Chapter Twenty
The next day, the cat was sprawled across my bed as I stared out of the bedroom window. The gardens were beautiful, but I wondered just how much of it was real. Brendan walked amongst the rose bushes with Sorcha, his shoulders hunched. Líle and Anya were playing cards, but Líle's eyes had been trained on me for a while. Realtín and Grim whispered in the corner.
"I'm going fora walk," I announced. Every one of them rose to their feet in a bustle, and I sighed at the idea I would never have privacy again. "Just in the garden," I clarified, but even the cat moved to the windowsill as if to watch over me.
Outside, my little entourage followed me to the rose bushes where Brendan was still wandering with Sorcha. He didn't meet my eyes when we approached, and I felt a little pang of longing. I had spent the night with that body, but the current soul couldn't look me in the eye.
"Should you be allowing her to wander around so freely?" Sorcha asked Líle.
"It's fine," Brendan said.
"Can I talk to you for a minute?" I asked.
"I don't think-"
"Please?"
He nodded and waved his hand. "Disperse."
Everyone, including Sorcha, took unwilling steps away from us. I looked back at my fae friends, noted the worry on Grim's face, and turned to Brendan again. He seemed subdued, and I worried a little.
"Can we go back?" I asked. "That place with the willow tree, can we go there again?"
"Why?" He sounded surprised.
"I need... to not have people looking at me when I say this."
He frowned and made a hand signal, likely to let Arlen know he was about to disappear with me. He beckoned me, and I followed him past thorn bushes, past tiny eyes, until we stepped through a gate and found ourselves back on neutral fae territory.
"Is this always here?" I asked.
"Always." He trudged toward the willow tree, giving me no chance to bask in that dying fae sun, such a contrast from the bitter cold back home. "Sit," he ordered when we reached the bench, but he paced in front of it. "If you're looking for an explanation, an apology, you won't find it. I'm fae. That's how we behave. You knew that when you ate the food, took the drink."
"I trusted you," I said. "You played the game with me when I trusted you. When you knew. Why?"
"I didn't mean to. Not at first. But then..." He shook his head. "I had forgotten how it felt to make a connection, to feel... it doesn't matter why. Are you going to be difficult at the ceremony because of this?"
I hated myself for my ready answer. "No. I just wanted to ask you some questions, that's all."
"He's done it then. Trapped you."
"I'm not trapped. I know exactly what I'm doing. I'm probably not making the best decisions, but I'm making the ones that feel good right now. Let me have that one thing, Brendan."
"Fae are all about doing what feels good right now," he said softly. "But your human guilt might make it feel all the worse later on."
"Why do you think I haven't forced you out of his body yet?"
His gaze was filled with pity. I was a child playing in games I would never understand.
I decided to change the subject. "When I was attacked, you said someone other than Realtín sounded the alarm. Was it the cat?"
He nodded. "Think of the cat like a guardian. She won't harm you."
"But is it the same cat? Is it the cat I saw... other times?"
"I believe so."
"Why me then?"
"That's between you and the cat."
I stared at him, wondering if he was making fun of me. "You said something else. When we danced. You said... you said the fae had caused most of my misery. What exactly did you mean?"
He paced, his hands opening and closing into fists. "I don't think you're ready for that, Cara."
"Ready for what? Just tell me what you know, Brendan. I'm not a bloody child."
"Aren't you?" he whispered. "Gathering playmates around you."
"You're the one who sent them all to me! I didn't ask for Líle or Anya or even a sprite and a brownie. They were your choices."
He shrugged. "Sometimes I wonder. Yes, I bade them to stay with you, to protect you, but you're the one who has befriended them, charmed them into loving you. I couldn't separate you if I tried. Even Líle, loyal to me and barely known to you, has that same look in her eyes that the others have. And I have to wonder why. Is it because your humanity is a novelty for them, or is it something else? They want to please you so badly. Does a streak of fae in you compel them to obey?"
"Obey? I don't order them. I'm not like you."
"No. And yet, you are a lot like me. You do what you have to do to survive another day. And you have a knack of knowing just what that might be."
"Stop talking in circles and just tell me, please. What is that you know about me?"
"I know where you came from," he said, looking distraught. "But it doesn't matter, Cara. You're never going back to your human family. You never need to look in their eyes again. What does it matter how it all began?"
I rubbed my goose-bumped arms. "Tell me."
He sat next to me and cleared his throat. "I told you how fae deal with humans, pushing, prodding, provoking."
"Are you saying my dad acts the way he does because a fae is picking on him?" My heart lifted with hope. If there was a reason, an excuse, then maybe I could fix it. Maybe I could have my family the way I needed it to be.
Brendan hesitated. "Partly. This goes back to before you were born, Cara.This is... many of us are attracted to human children with fae ancestry. There's something a little... extra about the emotions they feed us. There's a bubble around them, a hive of more."
"Are you saying... do you mean that I'm the one provoking him? That I'm causing all of it?"
He stared at his hands. "I'm trying to explain. Your mother is like you, human with fae blood, and when your father fell in love with her, his love was so exaggerated, so deep, that it bordered on obsession. That alone is attractive to a wandering fae. But your mother already unconsciously called us to her." He frowned. "That was another reason why we mixed. A hybrid would form a melting pot of emotions around them, affecting everyone in her family, sometimes even her neighbourhood. It's this call that's so strong. It provides so much without us having to stir things up, as it were."
