Page 35 of Lux

I’ve done so with Niamh more than once already. Therefore, I take his words as a threat.

“Are you saying that if she carries my seed, you’ll kill her?”

“Oh darling, gross!” He fishes a square of white fabric from his suit jacket and presses it to his nose. “What vile imagery. Luckily for you,thatone cannot reproduce. None of the fae can until they reach their Night status. Thirty or so, I believe is their ripened age. The time when they usually want to run from that realm. Your dear one is technically, still in her Day era.”

“So then why mention it,” I snap.

“For a damn good reason.” He raises an eyebrow, his gaze sharp. “Hybrids are a dangerous sort, my darling. Their blood is wild and untested. They are prone to foul rages, and they attract each other like moths to light. You should know full well the heritage of one, before mingling with it.”

He turns his head, looking away from me. Hiding something.

I frown. “What aren’t you saying?”

“Her mother is fae,” he replies, lowering his strip of fabric to reveal that his mouth is set in a hard line. “We must quickly find out who her father is, between you and me. I have some suspicions, none of them comforting. Has she told you? A hint of her bloodline, perhaps?”

“Don’t know,” I say. Even in her own mind, she doesn’t like to think of it. It scares her, in fact. “She believes she is fae.”

“But she isn’t,” Altaris remarks. “That much I know. We must find out the truth. It is vital, Caspian. Do that, and I will cancel all of your remaining debt to me. You have my word.”

“Why?” I look him up and down. A creature such as him would never willingly walk away from ownership, not if it is tied to his precious paper scrolls. “Why do you even care?”

His gaze flits back to me as he purses his lips into a flat line. “Because your safety is at stake. I care about that.”

Liar. He is afraid.

“You care about who Iwas,” I say.

He nods.

Then tell me,I mean to say. I open my mouth to choke the words out?—

“Altaris!” A panting woman races into the room and leans against the doorway. For show, of course. She is a vamryre and has no need for breathing or baited ones at that. Still, she is distressed.

So distressed, in fact, that Altaris rises instantly and approaches her.

“Poppy, darling,” he warns, his tone stern. “Indoor voices. Tell me calmly and quietly what happened?—”

“Daisy’s gone again! And it’s all my fault!” The redhead, Poppy, buries her face in her hands and cries--as if we, superior beings, could ever feel guilt or shame.

Then I remember. I felt it once. In that motel, after I tore my own siblings apart. I held their bloodied, broken bits in my hands. I sobbed and wept.

And, before my mind shattered in two, she comforted me, my Niamh. With a soft voice and gentle words, she tried her best to bring me back.

Altaris is not of the same mind. He sniffs in irritation and brings a hand to his nose as if to ward off the stench of female crying. “What happened, my dear?” he tries again. “Poppy, speak clearly, my darling. Darling—WHERE IS DAISY?”

An uproar goes up from beyond these splintering walls. Cries and moans and other whimpers of the like. There are many vamryre here with sore, broken minds. They wince at the slightest noise. Cringe in pain at the tiniest whisper.

To them, Altaris’s bellow is a sledgehammer on fractured, shallow glass.

“Damn it,” he hisses. “I must see to… Caspian.” He snaps his fingers at me, as though calling a dog to heel. “Help Poppy track down Daisy. Then we shall all find Ginni and give her a good, bloody talking to. That’s the fifth time in nearly a week that she slipped out under her watch! At this rate, the damn boneys will own us all, house and home.” He raised his voice without realizing it.

More cries ring out than before. Some screams. Wails.

“Oh blast!” Altaris races off, leaving me alone with the strange one.

Poppy. Despite the color of her hair, she could have been one of Cassius’s. She’s pretty enough to have been.

Despite her thin veneer of beauty, however, her intellect is unmistakable. She hides it well with her too-loud voice and simpering sniffles. But, ah, she is wise. Wise enough to have been plucked from mortality by only Nataniel himself.

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