“Look, I know that this was a lot. It's a lot. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I never told you, and that you had to find out this way. But I promise, we only did this because we wanted you to be safe.” He paused before letting out a deep sigh, still not quite meeting Florian's eyes. “Will you come to the kitchen and sit with us for a bit longer? Jerah was still hoping to talk to you.”
Florian frowned, and looked down at the floor.
“I don't know,” he muttered. “I don't... I don't know if I want to hear what he has to say.”
“We brought home ice cream,” August offered. “We got you chocolate chip cookie dough.”
Florian let out a sharp breath of a laugh despite himself. When he looked back up, August had a nervous but hopeful grin on his face, and Florian couldn't stop himself from smirking in return.
“All right,” he relented, standing up off his bed. “Just for the ice cream.”
August led him down the hall. Back in the dining room, Kade was sitting in the same spot, but Jerah had taken a different seat directly across from him and was unloading a paper bag with a few covered bowls of ice cream. Florian recognized the logo as belonging to one of his favorite shops, a little ice cream parlor a few blocks away. Hesitating for only a moment, Florian sat down between Jerah and Kade, and pulled the cup of cookie dough ice cream toward himself. Jerah opened what looked like mint chip, pushing a cookies-and-cream scoop toward Kade as August sat down across from Florian and took a cup of coffee ice cream for himself.
The dining room table was small and especially cramped with all four of them sitting around it. Florian started to eat in silence, keeping his eyes down on the ice cream in front of him. For a long moment, no one else spoke. August and Jerah also ate bite after bite in silence, though Kade seemed mostly disinterested in the ice cream offered to him.
“So,” Florian said, breaking the silence. He kept his gaze down on his ice cream, though he could feel Jerah's eyes land on him. “If what you said is true, and Iama... a Changeling, or whatever. Why couldn't I have just changed how I looked here instead of going through all the trouble of—” He paused, suddenly and intensely aware of Kade's presence to his left, but he supposed he had already said it. “—of, um, hormones and surgery and everything? It would have been a lot easier if I had known all that before.”
“Well,” Jerah cleared his throat, and to Florian's surprise his voice sounded a bit rougher and more gravelly with emotion than it had the first time they'd spoken; he wondered briefly where he and August had gone, what they had discussed. “Unfortunately, our magic doesn't work on Earth. It's the same for all citizens of the Veil. Mine, Kade's, August's... yours. It only works when you're on the other side.”
“That's inconvenient,” Florian muttered, still not meeting his gaze.
“Well, that's true—that's why we don't come to Earth often,” Jerah answered. “Many Veilians never come to Earth at all. Those that do often only do so to travel. Traveling is... safer, on this side. I know I mentioned the Nova Blight briefly, but if you'll let me explain further, that might make more sense.”
Florian finally glanced up, meeting August's gaze across from him first. His uncle had that same nervous, earnest expression on his face, but he managed a shaky, encouraging smile when their eyes met. Sighing, Florian sat up straighter to look Jerah in the eye. He was already here, so he might as well.
“Alright,” he said, gesturing for him to continue. The tense look on Jerah's face eased a bit at that.
“The Nova Blight has consumed the vast majority of the Veil,” he began, locking eyes with Florian. It struck him once again that his eyes were the same shape and color of his own. “It's like... a magically burning light. As if the sun never sets, only far more intense, and for over two hundred years straight now. Where the Nova Blight touches, no darkness can survive. It's largely uninhabitable except in a few small, sheltered pockets... or by creatures that have been blighted—transformed to survive such harsh conditions.”
“Two hundred years,” Florian echoed, raising his eyebrows. “Yeah, that sounds pretty miserable. A two hundred year long summer day.”
Jerah grinned wryly at that. “It's funny you say that. The Nova Blight began first in the Summer Court, another home of the fae. It consumed their city first, but for a while it was contained within its walls—about fifty years. Then someone tried to destroy the Blight by destroying its source, the Summer Queen Soleil, but failed. And when they did, it broke her control of the Blight, and it spread almost exponentially. Only the most far-flung places were able to avoid the Blight, or those magically protected.”
Florian frowned, thinking. “Did she do it on purpose?”