"So there have always been fae around my family?"
"Yes. Your mother already attracted the fae, and her relationship with your father strengthened the call. Some fae knew to hang around the family, knew it was an easy gain. And one night, things went bad."
"What happened?" I whispered.
"They, your parents and your brother, lived far away from where your family home is now. They had a relatively normal life. The highs were probably higher than others, the lows far harder to crawl out of, but your father wasn't the way he is now, and your brother had no trace of fae, so there was no combination effect like there is with you and your mother together." He looked at me. "Do you want me to stop?"
I shook my head. "Keep going."
"One night, the house was broken into by another like your mother - human with but a trace of fae. He didn't know, didn't understand, but the fear he caused, the guilt he felt, the excitement and bursts of adrenaline he experienced when he stole were a feeding ground to all sorts of fae. That, in turn, fed him until he experienced his own kind of high. He broke the rules to feel alive. Does that sound familiar?"
I licked my lips. Suddenly, the air felt a lot drier.
"Are you sure you want me to finish this story?" he asked. "It doesn't have a happy ending."
"There are no such things as happy endings. Don't stop."
"As you wish." He reached out to hold my hand, and I knew it would be bad, worse than anything I had expected.
"When he came upon your family home, he found himself... encouraged by the fae. There was a lot of excitement, and it attracted more fae, darker fae from both courts, and things got out of control. He had never been that sort of man before, but on that night, encouraged by the mass of emotions and the fae who gathered, he forced your father and brother to watch while he raped your mother."
I had been waiting for it, waiting for the worst to come, but even then I wasn't ready. My hand flew to my mouth, trembling like a leaf.
He continued, refusing to look at me. "You were conceived that night, a child made from two human parents with fae blood. Your family moved and pretended the past never happened, but your father begged your mother to have an abortion. She refused; she couldn't do it. She couldn't blame you for what had happened, and perhaps a tiny part of her understood. The fae had come for her as a child, just as they came for you. Both of you were ready to awaken to the truth, you know."
I shook my head. "I can't..."
"The fae never left you alone. They followed, driven by your father's emotions... and your brother's. They pushed your father until he could take no more. And he grew more agitated as time passed. The more he hurt, the more the fae pushed."
"How do you know all of this?" I asked, defying my voice to shake or crack.
"Your family is apparently well-known fodder for the fae. With your birth, everything went further out of control. And as if you knew, you learned early on to block what you feel. You protected your family, whether you knew it or not, Cara. Life would have been much worse for them if it weren't for you."
"If it wasn't for me, there would have been no trouble at all," I whispered. "Dad's right. He didn't know what he was right about, but he was right all the same. I was the only problem. Their lives are probably perfect now without me."
"You think they don't have guilt? His mind has been cruelly twisted, but he still acknowledges the guilt he feels, and without you there, it's easier for him to see clearly. It doesn't matter, Cara. It doesn't change you. You did what you had to do to survive, as did the fae who troubled your family. I'm sorry it happened, but I can't take it back, and I can't stop it from happening to another family. Not like this. This is why they need a strong leader. You saw the queens. You know they ruled with lust and bloodlust. They encouraged that kind of behaviour. They gained power from it."
The story was slowly sinking in, slowly making sense of everything that had ever happened in my entire life. The fae had ruined us, and I was helping them, caring for them, wanting to be with them forever.
"Has all of this been accidental?" I asked. "My parents, the cat, me being led to you, has this all been a happy accident?"
"Sometimes I wonder at that, too." He squeezed my hand. "You're shaking."
"Yeah, well. It's a lot to... it's just a lot."
"I'm sure. This... I'm trying to explain why we react to you the way we do. The faery you descended from had a knack for pushing emotions to the limits. You do that, and combined with your human ability to feel, it's like a drug to us. You're valuable to the fae, but that doesn't mean you're important. If I'm king again, if I take the throne and regain my full power, I can protect you in the future. I can make you untouchable, stop what happened to your mother from happening to you."
"All I have to do is help you," I said wryly.
"It's for the greater good. We all have to sacrifice. We all have to give. We all have to work together to undo the damage that has been done."
"You said it's just fae nature."
"It is, but sometimes it goes too far. We should be protecting those with our blood, not pitting them against each other and putting them in danger. I admit I once enjoyed those games, but that made me a terrible king. I've learned from my mistakes."
"Do you and Drake, Realtín, and the others, do you all spend time with me because I give you a high?"
"It's... not the only reason."
"So I'm like... a commodity. I can just sell off my natural talents to the highest bidder amongst the fae. I can just-"
"You're not that foolish, Cara."
"Aren't I? I was foolish enough to think I could fix my family. Foolish enough to want to see the fae. I was even foolish enough to think I could love you all, to think that I could somehow help you and save Drake both. I was the fool who thought either of you were worth it."
"Cara..."
"I'd like to go home now, please."
"To my home," he clarified. "You can't ever go back to yours."
"I know that," I snapped, pulling my hand from his grasp. "Just another thing the fae have taken from me."
When we returned to the house, I got into my gigantic fae bed, pulled the luxurious fae covers over my head, and squeezed my eyes shut, trying hard not to imagine the person I probably resembled most, the person who had raped my mother, the person the man who raised me saw every time he looked at me.