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Pritkin nodded. “An old farmer and his wife. My mother was part fey, but she died, and my father . . . I suppose he didn’t want the burden of raising a child alone. He told the old couple that he would come back for me someday, but the woman told me not to expect it.”
“Why not?”
“Part-fey children sometimes turn out . . . strangely. She used to watch me; I think she was waiting for me to sprout a tail or grow donkey ears or some such! I never did, but she never stopped checking my ears, on the pretext of washing them. I think she was disappointed that they weren’t even pointed. She said my father was probably relieved to be rid of me.”
“Charming.”
Pritkin shook his head. “She was all right. Just superstitious and fearful. They both were. The world was changing, and they didn’t know how, or where, or if they’d fit into the new one. I think that’s why she didn’t like me. She could tell I wasn’t afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Of everything. According to her, the whole world was a danger, especially to a child. Venture too far into the marshes, and the will-o’-the-wisp would lead you to your doom. Wander into the forest, and the monster Afang would drag you back to his cave, littered with the bones of disobedient little boys and girls. Go swimming, and the mermaids would lure you into dark water until you drowned. And then there was always the bwgan, who would get you for almost anything else!”
“But you weren’t worried?”
He shook his head. “I was . . . intrigued. The stories were supposed to keep children safe by giving them reason to avoid dangerous areas. But they had the opposite effect on me. I wanted to see if the mermaids were as beautiful as everyone said. To find the Afang and see the fabled spikes on its hide. To follow a will-o’-the-wisp, in case it would lead me into faerie . . .
“I listened to her stories, the most frightening ones she knew, and then asked for more. Why not? They were the most exciting things about my life! And most of them were about faerie, where I wanted to go more than anything.”
“To find your mother’s people.”
He nodded. “I didn’t know why they’d left me. Just that the fey were different; you never knew why they did what they did. But everyone always said the same thing: they would come for me someday. They always came back for their children.”
But they hadn’t. Pritkin had repeatedly shown a lot of knowledge about faerie, even going to negotiate with the dark fey king, or the guy calling himself that, in my day. He’d also made a later visit to find out some information about a would-be assassin. But neither of those trips had exactly gone the way I’d have expected for someone who had spent the majority of his childhood among the fey.
Instead of, say, slipping through whatever portals he could find and running amok until they threw him out.
“I was six years old the first time I ran away,” he told me, “six and convinced I had outgrown that sorry place. I recall packing my small belongings—not too difficult—and being on my way several times. To be honest, I am surprised they didn’t let me go.”
I wasn’t.
I’d met his father.
“But they always brought me back, before I’d had a chance to see anything. They said it was for my own good, and of course they were right. I’d have likely died of exposure or been picked up by slavers or worse on my own. But I didn’t understand that. All I knew was that nothing ever happened on that farm. Every day was exactly the same: a list of chores, a bowl of soup, a cuff on the ear—or two. I was a terrible child.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Oh, I was. I asked a thousand questions and fair drove the old woman mad. The old man simply ignored me. I think he was half deaf, something for which he was doubtless grateful!”
“Asking questions doesn’t make you a bad child.”
“No, but running away does. And disobedience and defiance. I knew they didn’t want me, that I didn’t belong there, but they wouldn’t let me leave. Money came every year for my upkeep, money they desperately needed, and it felt as if they were keeping me prisoner because of it. I was too young to look at it from the other side, to see that they might feel trapped, too. As if they had no choice but to house a monster—”
“You weren’t a monster!”
“—a potential monster,” he amended, “because of their poverty.”
“They were the adults, not you. It wasn
’t up to you to make excuses for them!”
“Well, I didn’t. I resented the hell out of them and caused them no end of trouble.” His head tilted. “You didn’t feel like that?”
“No.”
“No anger at all?” His brow furrowed, like he couldn’t understand that. And I supposed not. Anger had always come naturally to Pritkin.
“No.” I drew my knees up. They made a good table for my massive mug of beer. They also provided a barrier, but Pritkin didn’t take the hint.
