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Avalon nodded, running his napkin over his silvery beard and clearing his throat.
“I knew the name was familiar, and when I started looking into him, I immediately realized why.”
“He’s the doctor to the bourgeois.” I waved my hands around the expensive restaurant. “He’s probably treated half the beings in here.”
“Or sold them a baby.”
I shuddered. I’d heard the rumors just like everyone else, but Avalon’s confirmation was still sickening.
“So it is true,” I sighed.
“You knew?”
I rolled my eyes. “In my line of work, the buying and selling of others is commonplace,” I reminded him, and Avalon nodded.
“Forgive me. I live a sheltered life,” he commented dryly.
“But I’m less concerned about his business practices and more about the man himself. Did you find anything about his background?”
“He was married to a rabbit shifter, Annabelle. She bore several children.”
A knife twisted in my chest as I remembered Briar's story about her mother.
“Interesting thing about rabbit shifters,” Avalon went on. “Their physiology is extremely unique.”
“I know.”
He reached for his water and took a swig, spilling more over his facial hair. His piercing green eyes darted around, challenging anyone to mock him, but he had fully trained everyone in the restaurant by now. Content that we weren’t being overheard, he put the glass back down.
“Rabbit shifters have much higher chances of having children,” I went on. “But there’s no guarantee they’ll be born healthy.”
Avalon frowned.
“Who told you that?” he demanded.
Startled, I met his eyes.
“No one. I just assumed…” I stopped, not wanting to explain how I’d come to that conclusion without explaining Briar’s connection and what I knew about her siblings.
Avalon shook his head. “There’s no evidence that’s true. In fact, rabbits often give birth to five or six perfectly healthy girls. Always girls, and those females, regardless of their shifter mutation, will also have the ability to bear more children than average.”
“What?” I asked, baffled. “They have higher fertility rates, even if they’re not rabbits?”
Avalon grinned, nodding. “Yes. Even if the daughter of a rabbit shifter is another type of shifter, such as a wolf or a snake, she will still have the capacity to bear more children than the average shifter. But it will die with that generation. The gene will not pass to the second generation.”
The information made me incredibly sad. Annabella had lost all her daughters, except for Briar. Instead of celebrating the potential of having more grandchildren than anyone else could ever imagine, she had died.
“Where is she now? Has she been buried somewhere?”
Avalon blinked. “Who?”
“Annabelle Madison.”
The wizard’s frown deepened. “Buried? Do you know something I don’t know?” he asked slowly.
I sat back, my eyes narrowing. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”
Avalon sat forward, the cuffs of his robes catching on the jus of his steak and spilling it onto the tablecloth, but he didn’t seem to notice.
