Page 87 of From the Edge

“Would you prefer I handed you a wallet full of money?”

“No. I am set. My family has an inheritance through the female line. It’s rolled from Grandma’s family for generations.”

“And Hope is your second cousin?” Ren looked at her with raised brows. “What side of your mother’s line do you think she came from?”

“Oh. Oh, no. Grandma, did you have sisters?”

“Yes. One. She married beneath her. She had a daughter as well, but we lost track of them. It was harder in those days. Someone could just move one county over, and they were lost.”

“I need to get a DNA test done.”

Ren sighed. “Thank you for being sensible. I can do the test to confirm lineage.”

“How? She’s gone.”

“I believe the house brought her nest in. You should be able to find hair in it.”

Rowan stood, but the table glowed, and a neat coil of long black hair with the root ends still attached appeared. Ren smiled. “I will take one from her, and one from you.”

Rowan yanked two strands out. “The house is cooperating.”

“It is. What does that tell you?” Ren held the strands in separate hands. He closed his eyes, and an image shot out showing Eleanor and her younger sister at the wedding to Vasoric.

The image of that younger sister and her own husband at a more sedate event, and their daughter at a different event with another dark elf. That was where the pixie had come in. They had a little girl and were with her until she was ten, and then both of them were gone. The next image showed the little girl as a woman who was pregnant and on her own. Then, she surrendered the baby in hospital. That was it.

Eleanor stood up. “That was Emmy’s great-granddaughter?”

Rowan nodded. “She still is. I should have asked her to take a test years ago.”

Aspen blinked. “We have a cousin?”

“We have a cousin. Well, we always have, but that was confirmation. So the spell tracked it back to a common ancestor?”

“Well, your common ancestor was Eleanor’s mother.” Ren smiled. “She’s in that portrait over there.”

They all turned and saw the woman in the elegant gown, her black hair piled high, gems at her neck and ears, more gemstones on her wrists.

Eleanor smiled. “Laura Aberstock. The portrait painter had trouble with her skin, so he made her pale with a light blue cast.”

Rowan looked from her mother to her aunt and thought of Hope. “That is quite the stamp.”

Ren smiled. “I am amazed you didn’t see it, but as she has pixie blood, it might have blurred your senses. Because they fly, they have an obscuring spell in their blood.”

Rowan blinked and wiped tears away. “She came here because it was safe. Because it felt like home.”

Aspen said, “But she didn’t demand or insist. She sang with me late at night when I was agitated. She didn’t do anything, but she confirmed that I wasn’t alone.”

Vasoric’s eyes widened. “She was the one I saw with Eleanor after the accident.”

Aspen said, “Someone cut the car open and got Eleanor out. Called emergency services and asked if she could get Eleanor to the hospital. She called you, Dad, and then the ambulance arrived, and she took off. I remember the hum.”

Ren nodded. “And you were traumatized, and the obscuring kicks in the moment she takes flight.”

Vasoric rubbed his forehead. “She left as soon as I arrived. I thought it was Rowan.”

Rowan’s eyes widened. “Because she was smaller then.”

He nodded. “She was.”