Page 167 of A Courage of the Chosen

They hurry through the door brushing sleep from their eyes and my fingers begin tingling with renewed anxiety that I’m going to have to share this news all over again.

But this is my family, and I’ve closed them out for long enough.

“What’s going on?” Eòghann asks around a yawn. “Why are we all up at the arse crack of dawn?”

“I have a plan to try and save Rach,” I say.

That shakes them awake fully.

Brodie and Cal loom at my back as I show them the same way I did moments before, a small dagger crafted with veins of shadow. I quickly tell them how it came to be, and the truth about my parentage.

The only thing I don’t share is the tethers that connect me to Cal, or the one to Tavish.

I brace for their reaction as much as I did the Seelie behind me.

“I . . . uh . . . what?” Eòghann stares at my magic with wide eyes.

But it’s Reyne’s reaction I’m on tenterhooks for. She’s taken a page out of Callahan’s book, and has concealed what’s going on in her keen mind.

After a long while, that pushes my blood pressure to unhealthy limits, my best friend finally looks at me.

“Is this what you’ve been hiding?”

The back of my neck grows warm and my chin lowers instinctively. “Yeah,” I exhale.

“And you both knew?” She directs this at Brodie and Callahan at my back, blue eyes hard and unreadable.

Brodie holds his hands up. “In my defense, I found out about ten minutes before you did.”

“And Elsie told me before we became Anamara,” Callahan adds.

Reyne moves in my direction and I back up a step. “Months. That’s how long I’ve waited for you to tell me what’s been going on.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Reyne halts at the sadness in my voice. “Dhia, you must have been so scared.”

The room shifts beneath my feet. “You’re not . . . pissed at me?”

“Lass, I’m livid. But I can understand why you didn’t tell anyone.”

I almost buckle, but Callahan moves to my side and takes my weight, catching me when I need it, like he always has.

“Why are you so chill about this?” I ask them all in shock. They’ve accepted it so easily.

“Because we know you,” Eòghann insists, a determined set to his jaw. “It’s been weeks since that battle, Elsie.”

“If it’s been pumping through you for that long and you haven’t lost yourself, how could it be anything other than a part of who you are.” Reyne rubs a hand down my arm. “Besides, I’ve sensed something different about you since you got here, and never been able to figure out what.”

“Well, thanks for sharing that with me before now,” I retort. Reyne hugs me and that’s the end of it, and we dive into planning mode for the next few hours. In that time, I’m humbled and awed that they continue to show up for me when I expect them to leave.

I hated having to keep them in the dark so long, but reflecting on it, I think it was the right thing to do. If I’d have told them too soon, who knows how they would’ve reacted.

Maybe they would have voted to kill me, like they did Kerr. Maybe they would have kept me in a coma, subdued like Rach, until they worked out a way to save me.

I guess we’ll never know, but telling them now was the right choice, and in finally finding some courage to face it, perhaps we stand a chance at saving Rachel.

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