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The piece of my heart still hanging on by a thread and bruised to the point of blackness—the part of me who never grew up and out of those rose-coloured glasses and would be the sameage as Brynn was forever—would have broken irreparably to lose a parent. Even one whom I hated.

Even one whom, as it turned out, was never really my parent at all.

Lucais had let the Malum live in exile after committing a heinous crime while attempting to commit another.

A crime against the High Fae’s mating rituals, and an attempted assault on the Witch Covens.

Why had his father been able to disobey him when the whole of Faerie had been forced to bend to his will in freeing the slaves?

Had he reigned in his power and used only his words to give the order not to do it? Had he refused to play the crown’s card because it was his own flesh and blood?

Maybe itwashis fault, his error in judgement. A new High King, a new era in Faerie, and a war that ended in the creation of the human race happening all at once must have been overwhelming for even the most powerful of the High Fae.

Lucais’s guilt was raw and genuine. He couldn’t be blamed for wanting to prevent the hunt that would have begun for his family members—and for Wren’s, too.

Fuck.

Wren had a sister. Wren hadlosta sister. And he’d gone straight upstairs the night the caenim attacked us at my home in Belgrave to check on mine.

I’d accused him of being loyal to a lover.

It was hissister.

The soft whirring of the wind alerted me to his arrival as he evanesced, and then his voice followed, quiet and low as the purr of a cat.

“Auralie?”

As I climbed to my feet and brushed sand from the back of my legs, I caught sight of Morgoya in the distance, waving ahand in the air to signal goodbye before she vanished in a flash of green and gold.

“The High Lady filled me in,” I mumbled a little sheepishly, as I smoothed down the already smooth fabric of my skirts and stared at his polished boots, “and it turns out that we aren’t so different after all. Maybe some part of me still wants to blame you, but I can’t. For any of it. Because I understand.”

I understood what pain could do to people—what it had done to me. How it could speak for you, and sometimes act for you, too. What it could take away, what it could offer up in replacement, and how some nights you couldn’t even tell the difference anymore.

The relief of passing it onto someone else was familiar to me, as was the self-hatred that followed. And then the denial. The blame. The explanations and the excuses.

Anything to keep on hurting. At least then, I was capable of feeling something.

At least then, the High King and what was left of his inner circle after the war were capable of feeling something.

“She’s gone, Auralie. My sister is gone, and I’ve had about three hundred years to make peace with that.”

Slowly, as if in a daze, I lifted my gaze to meet the chestnut brown eyes that were caressing me as softly as his lips had. “Morgoya said it was Wren’s sister.”

The High King’s shoulders jerked upwards in a casual dismissal. “Margot was like a sister to both of us.”

“Oh.” I nodded, feeling a sudden wave of vertigo rolling over me. Shivering, I brushed it off. Clamped my mental fist around the magic that stalked me before it could move or speak. “Well, I’m sorry for what I said...”

Lucais smiled at me forlornly. “As am I.”

“Call it even, then?” I asked, squinting up at him and trying for a smile.

He nodded, taking a step forward, and his midnight curls fell over the creases on his brow. “We made some grave errors during the war and the months after it ended. Consequently, it will be much harder to put the Malum down now. But we will. Aura, I promise you that we will.”

Letting him take both of my hands in his, I breathed in the scent of smoke and sunlight emanating from the High King of Faerie and waited for the grey skies to fade back into the rainbows of dancing light.

The magic hissed.

I silenced it again.