”
Ru chews her lip. “Is that why I can see that your eyes are gold even when everyone told me that they were brown?”
I blink. “You… you can see that my eyes are gold?”
“Yes,” she says, as if this is obvious.
“Why wouldn’t you say that her eyes were gold?” asks Cassiel, incredulous.
“I did,” she insists. “I told you that she has eyes like a dragon—”
“I didn’t—that’s not—” He sighs, running his hands down his face. “That’s not the clearest of similes, Ru.”
“What’s a simile?”
“Ask your tutors.”
I wonder if Evander, like Ru, could sense something amiss with glamours. Perhaps, like me, he can’t see through them, but could tell when one was being used. It would explain how he was always finding fey hidden in plain sight.
It might even explain why he was reluctant to hurt them.
Did he know, I wonder? Or suspect? If he’d realised he could sense them, he’d have good reason to doubt his origins.
I don’t suppose it matters, either way. He’s a good person, regardless.
Was.
“But… who could it be?” Cassiel wonders aloud. “Which ancestor? Which side of the family—”
“Well, you have an aunt staying here at the moment,” I remind him. “You could test her, if you really want to. But I have to say, I’m inclined to think it’s your mother’s side.”
“Why would you think that?”
“The secret tunnel out of the castle,” I remind him. “Why was it built?”
“To allow Queen Miriam’s lover to come and—” His eyes widen. “Oh.”
I smile as realisation hits. I didn’t actually know which monarch it was, or even if they were a woman, but it makes perfect sense. She could have passed off her child as anyone’s.
But the child…
“Who was her descendant?” I ask.
“Queen Vivien,” he says. “The Mad Queen. The one who used to torture the fey.”
I cringe, but as soon as he’s spoken, another thought hits me. “What if she didn’t?” I ask.
“What?”
“What if she didn’t torture them? What if… what if she was just searching for answers as to what she was, like we are now? What if her hatred of them was a front? What if she captured them and set them free—using the same tunnel her father must have used?”
There’s no way to be sure, of course, but it’s a plausible theory.
In the all the stories I’ve heard of her, she carried out the supposed torture herself.
Alone, in private, where she could say anything to them.
If she had learned to use her magic by then, she could have cast any glamour, disguised something else to look like them…
With magic, so much is possible.
“This is all just conjecture,” says Cassiel. “But it does make sense.”
“We could test her bones, if you wanted,” Edwin says. “Wouldn’t prove what she did or didn’t do, but it’ll explain what she was.”
Cassiel mulls on it for a moment. “Could you brew another potion?” he asks me.
I nod. “How long will it take you to dig up the bones?”
“She’s in the vault,” he says, “so not too long, if I can get Dain to help me.”
“I can—”
“No,” he says, “best not. Stay here, make the potion, and Edwin?”
“Yes, Sire?”
“Please see that she gets some breakfast.”