Jerah paused, seeming to mull the question over. He had brightened up once Florian had started engaging in the conversation—but this question seemed to perturb him.
“We don't know,” he finally said, sighing. “It all happened very quickly, and most of the summer fae near her who might have known perished almost immediately. There was some damage to the castle, according to those who have tried to get into the city, but it's uncertain if that happened when the Blight first occurred, or after. So there is some speculation, but we don't know why. We don't even really know what caused it. But... Well, I never knew Soleil, the Summer Queen, but my father did. He always spoke kindly of her whenever the topic came up. He said summer fae like her were passionate, but straightforward and honest. He seemed quite convinced that whatever caused the Nova Blight, it was... accidental.”
“And you believed him?” Florian asked. He didn't exactly believeanyof it, but if he could imagine they were talking about a story or a movie, it became easier to listen. There was some strange satisfaction in hearing about this supposed place he had come from, where his father had been all this time, so that he almost wanted to hear more. Almost.
“I think so,” Jerah replied. His spoon had hovered over the mint chip as he spoke, but now he set it down to run a hand through his beard in thought. “I haven't had much more to go off of. I mean, I've done as much research as I possibly could and found out a bit more than is common knowledge, but... I think I'd agree with him. The circumstances around the Nova Blight seem unintentional. Fae magic is powerful, of course, but something of that magnitude? I don't know that Soleil could have done something like that, even if she tried. No, it seems much more like the old magic to me.”
“Old magic?” he asked. He could feel Kade shift uncomfortably next to him, but Florian kept his eyes firmly on Jerah—he was curious now, plus Kade's presence still made him feel embarrassed and awkward. “What does that mean?”
“Ah, well—it's pretty much what it sounds like,” Jerah chuckled. “Do you remember I mentioned a hag earlier? She was a practitioner of the old magic. A type of magic not like that used by fae, more... primal, I suppose. No one really uses it anymore besides witches like her, and there are precious few of them left. It's tricky, and difficult to learn, but huge, powerful things like the Blight... Only old magic can do that. Like the prophecy the witch gave me. Fae magic, our magic, we have power in our words, but it's limited to…” He grimaced, pausing as if trying to consider how to explain. “Well, it's also constrained by words. There has to be someone to hear them, something to perceive them. Something like the Nova Blight, that justis...That's not fae magic, not even for the Summer Queen. As the king of my court, I think I would know.” He laughed dryly at that.
“It's dangerous,” Kade said, speaking for the first time. Everyone's heads swung over to him in surprise, and he hesitated at the sudden scrutiny, clearing his throat before continuing, “Old magic. It's dangerous. It's powerful, but there are limits and rules to what you can and can't do with it that you won't find out until you've broken them... That's why so few try to use it any more. If it was old magic that made the Nova Blight, it was probably the result of the Summer Queen breaking one of its rules.”
“That's been my theory, too,” Jerah agreed. Kade nodded, looking relieved to have the attention off of him. “From all my research, I think she was trying to do something with old magic that backfired. But I still have many questions as towhat.” He sighed, and glanced over at Florian again. “That's where you come in, Florian. You're supposed to be the one who can finally end the Nova Blight. If you come to the Veil, speak to the hag who gave me this prophecy... I think maybe there is more she could tell you that she can't tell anyone else. Divination is tricky like that.”
Finally Florian looked away, back down at his ice cream with furrowed brows. It all still sounded crazy, but... The more he was being told about the Veil, this prophecy, the more his heart ached to know more. It seemed ridiculous, but he couldn't stop the nostalgic, almost homesick feeling that welled up within him at all the talk of the Veil and old magic and fae. He didn't want to think about what that meant.
“I don't... I don't know,” he stammered, shaking his head. “I don't know what to think about all this.”
Jerah leaned back in his chair, letting out a long, slow sigh. He sounded a little more dejected when he spoke again. “I can't make you do anything you don't want to, of course. I want you to come with me, to see your home. But I can't force you there.”
“Did my mom know?” Florian asked, forcing himself to meet his father’s gaze. Jerah made a pained expression at the question, but did not flinch. “About the prophecy and all that?”
