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“But what?”
“I can tell you who probably does know.” I pointed a finger at Starling. “Our beloved Lord Rogue. And, possibly, your own mother.”
Starling gaped at me. I suddenly understood why mothers were wont to tell their children to close their mouths so they didn’t look like goldfish.
“Why would my mother know?”
“Think about it. If it’s true your father is off searching for your brother, it’s because he believes he’s alive and not dead. And if your mother allowsyouto believe your brother is dead, rather than speak the truth, doesn’t it follow that she knows what’s become of him?
“Further, this desire for firstborn children belongs entirely to the fae, at least this mysterious version of it. It’s not the humans seeking out fae for interbreeding and swapping out babies. Your mother is the fae in that relationship. Tell me—how did the two of them hook up? You said your dad got here ‘the usual way’—what way is that?”
Starling busied herself with tidying up and I didn’t stop her. I always preferred to be actively doing something while processing an unwieldy batch of information too.
“He called himself ‘an Irish cliché.’ He’d been out to the local pub, having a pint or two, and got drunked up, so much so that he forgot his horse and wandered home.”
His horse? With a sinking feeling I wondered just how long ago this had happened.
“Daddy loves to tell a story.” Starling sighed with affectionate impatience. “So it changes every time. But he usually says the stars were singing a sweet song that led him to a soft green hill. He lay down to rest his head a spell and woke up on the same hill, only here, instead.”
How well I knew that particular hill. Only I had started out at Devils Tower. Many gates going to one place? It bore thinking about. Later.
“And then how did he meet your mother?”
Starling frowned, shaking out the cloak and hanging it up thoughtfully. “He had adventures. He’s got no magic, like you have, but he’s very good at quests and such. My mother was imprisoned in a tower in the Glass Mountains by a dragon and—”
I choked on my wine. “No way!” Her mother—the crisp, efficient Blackbird, my seneschal—did not match my mental image of a damsel in distress.
“Oh yes. She had very long, glossy black hair, dark as the River Styx, and the dragon loved to use it to floss his teeth. Also, she made excellent bait. The young lords would come to rescue her, the dragon would eat them and then—”
“Floss his teeth with her hair. Got it. Talk about needing extra-strength conditioner.” I waved for her to continue when she cocked her head. Stopped myself. “Wait, how did the dragon eat the fae lords if they’re immortal?”
She rolled her eyes. “Because dragons are above all magic.”
“Ah, right.” I needed to ask Larch where he’d packed my vial of dragon blood. Surely that would come in handy. “Keep going.”
“There’s not much more to tell. Daddy defeated the dragon, rescued Mother and they wed. Happily ever after.”
“How did he defeat the dragon?”
“Oh, he’s exceedingly bold and courageous.”
“Uh-huh. So, you’re telling me some mortal Irishman with a penchant for forgetfulness and Guinness succeeded where innumerable immortal fae nobles did not?”
“Well, and because he was her—”
“Let me guess. Her true love.”
Starling nodded but lacked her usual beaming certainty on the topic.
“If they’re such true-lovers living happily ever after, why is it that he’s off questing and she’s working in Rogue’s castle, running the household?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Starling—in my world, people who love and marry then live together and work as a team, a partnership in life.” Of course, half a dozen counter-examples popped into my head, but still, the concept was there. “The rescue and wedding shouldn’t be the end of the story—it’s the beginning.”
She put her hands on her hips, a gesture very much her mother’s. “Well then! If living together is the key to preserving True Love, why do you refuse to move into Rogue’s castle?”
“Because—” I unclenched my jaw, “—he is not my true love, nor am I his. There is no such thing.”
