We all need to talk. Wait up for us.
For Mom to cross into the fae side of town this late, she must really want to hash this out before I left, which could be any day now. But then again, Mac had to get home somehow. She was the one who invited him to stay with her, so I guess it fell to her to make sure he got home. Like a date. Ugh.
Eyeing the fridge, I had never wished for a higher alcohol tolerance in my life.
Chapter 4
Movie night consisted of fewer moves than I had anticipated. With Mom’s text hanging over our heads and the possibility both my parents might catch Shaw rounding third base, we kept the evening tame. I opted to sit on the floor so I could eat at the coffee table and spread out my junk food. Behind me, Shaw sat on the couch, his thighs blocking me in on either side, providing handy armrests when I finished. Full of pizza and candy, I fell asleep two-thirds of the way through the first movie. Elbows on his legs, head tilted back into his lap, I woke hours later with dry mouth and a crick in my neck.
A wide palm was spread over my collarbone, the slight pressure keeping me upright when there was a good chance I would have face-planted in the plate of leftovers and drowned in cold tomato sauce.
I dragged the back of my hand across my drool-crusted lips. “What time is it?”
“Time for you to stop eating like you’re twelve,” Mom answered.
I jerked my head toward the sound and spotted her in the kitchen. “Where’s Mac?”
She passed a damp towel over the countertop, not bothering to hide her dreamy smile. Now that my eyes were focusing, the whole place seemed tidier. She had obviously been here and cleaning for a while.
With her standing there, in the center of my home, I felt self-conscious about all the clutter. Not embarrassed enough to lock her in the hall while I launched into a whirlwind cleaning spree, but close.
“He’s running an errand.”
Seeing no room for a double entendre, I accepted her comment at face value. Though what kind of errand he was running at this hour I couldn’t imagine. He was sidelined until it was time for the big vote. I placed Shaw’s hand on his thigh and slipped away to join her beside the fridge.
I reached inside for a fresh Coke and spotted takeout containers. Yum. “How was dinner?”
She nudged me aside and passed me a bottle of water instead. “Do you really want to know?”
“I asked, didn’t I?” Which wasn’t an answer, but it was all I had.
“We enjoyed ourselves.” A rare softness blanketed her features. “I wish you had stayed.”
After twisting the cap off the water, I drank long and deep. “Well, I wish I hadn’t been ambushed.”
“Macsen isn’t used to being around people he can trust,” she said gently.
“As long as he understands trust is a two-way street and my lane is under construction.”
Her chuckles made me smile. “Keeping secrets has kept him alive this long. It’s going to be a tough habit for him to break. He’ll never be an open book like you, but you’ll work it out.” She smoothed my hair. “You two have all the time in the world. Don’t waste it being angry, all right?”
That sounded oddly morbid for her. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She made a shooing motion. “You’re using the fridge to cool the whole apartment.”
“Oh.” I flushed and shut the door, stirring the heady scents of honey pork and orange chicken.
Determined expression on her face, she asked, “Is there somewhere we can go to talk?”
“Sure.” I glanced at Shaw, who was sleeping deeply. “We can use my room.”
Mai’s and my living quarters were the next best thing to cramped, so it only took a minute to cross into the hallway where the bedrooms and bathroom were located. Shoving open my door, I winced at the two laundry mounds heaped on the floor. Clean and dirty each got a pile. That was as organized as I got.
She motioned for me to sit while she shook her head and began folding my clothes. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”
My palms went damp. That question led so many places and none of them good.
I wet my lips. “Is there something you want to know?”
Instead of answering, she made a heavy statement. “I spoke with Mable yesterday.”
Crap. That explained why Mac knew where to take Mom to dinner in the first place.
“Really?” I didn’t have to fake my interest. “You two have been keeping up with each other?”
After years of radio silence, the two most important women in my life had gotten acquainted thanks to Mom showing up on the conclave’s doorstep after Shaw rescued me from Balamohan. I hadn’t expected much from their afternoon together. Figured a Thackeray family Christmas card was as far as their bonding experience would carry them. Learning they were friendly made me…nervous.
“We have.” Her movements became stiff. “She knows so much more about your life than I do.”
I braced for guilt or tears or some combo of each, but more than anything, she sounded sad.
“She sees me every day.” I winced, hoping that didn’t sound like finger-pointing. “She’s the one handing out cases and monitoring our activities, so I have to keep her informed of my whereabouts.”
“It’s more than that.” Mom went to the closet and grabbed a fistful of hangers. “She loves you.”
There was nothing I could say to that. Mable was like a second mom to me. She had taken me in the day I showed up on the doorstep of her building, terrified of meeting the magistrates, so sure they would see the blood on my hands even though I had showered three times before Shaw came to pick me up and drive me over. She fed me cookies and milk and dried my tears with her apron. She made me feel normal again, like being fae was all right, like sometimes bad things happened to good kids, that I wasn’t evil even if I had done wrong. She had taught me through her example to accept myself.
And yeah, I loved her too.
When I didn’t respond, Mom resumed her work, keeping her back to me. “I know about the money.”
