Page 101 of Veil of Blood and Bone

I don’t answer him right away.

A stillness creeps over me, and I’m huddled in the shade of the couch, its back sending the scattered rays of light in dusty arcs across the living room floor ahead.

We’re a tangle of limbs, and I’m alone. Because my luck holds. It’s the one constant I can count on. For my part, I accept it.

“Are all Fae mind readers?” I ask instead.

A muffled sound rumbles his chest. “The more lives you spend as a human, the more of its condition you take on. I understand the pattern of your worries. You are used to being abandoned by everyone except the soul who resides in your sister. And us. It’s hard to trust, I know, but you will,” he insists. “In time.”

“No.” I push against him. “You don’t get it.”

“Do you want to enlighten me?”

HIs tone is curated playfulness.

“My own mother left us. She went mad. We moved ten times by the time I was eighteen. I didn’t understand why until too late. She was running from this creature. Some old woman with white hair and spindly fingers. She didn’t want to eat, or sleep, or take care of Audra. Until Mom took the exit ramp herself.”

His eyes remain locked on mine like he’s peeling back every layer of protection I’ve erected, exposing the depths of heartbreak in the silence.

“She probably felt she had no choice,” he says.

There’s no usual sentiment or empty apology. Wren only sighs.

Talk of suicide makes everyone uncomfortable.

“Your mother wasn’t crazy.”

“No? So her locking herself in her room for three days before she slit her wrists wasn’t crazy? It sure felt like it at the time.”

He places his hand on my racing heart. “The creature you’re describing? The one she saw? It exists. It was real. She tried to run but she never stood a chance.”

My passion fades. “What?”

“The beast. It’s called a Mare.”

It was in her head. Of course it was. All the running and the constant moving—Mom was nuts. So I held the line, kept the boat steady.

“I saw a therapist once,” I admit. “When I couldn't sleep for a week. The guy said it was a manifestation of my grief, a way my mind could understand it.”

“Monster, trust me on this if nothing else.” Wren pushes harder against my heart. “I’m certain about one thing. Your mother loved you. She wouldn’t have willingly left you or Audra. Okay?”

A Mare.

His small smile twists before he releases me to sag against him.

It’s true? No, it’s not. Not yet. It might never be real. It took me years to reconcile with Mom’s suicide and stop remembering how she looked when I found her. How I blocked my sister with my body, so she wouldn’t have to see the congealed pools of blood.

I’m the only one with it etched into memory.

What is a Mare?

When words are too hard, when the emotion is impossible to fight anymore, I burrow my head against Wren’s neck and sob. He sure feels like enough when he holds me.

But for how long? There are no assurances.

Not in this life.

Chapter 21