Page 44 of A Song of Ash and Moonlight

Gemma sighed again, then took my hands gently in hers. “I know we did,” she said, “but that was years ago, well before we went to the Old Country. That night, everything changed. You know it did. When we were there, we were stronger than we’d ever been before. We moved differently, we looked different. You saw how Ryder and Alastrina reacted to us.”

I did remember, of course. All three of us had glowed from within that night, the Olden air turning our skin and hair unnaturally lustrous and flecking our eyes with gold. While fighting the Brethaeus and the Vilia, Mara had moved so lightning fast that I couldn’t keep track of her, darting from tree to ground to attacker like an arrow shot from a bow. Gemma had ripped entire trees from the ground and glamoured herself to hide the glass embedded in her skin, and the wood itself, every tree and piece of brush, had leaned toward us, all of us, drawn to our power like moths to fire.

And I had used my voice as I’d never done before. I’d found a wordless, unfamiliar song in the depths of myself, and I’d sung it in that forest as enemies swarmed us from all sides. My song had sentthe specters attacking my sisters into utter chaos, making them scream and writhe and fling themselves to the ground.

And then together, all three of us—Gemma and Mara and I—had fought a monster capable of entrapping a demon.

And we hadwon.

Fae blood, Gemma’s Vilia friend Phaidra had declared upon seeing us transformed.The blood of both Kerezen and Caiathos burns in your veins, just as it did in the veins of the first fae.

A wild claim, one I hadn’t accepted then and wouldn’t accept now. Along with the demons, the fae were the most powerful beings in the Old Country, elusive and cunning. The idea that we possessed any of their blood was preposterous. Father was an Anointed sentinel, Mother a low-magic elemental of moderate power with a talent for botanicals. They were human, and so were we, and so were all the generations of our family before us, both on the Ashbourne side and the Wren side. No, there had to be another explanation, perhaps an ordinary aberration in our blood that could exist in any number of Gallinoran citizens. We’d just been unlucky enough—or foolish enough—to venture into the Old Country and see the evidence for ourselves.

“Of course I remember,” I muttered.

Gemma was ducking down, trying to get me to look at her, but I refused. I glared at the table and felt petulantly glad to see her half-eaten eggs sitting there, growing cold.

“I wouldn’t have written to Auntie Fel if I hadn’t a very good reason for it,” Gemma said. “I want to know what happened that night in the Old Country, Farrin, and I want to know if it’ll happen again, what might set it off. What does it mean, and—considering everything that’s happening—can we use it to our advantage in the days to come? Even here in Edyn?”

“And of course Great-Aunt Felicity knows all about such things,”I said peevishly, hating the sound of the words even as I said them.

“Of course she doesn’t, but she’s the person in Mother’s family I felt most comfortable reaching out to. I remember her being nice enough when we were little. I remember her smelling like peppermint.” Gemma paused. “She’s smart and thoughtful, and wickedly funny. I’ve told her about the panic, about the healer I see to help me with it. She’s been so gentle about it, so understanding. You’d like her.”

“I’d like her,” I repeated flatly. “No, Gemma. I wouldn’t. I don’t like any of them. Do you remember what they said when Mother left us?”

Gemma had been expecting that one. “I do.”

But I had to say it anyway, to remind myself—to remindher—of the promise we’d made to each other and why we had made it.

“They said it was Father’s fault that Mother left. They stood here in our own home and accused him of hurting her for years,beatingher, beatingus, because he couldn’t control his temper and couldn’t win his war with the Basks. They said he’d been driving her mad, that in her letters to them she’d written about how ill she felt, how she couldn’t sleep, how she was hearingvoices. And from that they drew the worst possible conclusions. When Father asked to see the letters, read her words for himself, they wouldn’t show him. Every single one of them insisted the same thing—even your beloved Auntie Fel—and leveled the same awful accusations. They united against us, againstFather. They tried to take us away from him.”

I barely got out those last words, feeling sick to remember those terrible days after Mother left: Mara gone and eight-year-old Gemma constantly wailing. Father vacillating between sleeping the days away and disappearing all night to visit friends and drink himself into oblivion, some days exhausting his body with hours of punishing exercises out on the grounds. The Wrens, Mother’s family, had tried every lawful and unlawful means of sneaking Gemma and me out of the house. Some nights, Father had camped out in theentrance hall, fists clenched, eyes trained on the doors. Weapons scattered all around him. Waiting, even eager, for the Wrens to try something.

And then there had been me, twelve years old, watching him from the shadows, too sick and worried to sleep, trying desperately to hold everything together and keep the estate functioning while my world fell apart around me.

“And in light of everything you’ve learned about the things Father has done,” Gemma said, very low, glancing at my wrist, “in light of what he’s done toyou, can you really say their claims were so very outlandish?”

It was as though she’d struck me. Of course I’d had those thoughts myself, but I’d long dismissed them and continued to, even with his mood so black over the past few months. Father hurting Mother, hurtingus? He’d never done such a thing, had never laid a hand on us in anger. Yet here was Gemma hurling the terrible thoughts back at me, the very fact of what had been done to her as a child reminding me that yes, Fathercouldhurt if he thought he had a reason to.

“Father didn’t hire that artificer on his own, you know.” I didn’t want to say it, but I had to. I was desperate to regain some kind of footing in this conversation. “Mother was there too. She could have stopped it, but she didn’t. She sat in the room right beside you and let it happen.”

Gemma didn’t even flinch. “So Father says, now that Mother’s not around to dispute his version of the story.” She held my gaze for a long time, years of pain swimming in her bright eyes. She sat there proudly, back straight, shoulders squared.

Ashamed, I looked down at my hands.

“Anyway, Auntie Fel has apologized for all of that,” Gemma said at last, wearily. “She admits they made unfair, baseless accusations out of grief for Mother and fear for us. And Farrin…” She drew in a breath as if steeling herself. “As I said, I wouldn’t have written to Auntie Felunless I had a very good reason.”

Of course I knew the reason. I knew it, and I despised it, and, irrationally, I despised Gemma for having grown into the sort of woman who no longer avoided her problems but instead chose to face them.

I despised myself most of all, anger roiling in my chest like a hot sea, bubbling uselessly, making me feel mighty and dangerous even though I was far from it. In fact, I possessed not even half of my baby sister’s nerve.

“You want to ask her questions about us,” I muttered. “About Mother.”

“Yes.”

“About Mother’spowers, and if she kept something from us, from Father, and why we can do what we did.”

“Yes.”

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