“Banished?” Bran echoed. “We never banished you. You Fae have been murdering witches for centuries while trying to take over our world. We’ve been trying to stop you.”
“Your history is ill-informed,” Lady Fiadh said coldly. “But I expect such revisionist thinking from traitors.”
“We can’t be traitors if we were never on the same side.”
“Ignorance keeps you blind, I see. Our prince would not stand by you if he remembered the truth of his past and the war your side started.”
“I won’t fight Bran,” Cillian said in a low voice. “And I won’t stand for anyone else harming him either.”
“He is the enemy,” Verlin said, glaring at Bran. “His kind always has been. They slaughter us?—”
“And the Fae slaughter witches right back. I saw what the lights do to them. I saw his stepfather’s body in the woods. The wrong done to you doesn’t absolve you of the terror you inflict on others, whether they are witches or innocent bystanders.”
Aisling whimpered, turning to burrow her face against Bran’s shoulder. He curled his arm around her, holding her close. He might not haveliked Ray, but Ray had loved Aisling in his own way, and she didn’t need to be reminded of his murder by someone who clearly didn’t care.
“So you think we should let the wyrding spread like the blight it is, let it poison the land left to us?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“That isexactlywhat you said.” Verlin straightened up and raised his chin. “Do you know why witches have magic? Because long ago, they were Fae who betrayed their brethren by allying with mortals to banish us from Éire. They called themselves Fomorians, and the battles waged lasted decades. It was the Fomorians who called upon Chaos to exile us to the Otherworld and raise the wyrding between us, denying us our homeland and poisoning the one we were left with.”
“You’re lying,” Bran blurted out, sick to his stomach at the accusation that some distant ancestor might be Fae.
Verlin shot him a scathing look. “Fae do notlie. I speak the truth, one you witches used to know. The wyrding is your kind’s doing, and the only way to slow its encroachment in the Otherworld was to kill the Fomorians and the witches they eventually became. Chaos is not Fae magic and never has been. Nature dies in the wyrding, and we cannot live there either. But we needed a way to stop you witches from constantly attacking us in the Otherworld, so we carved out paths back to the mortal world and attacked you.”
“Youenslaveus when you don’t outright kill us.”
“Your magic helps keep the wyrding at bay. The witches Fae don’t kill as a sacrifice, we keep for experiments, for entertainment. You pets have your uses until you don’t, and then we send you into the wyrding.” Verlin smiled then, baring his teeth, the glitter in his amber eyes hot and furious and cruel. “You witches have magic still, so there is some bit of Fae blood left in you. The Chaos in the wyrding changes you into monsters that know us, that obey us, because pets remember their masters and always will. And it is they who murder your kind on our say-so to keep our own people safe from your bloody incursions.”
What little breakfast Bran had eaten threatened to crawl up his throat. He swallowed hard, trying to keep from vomiting as saliva filled his mouth. “That’s not true.”
“Fae do not lie.” Verlin spat the words out before drawing in asteadying breath and closing his eyes, working to get himself under control. “If Cillian goes back with you, what do you think will happen when your masters find out he is Fae?”
“I don’t have any masters.”
Verlin opened his eyes, lips curling back over his teeth. “What do you call that Council of yours?”
Bran had no good response to that. “Cillian hid beneath a glamour until he came here. He can hide again.”
“He cannot control his magic like this, and you think he can hold up such a thing against any witch who comes around asking questions?”
“Do you have so little faith in your own magic?” Bran shot back.
Lady Fiadh raised her hand to press it over her son’s hand that rested on her shoulder. “So you would keep him as a pet?”
Bran reared back at that accusation, feeling the blood drain from his face. “I don’t own Cillian.”
“No. You would only have him deny everything about himself. You would have him bury who he was in favor of a human veneer that is a lie. How long do you think it will take until he resents you?”
“I could never resent Bran,” Cillian said fiercely.
Lady Fiadh stared at Cillian with unblinking eyes. “And when you outlive your pet? What then?”
“Stop,” Bran snapped raggedly. “Stop trying to guilt Cillian into staying. We came here for Aisling, and we found her, so we’re leaving. Just let us go.”
“We are Fae. We are his people. None of you can deny that.”
The truth rang between them, quiet and chilling, and Bran had no defense against it. He knew what Cillian was—what Aisling probably was—and what he wasn’t, no matter what Verlin had said. Witches weren’t Fae.
