Page 56 of Knowing Trust

Wow, I had fucked up on both sides of the family. I shook my head and went back to reading. The last thing I’d been found with was a baby blanket that always found me again. I used to get picked on for how well I’d taken care of it and it had stood up over the years and how much I’d loved it.

No, it had been trashed and even burnt and still looked brand new. Looking back, I was maybe a moron to not think I was magical somehow.

Seriously.

But my mother had made the blanket for me when she’d learned she was pregnant. I’d been a rough pregnancy at times and the healers had wanted her to relax and told her to knit… Except she was shit at it. That blanket was her tenth and final attempt at it.

And it wasn’t great. I’d always wondered how the blanket always looked new and was so poorly made. There were so many mistakes that as a little kid I could obviously see them.

I blinked back tears. This was one of the most real things I maybe learned about my mom. It was something I felt connected to her about. I felt related to her besides our eyes.

We were alike. She was a pain in the ass like I was. Not just she wasn’t good at something, but she did things over and over again until she felt she had it. She hated not getting something right.

It was like me and cooking. My fixation with curry or grilled cheese, even baking muffins until I felt the recipe was perfect. The amount to use in each muffin paper to bake evenly and what to top it with. It was such a weird thing that I’d always felt embarrassed about.

And apparently, my mom had done the same.

I smiled. My guys said it was something they found adorable about me. Did my dad think the same about my mom and her knitting? I wanted to ask him now that I read this. It was something the guys could bond with him over.

She went back to the ring and answered a question I hadn’t had a chance to ask with all the uproar and my wanting people to forget about.

How did people know what an ancient ring of legend looked like?

There were several ancient artifacts from the gods depicting it. One was a painting in a temple in the dark realm that couldn’t be damaged and never faded. It was magic unlike fairies had and was like other artifacts from the gods. It was popular with older generations and some nobles had prints of the painting in their homes.

It was of the hand—said to be the god who forged the ring—giving it to accepting hands—thought to be the first Queen of Faerie—accepting the gift and her duty as the conduit of the planet. Also, for all of her generations to come.

Yeah, nice how that was slid in there and one woman could promise to basically enslave her family to a damn planet. No wonder it was popular with the sexist older generations.

Assholes.

Whatever, at least it answered that question.

Also, my mother answered a lot more… And I learned was a bit of gossip.

Seriously, my mom was spilling the tea once it was protected and there wasn’t a risk anyone else could read it. Wow.

Like wow.

Nice to know the perfect Queen of Faerie could be a bit petty as well. I felt like I should hit up Izzy’s popcorn stash as I read that my mom hated Shael and thought the woman was a bit too full of herself and sexist. She ranted for two pages that she was a complete hypocrite and was so much harsher on my mom than men and Shael didn’t even understand that was being sexist.

Bravo.

Seriously, bravo.

I cursed up a storm when I learned the plan of how to handle the ancients. She couldn’t get rid of them before everything happened because she wasn’t powerful enough, but the first thing when I reopened Faerie was supposed to be that I found this journal and a lot of the evidence she had compiled of their corruption.

I let out a yelp when a hand stroked my hair. I jumped to my feet and was ready to fight when a hand reached out and steadied me before I fell.

My eyes went bug wide as I locked with emerald-green ones and glanced around, seeing the shock of my security. I took down the barrier and cloaking I had up and blurted out one word. “How?”

“I don’t know,” Julian admitted with a shrug. “We worked on our bond but not in Faerie yet.”

“He seemed to just know where you were, Your Highness,” Ara muttered, blinking as she stared at us. “Irma gave us the message of where to meet, but he said you were in Faerie. He knew.”

“That’s new,” I whispered I steadied myself, letting him keep my hand. “Did you do something with fairy runes or—are you hurt?”

“No, it was just a gut feeling,” he promised. “I wasn’t even being pushy or spying. I swear.”

---