Page 51 of A Kingdom of Monsters

My eyes widened slightly. “What makes you think that?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m old but I’m not blind.”

My eyes darted around the table, wondering what Ciara would say if I told her that Scion wasn’t my only mate. Then again, maybe she wouldn’t care. She didn’t sound unsure, or even bothered by my having a mate–let alone that he was the queen’s former executioner.

“He is,” I finally admitted.

Ciara looked down her long nose at me. “Then you don’t need to wonder why you’re so depleted. He clearly used enough magic to halt an entire army’s worth of people. In short, he overextended, so now your power is working twice as hard to keep you both alive.”

I narrowed my eyes. Ciara had always known things without anyone having bothered to tell her, so I wasn’t exactly surprised that she seemed to already know what had happened before anyone had the chance to explain it to her. Still, my knowledge of magic was much stronger now than it once was and I could no longer pretend to believe Ciara’s foresight was simply intuition.

“You certainly seem to know a lot about this,” I muttered, unable to keep the note of accusation from my voice.

Ciara chuckled. “Don’t look so suspicious. Seer magic is the most common ability to manifest in humans with some distant Fae blood in their ancestry.” She jerked her head toward Ambrose. “Ask him if you don’t believe me.”

I grimaced. I didn’t need to ask, I already knew she was right. My sister had been one of those part Fae seers. Yet, my understanding was that there was a vast difference between the occasional prophetic dream and the sort of magic Ambrose had.

“You seem unusually well informed is all,” I said carefully. I didn’t want to offend the woman, not if we needed to be here.

Fortunately, Ciara didn’t seem to take offense. “Years ago when your mother was escaping the palace she needed somewhere to hide. I helped her find a house in Cheapside, but in exchange I wanted to know why she was running. She told me about your magic and tried to get me to give you a potion to suppress it. I told her such a thing didn’t exist.”

“Yes it–”

Ambrose cleared his throat, cutting me off before I could mention the potion he’d invented to do exactly what Ciara was describing. When diluted with other herbs, Gancanagh’s dust could be used to suppress magic, yet for some reason he clearly didn’t want me to talk about it.

“Right.” I cleared my throat uncomfortably. “So you’re yet another person who’s known my secrets for years and never felt the need to tell me.”

She looked entirely unabashed. “It would have done you no good to know sooner, but now you’d better learn fast or you’ll do something stupid and end up drained–like today.”

“I hate to agree but she’s right, little monster,” Bael said, still eyeing Ciara and her wooden spoon with obvious contempt. “Don’t you remember what happened when I nearly drained you to get us out of Inbetwixt?”

I frowned and took a sip of my tea to give myself a moment to think.

In truth, I didn’t remember the incident Bael was referring to because I’d been unconscious. Still, I understood what he was getting at. After the second hunt, our party had been attacked by the afflicted. Bael used a great deal of magic to hold them off, and then nearly drained himself to shadow walk both of us thelong way back to the capital. Magical drain—or using too much power at one time—was the most common cause of death for Fae. I hadn’t understood it at the time, but if Bael and I hadn’t been mates and regularly sharing blood, we both would have died.

“This doesn’t feel like a very good system,” I said peevishly. “If every time one of you over extends yourself we could all die, then what’s the point?”

“It’s not supposed to be like this,” Ambrose said gently, leaning forward across the table toward me. “True mates always have comparable powers, or the stronger partner would drain the weaker one by mistake. Because of your connection to the Source, you have so much power that you’d be in danger of draining even the strongest Fae in Elsewhere.”

“That’s the first smart thing any one of you has said,” Ciara snapped. “Someone with power like yours would always have to have more than one mate, but I take it you haven’t sealed all your bonds.”

My eyes darted furtively around the table, and I shook my head. “No. Not yet.”

“Well, if all your bonds were sealed correctly, sharing magic would be a benefit rather than a potential danger, but until you seal them you’ll always be in danger of overextending.”

I sighed loudly, and slumped my head forward against the table. “That’s just perfect.”

Bael reached over and ran his long fingers up and down my back. “It’ll be fine, little monster.”

I wanted to argue with him—no it actually would not be fine. That was the entire point, wasn’t it? If we completed the bonds, they would all die, but unless we completed them we might die anyway. “I just don’t know why nothing can ever be easy.”

Scion laughed hollowly. “I stopped asking myself that a long time ago, rebel. I’m starting to think no one alive is ever truly happy.”

Ciara bustled around the table and began throwing more handfuls of mysterious herbs into a second pot of tea. “So.” she craned her head over her shoulder. “Explain to me why you haven’t completed your bonds.”

I glanced sideways at Ambrose, a question in my gaze. He shook his head once, which I took to mean that we were not about to start sharing the details of the Everlast family’s curse.

“Er…it’s complicated,” I said awkwardly.

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