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“Prince Lennox gave him a false name for me.”
“He what?” She considered that. “You haven’t formed an… attachment with the Prince, have you?”
“Mother.”
“You do not understand our position in all of this.”
Anger pulsed through me, lava that had slowly built over my entire life until the pressure had finally forced it to reach the crust of my self-regulation. “You know what? You’re right. I don’t understand because you never explained one damn thing to me.”
“You won’t take that tone with me or—”
“Or you’ll what?” I let that sit between us for a minute. “Kill me? Not if you want to preserve any hope that your line will keep your magic. Physically accost me here within sight of all the Seelie fairies where your patron, the King,”—I spat the word—“could hear? I don’t think so. You asked if I connected with Lennox. I have. We’re friends, and I feel firmly he’d be on my side and even let me stay here if I asked.”
“Lirasei, I don’t know what got into your head in the past few weeks, but you’re acting like a fool.”
She grabbed my arm, and I ripped it free. “No.”
“No?” She smirked. “What if I tell you the King protects us because he wants your magic?”
I faltered. “What?”
“We have a deal, you see. You will use your powers how he sees fit, and I’ll get your daughter to take over my magic. In exchange, our troupe lives their lives free of governance. Are you going to call on their family to save you now?”
My breathing picked up. Had Lennox known? Had he lied to me too, just like Sai? He’d said my mother had some design for me, but he didn’t know what it was. Maybe he didn’t. He felt like the only person in all of this I could trust. I’d proven to myself, however, that I wasn’t a reliable judge of character. There was only one person whose intentions and desires I had a full certainty of. Myself. That was new too, but it was there, pulsing and bright.
A fool.
A typhoon.
A lioness.
No. I got to define myself. I was a volcano. Mother wouldn’t stand here and try to get me to bow. Did mountains tumble to the shrieking of a wind? Never. “You can’t make me take the magic. I have to consent for it to pass to me, and I won’t agree.”
Mother’s nose wrinkled. “You’ve had your little adventure. Now you need to stop behaving like a petulant brat and do your duty.”
“I won’t.”
“You will face execution if you don’t take my powers.”
“What?” I couldn’t tell if she told the truth or said that to manipulate me. “Take the mark back, then. I don’t want your magic.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “I refuse. You forget where you get this stubborn streak from.”
We stared at each other. We were like two game pieces locked in a holding pattern, neither willing to yield and accept defeat. “Fine. I’ll die then.”
Mother’s lips parted then snapped back together. “Excuse me?”
“I’ll die. If it takes the magic and destruction of your ways with me, then so be it.”
“Would you condemn me to death as well?” So it wasn’t only my life on the line. Of course, it was about her well-being and not mine. I don’t know why I’d thought anything different.
“If I had to,” I answered with only a slight tremble in my voice.
Mother released a breath through her teeth which made her appear every bit the monster she behaved as. “Oh, it’s lovely to know I scraped and sacrificed and spent—”
“Every coin you saved over decades to have me educated and hidden and pampered. You’ve made that clear to me so many times, Mother, I can recite it for you.” I leaned in closer so that I could see myself reflected in her eyes. “You know what, though? I didn’t make those choices. You did. And you won’t shame me for it anymore. I didn’t choose to be born, to be sent overseas, to be raised the way I was. You made those decisions. I’m sorry the outcome doesn’t align with your wishes, but I’m a person too. I have a right to my opinions.”
Mother laughed, and it sounded over the murmuring gossip of the ballroom beyond the alcove. She didn’t laugh in the pleasant way some parents did, when their child said something humorous or charming. It was in the cruel way only Palaria could. She circled around me, her boots clicking. “You think you’re so grown now that you’ve had a few weeks of running around in the woods? Tell me Lira,”—she whispered my name against my ear so that a chill ran down me—“who is it you fucked? Please tell me it isn’t Sai. You can’t be that stupid.”
