Page 23 of Midnight Kingdom

“Tell me ‘bout her?”

“She was beautiful,” I say in a haunted tone. “Silver hair and blue eyes. I think she was an angel. My sister... she didn’t look like my mother. She had dark hair.”

“Were she a succubus like you?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t able to see much of her. But…”

“What?” Flumph climbs up onto the windowsill.

“My mother and Solya are dead. I don’t know how I know that… but I… just do.”

“You sures?” he asks and eyes me narrowly.

I nod. “It was this feeling I had—like I knew they were no longer with us. I think they died before the balance was disrupted.” Part of me hopes that memory never returns. Yes, I want to know who I am and what my life was like before I walked up to Anona’s precinct, but there’s so much going onnowthat looking back seems... pointless. Whatever happened, happened. I sigh. “Anyway, that’s what the dream was about.”

“Well, if ya need me, just holler.” Flumph flutters across the bedchamber and into the bathing room. I turn my back to the window and watch my companions as they rest. Fighting to get the Midnight Queen was much harder than any of us expected, and some of us were injured in the process.

My head throbs and I leave the bedchamber to find Noni. I push open the door to her room and find her hovering over the Midnight Queen. “How is she?” I ask.

The house brownie shakes her head. I move to sit on the bed and press my hand to Morrigan’s forehead. She feels hot. “I was hoping to find her awake,” I say as I glance down at the beautiful woman. “There are still so many questions I want to ask her.”

“Why pretty angel want to ask questions?” Noni asks, her large eyes like saucers in her face.

I shrug. “I need answers—weneed answers, if we’re going to finish this mission.”

“What the mission?”

“I thought it was to simply stop Variant, but there seems to be so much more going on now. Stopping him won’t restore the balance or repair the damage that’s already been done.”

Noni blinks her cerulean eyes up at me. “Midnight Queen not getting better without her power. Noni will do her best but Master still not feeling good, either.”

I reach over to the bedside table and take the rag from the bowl, squeezing out the excess water before dabbing Morrigan’s forehead. Her fever seems to come and go, but there’s no telling when she’ll wake up. It’s been two nights since we rescued her and my mind is prickling with curiosity.

Why did she keep me safe for so long? Who am I to her? What will happen once Variant is stopped?

So many questions. My mind is plagued by uncertainty.

But then there’s the matter of my companions. I no longer fight my connection to Baron, but Dragan and Cambion still try their best to keep their distance. I turn to the house brownie as a question occurs to me. “Noni, have you met any angels before?”

She shakes her head, causing her curls to bounce. “Noni never meet any angels. Just you. But she know lots of demons. Why you ask?”

“What about a succubus?”

“Oh! Noni know lots of succubus-es. Well, she did, before they disappear. Noni even met a Incubus before. He was real handsome. Eyes real black and skin all pale, but him’s wings... they was huge! Like a bat, but Noni don’t see him for a long time.”

“An incubus?”

She nods, her eyes growing even wider. “He was a king,” she explains. “When he left, the succubus needed to feed from regular fae, because he wasn’t their master no more. Noni meet Incubus in the mountains once. She like him. He big and scary like Master, but he nice to Noni. That the last time Noni see him.”

It’s hard to imagine anyone could dislike Noni. “I never knew there were males like me,” I say. “No one ever mentioned it.”

“No males, just one. And he disappear long before the succubus disappear.”

“What were they like?” I ask. “The succubae that you met.”

Noni sits on the edge of the bed and swings her feet. “When Noni meet one succubus, she know she not meeting them all. One ain’t never like the other. Everybody different. Some mean, some nice, some big, some small. Even Noni ain’t like other brownie. Most brownie are tricky, naughty things that get into lots of trouble.”

“Then the succubus you met wasn’t nice to you?”

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