Page 77 of Kings and Monsters

"The backdoor is gone. You can't use it. I collapsed it on the way through," he said calmly. "I'm taking you to your mother."

"I'm not going to France!" she shouted into his face.

"Even if you got into a car and tried to drive back to Gwaed Lyn tonight, you would never find it. Bleddyn has locked us all out."

"Why would he do this?"

"To save you, idiot! You aren't eating and barely sleeping. You're one step off going as mad as I did! You are going to Cecily even if I have to drag you there myself. You can't help Balthasar. None of us can?—"

Rosa hit him so hard, he tasted blood in his mouth. He had expected it, but he hadn't expected how he'd feel when she looked at him with utter betrayal in her eyes.

"Hit me again if it's going to make you feel better. It still won't change anything. Bleddyn has promised that if there are any changes in Balthasar's condition, he'll bring us home straight away."

"You…fucking…bastards!" Rosa struggled to get the words out. She glowed with power, readying her attack as Nimuegrabbed her from behind and Rosa slumped forward, unconscious.

"You took your time," Merlin complained as he lifted Rosa up into his arms.

"You deserved to be hit, even if you're doing the right thing," she said.

"She's going to be mad as a snake when she wakes," Arthur murmured as he brushed the hair from her face. "What now?"

Merlin opened the ley line that they stood on. "Now we let Cecily calm her down and hope like hell that even a god of the dead can grow a conscience."

Rosa came to,swinging out at unseen enemies. Her jacket and shoes had been removed, and she was tangled in unfamiliar, lavender scented bedsheets.

"I'm going to kill that good for nothing bastard," she cursed.

Cecily came in with a breakfast tray.

"Oh, good, you're awake," she said, placing it on the bedside table. It was the first time in years Rosa had seen her with her hair out, a curling mass of dark brown only lightly streaked with grey. Paired with a loose button up skirt and jeans, it looked like years had been shaved off her.

"Mom." Rosa grabbed her, hanging on tight.

"Oh, sweetheart," Cecily said, stroking her hair. The touch did it. Rosa burst into angry tears that had refused to fall in weeks.

For the first time, she was honest with her mother and told her everything that had happened in the Aos Si. Rosa thought Cecily would be scandalized, repulsed even, at the things she haddone. All the lives she had taken. Her mother had simply sat on her bed and listened.

"Will you just say something?" Rosa asked as she reached for a fresh cup of tea.

"What can I say? I have Arthur Fucking Pendragon having tea and scones under my pergola outside. I know you are telling me the truth Rosa," Cecily said, and Rosa choked on her tea. It was the first time she'd ever heard her mother swear.

"He's sweet, isn't he?" Rosa smiled.

"Sweet enough to eat." Cecily stroked Rosa's braid. "If you are waiting for me to be angry at you, you're going to be disappointed."

"I'm hardly your daughter anymore. I'm not even the same species. How can you not be angry?" Rosa whispered.

Cecily let out a long sigh through her nose. "You haven't changed as much as you think. True, you're part fae now, and yet you are still fundamentally Rosa. It's hard for a mother to admit, but you were always more Bleddyn's child than anyone else's."

"That's not true."

"It is and believe me, your father and I made peace with it by the time you were three years old. Bleddyn was the one who you cried out for when you had nightmares. It was him who you followed around and who you wanted to impress." Cecily let out a sad laugh. "I don't doubt that you loved us too, but you were always wild like they are. I was surprised you stayed away as long as you did."

"I hated Bleddyn, that's why. I hated you both for sending me away, and I didn't want to have anything to do with Gwaed Lyn."

"Do you honestly believe you could've been happy with a normal life? You couldn't stop doing degrees, jumping about and searching for your place and not finding it. Normal life was unsatisfactory to you, and you know it." Cecily took her hand and gave it a squeeze. "Don't be ashamed of what you are, Rosa.You belong with them. Christ, you just need to talk to Merlin for five minutes to hear you come out of his mouth. Bloody Wylts down to your toenails, the pair of you."

"Except he's a right prick who I'm going to throttle as soon as I get out of this bed," Rosa muttered.

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