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“I don’t mean to intrude on the reminiscing,” Wren said, stalking into the kitchen like he lived there.

I was glad I’d put my mug down, or else I might have spilled the tea everywhere.He’s so quiet when he moves.

He flashed a wicked grin in my direction as he walked straight to the washing machine and took a seat upon it, causing the steel to groan beneath his weight. He fixed his gaze on my mother, who was watching him with delight. “But now might be the time for you to take back your heinous allegation that you and I…” He cleared his throat delicately. “That we spent time together in the past. A great deal of time, in fact,” he added pointedly.

I blushed again, but laughter bubbled up and out of my mother’s mouth.

“No! God, no.” She gave me a firm but meaningful look. “Aura, no. Your father was High Fae, but notthatHigh Fae.” She jerked her head towards Wren, who let loose a rough breath. “Thank you, by the way,” she said to him. “Aura’s father was from the Court of Light, too.”

“My father was from the Court of Beer and Bets,” I corrected, and then immediately regretted it for the shame that crossed my mother’s face. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but this is impossible. I’ve known that man since I was a baby.”

Her eyes darkened, lashes fluttering. “It happened while we were together.”

“No, it didn’t.”That was too quick. I’d deflected that far too quickly. My brow creased as I bent my head to recapture her gaze. “Mama.”

“I am so sorry,” she whispered, placing her mug on the table in front of mine. “I knew from the moment I found out about you that you weren’t his. I had these vivid dreams of starlight and power, and sometimes, I could have sworn that you were playing with magic in my belly. I had this…thissensation. It was like you were dancing as early as six weeks.”

“Mama.”My voice cracked.

“He didn’t suspect it until you were about three years old because you look like me,” she went on. “But then he found you playing in the garden at our old house with wood carvings of fantastical creatures that you said your friends had made for you. The Little Folk used to bring you gifts.” She smiled ruefully. “I never told him about your heritage, but he grew suspicious about the presents, and one night—”

“I remember.”

I would never be able to forget the first time my father hurt her. The night he left her bleeding on the kitchen floor, her lower lip split straight down the middle and a fast-forming bruise colouring her cheekbone. That was the first night he left us, and when he eventually came back, everything had changed.

He’d always been an alcoholic, but he’d never been violent or angry. He returned as both of those things, with the added bonus of a gambling addiction supported by his unemployment benefits.

I’d never questioned what that fight had been about. I’d hidden in my wardrobe and covered my ears until I heard the front door slam and his car speed away, and then I raced into the kitchen to find my mother holding a bloody tea towel to her face.

“He found out you cheated,” I finished for her. “But not with…whom?” It was better not to refer to faeries as awhatwhen one of them was present in the room, I’d decided.

“No, not with whom.”

“And were you ever going to tell me this?”

Eyes softening, she angled her head to the side and shook it gently. “You were so human. After we moved, The Little Folk stopped visiting you. You never displayed any sort of powers or even an interest in magic. I thought it was better to let you live a normal life.”

A normal life.

I tried not to let my disappointment show—that she thought what I’d had was a normal life. That her denial had caused her to lock us into this existence, taking as many breaths as we could before my father returned and plunged us all into dark waters.

But I couldn’t say any of that to her. Not after what she’d been through.

“Three months ago,” I began instead. My eyes dropped to my hands, secured around my mug. I swallowed to clear the sudden tension closing around my voice box. “You sent me to a shrink because I thought my nightmares were real. You convinced me to let them medicate me—”

My mother gasped, prompting me to look at her. “Were the—” She broke off abruptly, glancing at the otherworldly man perched atop our washing machine, preoccupied with picking at his nails. “You didn’t tell me what they were about,” she hissed.

“I don’tknowwhat they were about,” I hissed back.

It was true. I couldn’t remember the details from a single one of the dreams that had woken me, screaming and thrashing in my sheets every single night for three long months. According to my psychiatrist, I’d tried to tell her about them while they were happening but could never bring myself to get the words out. And then, as soon as they stopped, it was like I’d forgotten all about them.

They’d left me with a hollowness, though. And dark circles around my eyes. And two pills to take—one in the morning and one at night—until I stopped thinking about it.

“I’m sorry, Aura. I really am. I thought it was a trauma response, delayed—”

“It wasn’t.” I refused to look towards Wren, though I could feel him staring at me. “I’m pretty certain now that it wasn’t.”

The dreams weren’t a response to past trauma. I don’t have to remember them to know that. Not after tonight.