Page 24 of Beltane

Finn explained it to her, the language eloquent coming from his lips. Diana nodded along, glancing back and forth between us for a long moment, her eyebrows furrowed like she struggled to understand what the other fairy was saying.

“You are the great queen of the fairies. See these marks.” Siobhan held up her arm to show Diana the tattoos winding up her elbow and bicep. “They are a symbol of your lineage.” She matched them to the same marks on Diana’s arm. “They mark my loyalty to you.”

Finn translated while the queen shook her head, clearly not remembering.

“She wants to know about the girl. Where is she?” Finn glanced up at us, green gaze flickering between us.

“We haven’t talked to her in days,” I said. “She won’t answer our calls.”

Diana’s smile widened and she linked her hands in front of her, glancing to me with an encouraging nod.

“Call her again. She’ll answer this time,” Finn said.

I raised an eyebrow and glanced at Carter, skeptical of listening to an ancient fairy queen with magical amnesia. But weirder things had happened, so he reached into his back pocket and retrieved his phone, pressing the number for Poppy’s contact.

She answered on the second ring.

8

Carter

Aloud zap went through the atmosphere, and Poppy appeared in the living room.

“He made me do it,” she said, a sob barreling out of her throat as she collapsed into a pile by the fireplace. “He made me do it, and he took them.”

Her curly blond hair still frizzed around her head, the same as it had the night I’d met her. Her big brown eyes still took up a sizable portion of her face, making her seem innocent and unassuming. But I knew better now. She’d grown nearly half a foot. Now, all knees and elbows, she looked closer to the age she probably was, despite the infant-like chubbiness remaining in her cheeks.

Three days ago, I would have said she was the child I’d never had, the one given to Ivy and me when we couldn’t have one of our own. Even though Lex didn’t trust her and said she was lying, I wanted to believe she wouldn’t betray us. Then, she’d stolen my sister and claimed she didn’t have any other choice, that she’d had to do it. Now, she stood in front of me with red-rimmed eyes and tear-stained cheeks.

Despite her betrayal, the ache in my heart throbbed, both for my missing sister as well as the version of me that had loved Poppy blindly.

Diana rushed to the child, cooing and taking her in her arms like a mother would, rocking her while Poppy sobbed. Siobhan stood frozen across the table from me, Finn and Donnelly likewise stock-still. I watched the queen soothe the young human, the connection between them obvious. “Shh, shh, shh,” Diana said, murmuring other nurturing tones.

“I’m so—” Poppy sucked in a deep breath and hiccuped. “I’m so stupid. I tried. I tried so hard, and he still won.” She dug her palms into her eyes and shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Part of me longed for her. I wanted to drop to my knees and pull her into my arms the way Diana had, somehow yearning to be the one who held her while she cried. But I stayed where I was, willing myself to harden and remember what she’d done, who she was.

Her swollen eyes met mine from across the room and she broke more, curling into the queen to cry harder, and I couldn’t handle it anymore. Betrayal or not, I still loved her. She was still mine to protect, mine to keep safe. I moved without consciously thinking about it, kneeling in front of the scene.

“Poppy,” I said, gently reaching out to tug her arms away from her face. “Poppy, what happened? Where’s Lizzie and Edward?”

“You were right,” she murmured. “They’re dead. They’re all dead.”

Ice plummeted down my spine into my gut.Dead? What? No.I glanced back at my spouses, making eye contact with Miri, whose hands covered her mouth while she braced to learn the fate of her cousin.

“Marcus. Prince Gerald. Princess Emma.” Poppy went on, taking another ragged breath, shaking her head as she cried harder.

My stomach clenched, and I struggled to maintain my gentle hold on her shoulders. Marcus? Gerald and Emma? What did Lex’s brother and Miri’s parents have to do with anything? Unless…Oh, God.

“He found me. I tried hiding, but he found me, and he made me take Lizzie and Edward. He made me say those horrible things. He was going to kill me. I had to.”

Part of me wanted to be furious, and perhaps I was. But the other part of me saw desperation in her actions. She wanted the only mother she’d ever known back. When Dmitri had taken Diana and brought her here, Poppy must have thought the worst. Now, it made sense. She’d been a victim of the king’s coercion, trying to solve something she had no business being involved with in the first place.

Poppy shook her head and sobbed. “He didn’t have my lady. He forced me to go back in time.” Her gaze drifted from me to Lex and Ivy across the room, her tears streaking her cheeks as she whimpered. “I watched him do it. I watched him sink that boat with Marcus on it. I watched him crash the car with Miri inside. And you…” Poppy’s brown eyes met mine. “He tried to kill your father. But the nurse saved him, the one he married.” Poppy swallowed, her eyes so sullen and sad, it nearly crushed me. “The king’s a monster.”

He tried to kill your father.

I’d never had a good relationship with my father, but sometime around age sixteen, he’d gotten into a car accident and ended up at the hospital. There, he met a beautiful young nurse and the person that would eventually cause him to leave my mother. Now, Poppy put a new filter on that. It had been the king who had caused it, hoping to kill him instead.

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