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“But not you?” Internally, I kicked myself for even feeling the need to ask. For acting like I cared when I didn’t.

Wren let out a single, harsh laugh and gave a pointed glance towards my hair and then my mother’s. “Redheads aren’t my type.”

I pressed my lips into a thin line and willed the blush to stop spilling over my cheeks. I didn’t know what to say. There was no logical reason for me to feel offended by his blunt dismissal.

“Auralie, I promise that I am most certainlynotyour biological father.” He tilted his head to capture my gaze, eyebrows raised as if he was waiting for me to have a light bulb moment.

“Oh,” I muttered. And then,“Oh.” Embarrassment coloured my cheeks again. “Of course. Because faeries can’t lie.”

“No, we can’t,” he agreed, with no small amount of annoyance. He tousled his hair, brushing his fringe back from his eyes. “But that doesn’t mean you can trust us,” he added, striding for the door. “I’ll be back soon—or maybe I won’t.”

I almost laughed as I watched him duck his head to fit beneath the doorframe on his way out, but I didn’t.

Because there was nothing fucking funny about faeries.

Chapter eight

The Court of Beer and Bets

My mother slept forat least an hour.

When the smokeless fire had finished devouring the corpse of the caenim, I turned the hall light on so we weren’t waiting in the dark. I considered trying to move her to her bedroom, but Brynn was asleep, tucked in at her side. So, I sat against the doorframe with the baseball bat we usually stored on the shoe rack and kept one eye on the front door. It was unlikely that my father would return so soon, but I was ready if he did.

“Aura.”

At the sound of my mother’s voice, I straightened against the wall and whipped my head in her direction. She was in the process of sitting up, bundling Brynn in her arms like an infant, and looked completely and utterly healthy andalive.

I was glad that Wren wasn’t there because I might have thrown myself at his boots and wept with gratitude.

Knees wobbling, I rose to my feet and stumbled over to them, crossing sections of the room that had been burned clean of the caenim’s blood without scorching our worn carpet.

“How are you feeling?” I asked in a rushed whisper.

“I’d love a cuppa.” She smiled at me coyly, and I smiled right back. “I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

Picking up the bat on my way out—just in case—I padded into the kitchen to put the kettle on.

The soft light over the stove was still glowing, illuminating my father’s empty beer bottles strewn across our small dining table in the centre of the floor. I tossed them into the trash and washed my hands before I started on the tea.

Like everything in our townhouse, the kitchen was small. It doubled as a laundry on one side with a fold-out bench next to the washing machine that looked about as old as Wren likely was, and the kitchen counter, sink, and stove on the other. The back door led out into our tiny courtyard, bordering on the strip of council land that sat between the edge of the housing estate and the river.

My mother plodded into the room as the kettle began to squeal, taking a seat at the table with Brynn’s head resting on her shoulder. She was still asleep.

I made two cups of chamomile with a drop of honey and brought them over to her, leaving the tea bag in my mother’s mug. She nodded her thanks as she wrestled an arm free from my sister and began to dunk it a few extra times.

“That thing…” she hedged after a few minutes of silence, looking up at me from beneath long lashes. “It’s gone?”

“Yes.” I pressed the warm ceramic against my mouth and breathed in the heady aroma of the chamomile. “How much do you remember?”

“Everything,” she admitted with a grimace. She took her first sip. “I’m so sorry.”

I took a sip of my own, frowning at her.

“I should have tried harder to get you to believe in fairytales,” she explained, averting her eyes to study the glass cabinet of mugs behind me. “You grew up so fast. Always so practical. I remember the day you came home and toldmethat Santa wasn’t real.” She smiled wistfully and took another sip of tea.

I placed my mug down on the table and stared at her in astonishment.

First John, and now my mother. Both of them were completely fine with the idea that faeries and monsters were real—that they were thesame thing.He tried to drug me. Had he already druggedthem?