Page 9

My mother? A spy? And one who went by a different name?

Secrets are meant for one soul to keep.It’s an apt slogan for a spy.

“I didn’t answer directly to him,” she continues, “so for many decades we never came face-to-face. Not until I foiled an assassination attempt on the king did he ever lay eyes on me.”

My mother saved the king’s life. That revelation leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. There are urchins more worthy of saving than the creature that rules our land.

“Galleghar invited me to his palace to personally medal me for the deed.” Her eyes grow distant. She shakes her head. “I should have known better than to go, but go I did. That day I entered that meeting a spy, but by the end of it, I’d been stripped of my title and duties and I was deposited into his harem.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Why?” I ask, bewildered. From everything I’ve read, fairies don’t just choose mates over the course of a day. Some circle each other for centuries before settling down.

My mother lifts a shoulder. “He never really told me.”

So he ripped her life from her and forced her to be his. The thought makes my skin crawl.

I’m a product of that union.

“I was with him for many years, many long, lonesome years. Until, one day, things changed.

“Galleghar doesn’t let his concubines have much freedom, but on one rare occasion I was outside the palace walls, enjoying a traveling faire, when a diviner told me a piece of my future.

My mother pauses. “She said, ‘In your hour of desperation, you’ll know what to do, and the world will thank you for it.’

“I forgot the diviner’s words until the day I found out I was pregnant. It was only then that they came back to me. And she was right, I did know what to do. I sold off centuries of my life for the means to escape, and eventually, I fled the king’s palace right under his nose. I came here, and here I’ve stayed ever since.”

My mother sold off centuries of her life?

She clasps the side of my face. “So you see, my son, my fate was decided long before today.”

My heart is squeezing and squeezing. I imagine this is how a star feels as it dies, like everything it loves and everything it is, is pressing inwards and crushing the life out of it.

I shake my head in her hands. My eyes are starting to sting, but I’m still too shocked to fully process all that my mother has said.

She pulls my face in close. “Hide your wings, control your temper, and learn everything you can about the world, starting with your enemies,” she breathes. “Trust no one, and above all, don’t share your secrets.”

254 years ago

My mother isstill cradling my face when we hear the thud of footsteps echo down the caverns.

The two of us share a wild look.

My father’s men are here.

“There’s a bag amongst your inheritance that’s spelled to hold it all. Collect what you can while I hold the soldiers off, and then leave.” She nods to the door at the back of her room, the one that leads out to the maze of tunnels behind our house.

I shake my head. “Only if you come with me,” I insist stubbornly.

“Desmond,” she says calmly, “you are a king’s son. A legitimate heir to a tyrant’s kingdom. You need to keep yourself alive not just for my sake, or yours, but for our realm’s. Do you understand?”

“Stop,” I say hoarsely, because I do understand, but I don’t want to.

She releases me, backing towards the door that leads out of her bedroom and into our living room. “I love you, my son. Till darkness dies, I will.”

My heart thunders.

Up until now, this has been my life. These slick, dank cave walls, this humble abode, this enigmatic mother. I’ve resented this life for years, but now, right when I might lose it all, I find I can’t bear the thought. Not my mother’s sacrifice, not my cursed situation, not the possibility that this might all come to a swift end because this life, even as bleak as it is, is somehow too good for the likes of us.

I stare at the chest of coins. Years’ worth of riches my mother worked for, all so that one day she could save me, and me alone.