I tensed so fast I almost fell off the bed. “Mable had no right—”
“She didn’t tell me.” With neat flips of her hand, she began folding my socks. “I already knew.”
My hands fisted in the sheets. “You did?”
She glanced over her shoulder at me. “I really messed things up between us, didn’t I?”
A pang tightened my chest. “Mom, no, of course you didn’t.”
“I knew Macsen was special from the moment I saw him. He had this calm about him, but there was an intensity in the way he looked at the world too.” She smiled fondly. “The way he looked at me.”
The moment felt so private I wanted to get up and leave. It was like Mac being here had opened up a floodgate of memories for her, and I was afraid of being carried away by the swiftness of them. Thinking of him made her shine. Years fell from her face, and she was, in that moment, just a woman who had been in love with a peculiar man, one she had known she couldn’t keep, known she couldn’t tame, but she had to have regardless or would regret the lost opportunity forever.
All that was conveyed through the girlish voice speaking to me from a younger point in her life, one she had never visited in my presence, her wide smile lit with an inner light I hadn’t seen a man ignite.
“We had so little time together.” Her voice turned thick. “He had to leave. I had been expecting it for weeks, but still…” She shook her head. “I found out I was pregnant with you that last night.”
“I thought he left…” because of me, “…after he found out.”
“He had already said his goodbyes.” She hesitated. “Knowing I was pregnant didn’t change anything. He had to go, and even before I knew what he was—who he was—I understood his decision was bigger than what either of us wanted.”
I scrunched up my face, unsure if I was hearing her correctly. “You aren’t angry at him.”
She choked on her laughter. “I wouldn’t
go that far. I was hurt and mad and overwhelmed for a long time. But I hit a point where I was so bitter and lost I didn’t recognize the person I had become, and I was so afraid of that bitterness spilling over onto you.” Her lips thinned. “I had to step back and ask myself if I regretted my relationship with Macsen, and I didn’t. I couldn’t. How could I? He gave me you. My baby girl.” Her eyes were watery when I met her gaze. “You were a perfect little angel.”
A blush heated my neck. “I pooped and spat up goop like every other baby ever born.”
“But you were my baby.” She tossed a ball of socks at me. “You still are.”
My heart lightened from her praise, my chest swelling with happiness. A few of the old wounds, the deep ones, between us were healing, scabs flaking to reveal the pink skin of our new relationship.
Knowing what I risked, I nudged her. “He didn’t warn you at all?”
“He told me he was dangerous, that he wasn’t human. The only proof he gave me was his word, but I believed him. He told me one day you might be dangerous too.” She crossed to me and sat beside me, thigh to thigh, taking my hands in hers. “That’s when he gave me the conclave’s number. He didn’t tell me who they were, only to call them for help if you ever needed it. He said they would take care of you—of us.” Her fingers trembled. “You and I had so many good years, so many normal years. I let his warnings fade like his memory. I told myself you were human because it was easier.”
I let the normal comment slide. I knew what she meant even if the wording stung. I wasn’t normal. I didn’t equate normal with good. I didn’t believe being different made me bad.
Unaware of my inner debate, she pressed on like she needed the words said now, tonight. After waiting so long to hear them, I wasn’t about to stop her until she was finished, until I absorbed it all.
“If I hadn’t taken the easy road, if I hadn’t buried his warnings, your friends would still be alive. All that guilt you carry—it’s mine. Their deaths were my fault. You had no idea what you were, but I did. I knew you were your father’s daughter. You look just like Macsen. I should have watched you closer. I should have told you about your father when you asked me.” Her voice hitched. “But part of me was afraid if things…if you ever…that if I called that number even once, the people on the other end would come and take you away, take you where your father had gone, where I couldn’t follow.”
“Mom…”
“I read the contracts,” she said forcefully. “I wouldn’t have turned over my baby and not known what that conclave of yours had in store for you. I memorized the exact wording, I read the papers so often. They assigned me legal counsel, but he was a fae and a lawyer. I didn’t trust what he told me.”
Numbed by her confessions, I sat there and let her talk.
“I understood by signing you over to the conclave’s care that I was stripping away some of your future choices, but it was the best option I had to keep you safe. I couldn’t protect you the way they could. Your old school—they couldn’t educate you to deal with this new life. I couldn’t let you hide, but I couldn’t do it all alone.” She bit her lip. “When the conclave offered a stipend to help us move, to give us a new home and you a new future, knowing you had to live with my decision, I accepted.”
“You did the right thing.” I squeezed her hand. “The job suits me. I enjoy it. Most days.”
“I’m glad.” She released a tense breath. “Mable says you clock a lot of hours.”
“How much is a lot?” I forced a laugh. “Not sure how I stack up against everyone else.”
Marshals weren’t paid overtime. We earned around twenty-five thousand dollars a year. Anyone bringing home more than that, like me, was going after bounties, but I hadn’t told her about those yet.
“She also told me a large portion of your paychecks are direct deposited into my account.”
The air left my lungs. Crap. All the Mac talk really was laying groundwork for an intervention.
“Um.”
“The strange thing is the deposits were listed as coming from the Raleigh Estate.”
