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4
“This smells delicious,” Claire commented as Malcolm slid in her seat.
Toan settled in his seat across from her and smiled across the table. “I will pass along your regards. Please dig in.”
Everett grabbed her plate and began filling it. She shook her head with a small smile. Her men were always trying to do things for her.
“Tell me more about you,” Toan urged. “Where did you grow up? Who cared for you?”
Malcolm let out a soft growl and Claire placed a hand on his thigh. It wasn’t like she was mistreated—okay she was bullied by the children of the coven, but still it wasn’t a terrible childhood.
“I grew up in the Windshire Coven,” she said, taking a sip of the sweet juice to wet her tongue. “They found me wandering in the woods. No one claimed me so I grew up in the orphanage there.”
Toan frowned. “An orphanage? At Windshire?”
Claire nodded. “It wasn’t a bad life. No one adopted me but Mother Kemp raised us. I learned to read and write from one of the women in the village and I took care of the orphanage garden.”
Toan looked thoughtful. “I wonder if Winona sifted you to Windshire. Even during the Great War they were a neutral coven as they weren’t a powerful one.”
“Sifted?” Everett asked.
“It’s a Fae thing but Winona was powerful enough so Erick taught her how. Powerful witches can do it as well. It involves air magic and folding your Energy into a different plane. Both of your parents were powerful enough to bring someone with or in this case send someone in a sift. It used to drive both of their guards crazy when they would do it at the Academy,” he shook his head letting out a soft chuckle.
Claire smiled at that thought of her parents sneaking away. “Is that where they met? At the Academy?”
Toan nodded. “Winona was brilliant at her studies but very playful, always getting into trouble with the Headmaster. I didn’t know Erick very well as I wasn’t at the Academy with them but from all accounts, Erick was a very stoic Fae warrior unless he was around Winona. Your mother was always dragging him into something.”
“They sound lovely,” Claire said wistfully.
“I’m sure your mother recounted some of their antics in her journals,” Toan said, his voice soft.
Claire nodded, taking a bite of the bread covered in a creamy spread. She swallowed against the lump in her throat. She was going to need to ‘woman up’ as Bethany would say and read her mother’s journal.
“That reminds me,” Toan said, “I will need your help in retrieving the other journals. When I was hiding them for your mother, she left me a spell to activate on each one that only someone of her bloodline would be able to deactivate.”
Her mother was thorough apparently. It made Claire wonder what Winona had found and had written in those journals that was so dangerous for others to know. What new danger was she bringing on her Triad and friends by diving deeper into this?
“What’s your take on the start of the Great War?” Desmond asked, changing the subject.
“I wasn’t privy to many details I’m afraid,” Toan began. “I was a part of the Elven Forest patrols at the time. I remember hearing about the attack on the Elven trader at the Market and that it was by a witch. I didn’t learn that the attack involved dark magic till after Lorna walked out of the Council and came home to brief the King and Queen. When the attack happened, the chatter was it wasn’t going to go anywhere because a witch had done it. The rumor was the witch was related to a Councilmember or something like that but even if she wasn’t, it was common knowledge that witches received lighter sentencing.”
Desmond frowned at the implications and Claire felt bad for him. Desmond’s father was on the Council. Although Frederick joined after the Great War, what did he know about all of this? Surely, there weren't secrets among the Councilmembers.
“We were wondering if Elder Lorna took account of the actions right after she and Taos walked out of the Council?” Claire asked, changing the subject slightly to take the spotlight off Desmond as he processed.
“She did not,” Toan answered. “Unfortunately Lorna fell early in the Great War defending her people. It was a very chaotic time then.”
Claire frowned. Were they ever going to figure out what actually happened? Seeing her face though, Toan continued. “I can give you Lorna’s other journals to see if there’s anything there, but you might try asking Greta as well. She and Lorna were good friends before we lost Lorna.”
“Did Greta fight in the Great War?” Desmond asked.
Toan laughed. “She did but the running joke among the younger Elves is that she is too stubborn for death.”
Claire laughed. “I could see that.” The Elven Elder might be old but she was tougher than she looked.
“I’ll talk to Greta tomorrow and then we can read through Lorna’s journals as well and see what we come up with,” Claire made the plan and Toan nodded.
“We can go tomorrow afternoon to fetch two of your mother’s journals. The other two are hidden deeper in the Forest so Greta will have to excuse you from training for a day.”
