“An explanation?” I ask.
Her lips tighten as if she’s bracing herself against something unpleasant. “As to why I murdered your father.”
Chapter 53
The Affairs of an Artist
CINDER
We move to the shabby couch and chairs in the living room. I find the space is significantly more cramped than before. The ornately framed Ember of Midnight barely fits against the far wall. My heart twists painfully. The painting that once made my family whole now feels tainted by my father’s past and I don’t know what to think of it.
Snow is out, but Kai texted everyone that I was awake and okay. The text thread exploded in so many excited happy crying gifs that both Kai and I had to turn our phones to silent to hear his mother out.
“Your father wooed me the way he did everyone else,” Kai's mother begins. “He was brilliant, romantic, and saw the beauty in everything. Even a heartbroken, hollow Queen.”
“Mother—” Kai starts but she silences him with a lifted hand.
“We fell in love. And it was a torrid, wonderful affair,” she says wistfully.
I keep my expression neutral, though inside my mind is reeling with this new information about my father.
A sad smile tips up at the corner of the Queen's mouth. “Many months of sneaking around in Midnight began to bring me back to life. Your father was the embodiment of passion, and he lived it in his art and in his life.”
Kai scrubs a hand down his face, and I can sense his discomfort.
“But with that passion came volatility,” her voice darkens. “As time went on, he became more frustrated by my husband's unwillingness to turn him into one of us. He'd fly into fits of rage, screaming how it wasn't fair, how no one loves Midnight more than him. He'd fall into ramblings of how his dreams would never come true, and no wishing upon any Midnight star would get him what he wanted.”
I stiffen at her words. “That was our thing. We'd wish upon stars. We'd wish for things like ice cream, or to paint the greatest piece of art in the history of all time.” If there was any doubt as to her story about the affair, it dissolves with that detail.
The Queen nods as if finally understanding something about her past. “I see. Well, his devotion to me turned after a matter of months. I went from being the Queen of his heart to an adversary. He'd beat me.”
“You're a vampire,” I protest, my voice weak. It’s the same defense I laid out to Marisela, but it sounds far less convincing to my ears this time.
The Queen's brows knit together. “Just because we are fairies, it does not mean we are immune to pain or power.”
Kai stares at me, and I wonder if he's trying to convey that despite our differences, we both hold power over each other.
“Why didn't you go to your husband?” I ask.
The Queen and Kai exchange a look, a shared understanding of deep pain. After all, they’d been in the trenches together all these years under Valdor’s thumb.
“He did learn of the affair and he believed that I deserved every bit of pain. He did not care about me as a wife. We had not been intimate for decades. My husband made sure to tell me in explicit terms that he didn't care who was between my legs as long as I kept my affair under wraps because if the kingdom knew I was screwing a human, he would kill me.” She sounded like she was paraphrasing.
“Then something began to deeply bother your father,” the Queen continues. “I believe it was related to an argument with my husband, but he wouldn't tell me the details. I only knew that my husband offered him the thing he wanted most in exchange for a task.”
Valdor would change my father into a vampire if he trafficked human children into Midnight. I rub my arms as a shiver rips through me, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake.
Mei-Ling shakes her head. “He only became more agitated, keeping to his studio, sequestering himself to his art. But one night, your father came to my chambers. Consumed by jealousy and resentment and a madness I've only seen the tip of before, he took a pair of pliers, and he removed my fangs.” Her head is held high, but there's a tremor in her voice.
I shake my head and stand up, my hands rising to cover my ears. I pace, trying to absorb this new, horrifying information about my father.
I don’t want to believe it. This is not the man I knew. He would never do something like this.
Marisela’s words come back to haunt me.You wouldn’t know. Not his precious Cinder who he doted on. Not his darling daughter who was better than everyone else.
When I've calmed my nerves enough, I sit back down.
“The worst part was,” the Queen says softly, “I still loved him. I couldn't understand why he could despise me so, cause me so much pain when I was so devoted to him. But I learned to fear him more, and that act was the final thing that broke me.” She folds her hands in her lap and looks down at them. “So after he left, I fed, and my fangs grew back, and then I decided what had to be done. I found him in his studio. He was distracted from a fight with my husband. I didn't waste any time. I told him I could give him what he wanted. I could change him. I lied. And then I drained him. It was easy to bribe the undertaker to make it look like a heart attack, and that was that.”