To avoid leaving pesky paper trails leading back to the conclave, they often created benefactors, fake aunts or uncles who kicked the bucket and left behind small estates or liquidated assets to people like Mom, humans trapped in the fae justice system or living on the conclave’s dime in a time when even fae paid taxes.
The Raleigh Estate passed on to Mom via her imaginary uncle Orville Mercer, may he rest in fictional peace.
I fumbled for a response and settled on, “Strange.”
A wry smile twisted her lips. “Yes, well, you understand why I called Mable the first time I saw a deposit after your eighteenth birthday, since the papers I signed made it clear when support ended.”
“What?”
All that effort to hide and sneak and trick Mom, and she knew. They both knew. All of it.
“She told me you had been taking extra cases, dangerous cases, so you could send money to my account.” She traced the blood rush from my cheeks. “Seeing your face now… I can’t believe I let things get this bad between us. That you felt you owed me— I’m sorry, baby. So sorry.”
I dropped my head into my hands. “I can’t believe this.”
“I didn’t know what to do, how to fix this.” She stroked a hand down my spine. “I didn’t want to make things worse between us by rejecting the money outright when it was obvious it meant a lot to you to care for me, and I thought you would burn out in a couple of months and then we could talk.”
I slid my fingers through my hair, across my scalp and tugged. “Cannot believe this.”
The mattress shifted and a zipper sounded. “This is yours.”
I didn’t glance up or reach out. I couldn’t process. I sat there feeling like a total idiot.
Untangling my fingers from my hair, Mom lowered my arms and placed a check into my hands.
The number registered, and my heart flip-flopped. I had never held the promise of so much money in my entire life. Mable had dug into Mom’s finances for me, and she was the one to give me the figure always lurking in the back of my mind, the one that matched what her support payments had been. Once I checked that figure off my to-do list, the rest was gravy until the clock restarted at the beginning of the next month.
This was my first time seeing the big picture, and it was a big picture.
“I can’t accept this.” I slapped it back into her palm. “How are you going to support yourself?”
She leaned over and wedged the rectangle of paper between two bottles of lotion on my dresser. When she turned back to me, she was smiling. “I’ve been supporting myself just fine the past year.”
“Oh.” Yeah, I guess she had if she could afford to pay me back.
“I had a decent nest egg before things…” Her thought trailed unfinished. “I’ve added to it over the years. I wanted to be prepared in case the conclave relocated us again and wasn’t as generous about it.”
“You work part-time at the animal shelter.”
“I used to.” A grin tugged at her lips. “I took an administrative position a year and a half ago.”
My mouth did that fish-out-of-water thing again. “You never said.”
“I was waiting until you graduated marshal academy so we could celebrate together.” She patted my hand. “I hadn’t counted on you going straight into the field. By the time we got together, you and Jackson were on the outs. It wasn’t a good time for me to share my news. Not when you were hurting so much.”
The days after my final exam at the marshal academy had been spent propped up in a bed in the medical ward. I never told her about the accident that shattered my hip and broke my ankles. In fact, I had avoided her for weeks until I was back at one hundred percent. So yeah, by the time I got around to visiting her again, Shaw and I had split, and all I wanted were sundaes and hugs from my momma.
“We really suck at this communication thing.” Talk about an understatement.
> “Yes, we do.”
I studied her. “I want to know about the important things in your life.”
“I want to know yours too.” She stuck out her hand. “No more secrets. Deal?”
I hesitated. “Do you mean going forward, or are we talking backdated here?”
“Thierry.” She sighed my name on a pained gust of breath.
“A lot happened on my trip to Faerie.” I took her hand. “Do you want the details?”
A tiny flicker of uncertainty crossed her features, but she blinked it away. “Tell me everything.”
So I did. All of it. The whole truth. I left nothing out.
Mom was still digesting the story of my life post marshal academy, including her vacation to Faerie, when firm knocks at the door earned our attention. A shiver of unease rippled down my spine, and I rose onto my feet, positioning myself between her and the door. I placed a finger in front of my lips, and she nodded in understanding.
Reaching deep, I drew power into my left palm before calling, “Come in.”
The door eased open, and the burnt scent of charged magic followed.
In the time it took my eyes to adjust from the overhead light to the darkened living room, a man stepped into my bedroom uninvited. Golden-skinned with pale blond hair bound at his nape, the sidhe noble took in my room, my mother and me with a single sweep of his lapis-blue eyes.
“Evander,” I greeted him, not dousing the green light spilling from my fingertips.
Eyes on my wrist, he tilted his head. I got the uncomfortable feeling he was noticing the pattern of my runes, tracking their progress toward my elbow. They used to stop at my wrist. But ever since my trip to Faerie and my altercation with Balamohan, the mystical markings were claiming new real estate on my body. I hadn’t worked up the nerve to ask Mac what it meant for me, but I had my own ideas. The prevalent theory was the more powerful I became, the more my magic use branded me.
The puzzling thing was Mac only had runes on his left hand—identical to the placement of my original set. So either I had guessed wrong, or he was hiding something. I chuckled under my breath.
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