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“Mommy, why are the Fae bad?” Rae said later as Kat tugged off her shoes and began to run her bath.
“Not all of them are,” she replied absently, mulling the day’s events with half her mind.
She realized what she was doing and forced herself to put away the abbey’s business for a time. Her daughter deserved her full attention, a thing she’d never known from her own mother. She’d been deemed a worthless implement by both her parents; handicapped with such extreme empathy, she’d seemed broken, even insane, as a child.
Rae was her world. An unexpected gift. A treasure she would forever cherish, protect, and love, and do all in her power to raise well. The love of a child from her own flesh was the purest an empath could know.
Her daughter had been slow to start talking but, given her own childhood, that hadn’t concerned her. Then suddenly, a month ago, Rae had begun blurting words she’d no idea her daughter even understood, stringing them together into impressive sentences.
“The Spur-shee like me,” Rae announced happily. “They say I smell good to them.”
Kat froze, her hand tightening on the edge of the antique, enameled, claw-foot tub in their suite. “Did they say what you smell like?”
Rae shook her head, black curls bouncing, eyes dancing merrily. “Just that I’m yummy. They smell yummy to me, too.”
“Like what?” Kat asked.
Rae nibbled her lower lip and thought. Then scrubbed at her nose and laughed. “It tickles my nose. Just good.”
Pollen, Kat thought. Many of the tiny Fae, banished from their own court, lived tucked inside human blossoms, made homes in fragrant, herb-drenched thickets and nests in piney glades. Lately, some of the sidhe-seers had taken to building diminutive wooden houses for them, painted bright colors. She’d half expected the earthy Spyrssidhe to protest the humanlike structures, but the other day she’d watched a couple—they mated for life—battle a surprised, hostile sparrow at their door, protecting their new abode.
“Come, love, your bath is ready.”
“Bubbles?”
“Not tonight. Only on hair-washing nights.” Rae’s hair was so thick and curly, it was a chore to wash. They only did it every third night, and then bubbles in her bath were her reward for the time she had to sit while Kat detangled her hair.
“Mommy,” Rae said, “my back itches. I can’t reach it.”
Smiling, Kat held out her arms, and when Rae stepped into them, snuggling to her chest, she tugged her daughter’s shirt off over her head.
“It itches bad.”
“Turn around and let me see it, pumpkin,” Kat said.
“I’m not a pumpkin. Today I’m a dragonfly.”
“Well, then, little miss dragonfly, turn—”
But Rae had already turned and bent forward. “Mommy,” she huffed, “itch!”
“Did you lay on something today?”
“I always lay on things.”
“Like what? Rocks? Something sharp?”
“Just things. Grass and stuff.”
“But there might have been rocks in the grass.”
“Don’t ’member any. Itch.”
Kat raised a hand that trembled only slightly and scratched her daughter’s beautiful, smooth skin that was so much like Sean’s, fair yet with the slightest sun it turned golden.
There were two identically sized, round, pink blemishes.
One on each shoulder.
