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"You specifically?"
"Yes."
"You cured Liv?"
"I orchestrated the events that led to her cure. I cannot heal or I'd fix that bite on your neck. I'd strongly suggest washing it well, with antiseptic. I'm not well versed in the exact nature of elf-to-human transformations, but I wouldn't discount the possibility of bacterial transfer."
"I know how to treat a fight bite."
He smiled at Ricky. "I'm sure you do."
"But you made the deal. You instructed her parents to kill six people."
"Yes."
"And you didn't see fit to tell Liv this? Before she started investigating?"
"Why? It would have stopped her. It was the answer she wanted before she met them: proof they were the murderers that society thought they were, and they deserved to spend their lives in jail, so she could forget them." He turned to me. "That is what you wanted, wasn't it? A tidy answer? Black and white?"
I saw no point in admitting it.
"But now it's not so black and white," he said.
"Because they murdered six people for me?" I shook my head. "I was two. I didn't ask for spina bifida. I didn't bring it on myself. In fa
ct, if I'm right, you guys 'did' it to me--your blood. A failure of completion."
"Fae."
"What?"
"The condition is caused by fae blood."
"You are fae. You might go by another name, but that's what you are."
He pursed his lips, as if ready to pursue it. Instead, he said, "You are not to blame. Nor your parents. However, we could not fix this for them. We could not take the lives ourselves or we would have. For you. To make you whole. To protect Mallt-y-Nos and leave her in a good, loving family. But that could not be."
"So you offered a way to fix it, if they murdered six innocent--"
"Do you know what we do, Olivia? The Cwn Annwn? Our purpose?"
"I know versions of the story."
"And you?" he asked Ricky.
"Same."
"Then tell me."
Ricky checked with me, but when I nodded, he proceeded. "In some, you're just hunting and anyone who sees you dies later. In others, you come to fetch the living and take them to the underworld. Sometimes, you're randomly hunting people whose time is up. In other versions, you target the wicked."
"Which is correct?"
Ricky rocked back, shrugging. "I have no--"
"In your gut, which is correct?"
"I've always liked the last, but that's only because it makes the best story. Killing randomly is more frightening as a concept, but killing for cause is more interesting."
