“If she touched you…” His nostrils flared as his hands balled into shaking fists. “If she had been able to bring you back to Isla…you would have been put to death immediately or handed over to Kellan if he managed to survive. Lia…”
“I know, okay?! I realize that, too. We have to be more careful. But how are we supposed to look out for shit like this if she can now come and go as she pleases?!”
I was never going to be able to sleep again.
“What did she say to you that made you want to strike her?” Avery asked.
I forced myself to swallow. “That she killed my mother. She slit her throat the day I was born, and her only regret was that she wasn’t patient enough to wait and do the same to me.”
Avery's and Finnian's eyes widened in horror, exchanging a quick glance before looking away. My own eyes narrowed in on them as I watched beneath furrowing brows.
“Oh, gods, Lia…” Avery started.
My gaze moved back and forth between my two siblings.
“What is it, Avery?” My tone had more bite than I intended, but I had a sinking feeling in my gut as I watched their quick exchange.
She audibly swallowed. “We…we knew this. We found it out the same day we discovered she murdered Father. Lia, I—”
“You,WHAT?!” I shrieked as the feeling of betrayal violently slammed into me.
Jace reached out from where he stood and grabbed my wrist, stroking it with his thumb, but I wasn’t naïve enough to think he wasn’t also subtly trying to hold me back as he felt the agony of it all bubble through me.
Tears were streaming down Avery’s cheeks, and Finnian looked too terrified to speak.
“Tell me it’s not true,” I demanded. “Tell me that you did not withhold information like this from me.”
“We didn’twithholdit from you.” Avery’s voice was on the verge of breaking into a sob. Gage stood then, carefully wrapping his arm around my sister’s waist.
“Liar!” I screamed, and everyone averted their eyes from me as the tension in the room rose, except for my sister.
Her lips trembled, but she steadied it before she spoke. “So much has happened since we learned of this. This was back when you were still assumed dead after the shipwreck.Before you were dragged back to Isla by Kellan and before your escape from the dungeons.”
“It’s true, Lia, it was a horrible bit of information that we had overheard months ago while learning about our own father’s death as well,” Finn chimed in. “It slipped from us, but we never planned to not tell you.Everythingchanged for us that day.”
I sucked on my tongue as guilt loomed over me like a taunting shadow.
“I led a rebellion to you.” Avery took a hesitant step toward me. “I have done everything you have asked of me since the night of the wedding massacre at the castle. You begged me to get us out and run… I did that. I brought Finn, Landon, Veli,hundredsof fae…Nyra! Our entire lives were uprooted in a single night. I had barely ever left the castle grounds, never mind the city. We risked our lives and committed treason against the crown to find you, not even knowing if there would be anything left to find.”
I was clenching my teeth so hard I thought they would shatter as she looked at me with her doe-eyes filled with tears—tears that I put there in my fit of rage.
“So no, Elianna,” Avery continued, and the use of my full name from her made me feel so small. “We didnotwithhold information from you. I will beg for your forgiveness for forgetting that we knew this, but you need to know that it never once crossed my mind that we held this knowledge while you didn’t.”
The room fell into an unbearable silence.
“Okay,” I choked out after a few moments. “There will be no need to beg for forgiveness when you’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Oh, I have done plenty that is wrong. My mother now has this dark magic at her disposal because of my fuck-up, but you must know where my loyalties lie. It is right where they have always been, and that is with you.”
My eyes softened, and I tugged my wrist from Jace’s hold. “I know, and I’m so, so sorry for assuming otherwise in this brief moment of insanity,” I admitted.
She gave me a nod before she sat down on the settee, and we all blew out a breath as the tension in the air slowly fizzled out.
“Well, since that is now out of the way,” Veli started. “I believe I now know how she materialized before you and evaporated when you moved to touch her.”
“By all means, Veli, go on,” I announced.
“It was not a portal spell they cast to make her appear in your room.” Jace’s relief was palpable at her words. “You would have seen her slip back through the rift. I believe that she had projected her conscious before you, appearing in a non-tangible form.”
