AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Shit,” Gullie said.
“Shit is right,” Helen conceded. “As creatures who can wield magic, it isn’t uncommon for witches and the Fae to do business sometimes. The Fae make it clear, however, that they hold themselves leagues above the witches of our world. We use magic, the Faearemagic—or so they say.”
“I don’t understand where this is going,” I said.
“A long time ago,” my grandmother continued. “A witch snubbed our family. Your mother made a dress for a very prominent figure. It was an incredible dress, truly breathtaking…magic. But the witch refused to pay what she had agreed. She stuck her thumb out at us, even after I went to speak with her. I thought the matter was done… at the time, in any case, I was more concerned with your mother’s sudden disappearance to even pay this witch any mind.”
“Your mother left us a note one night,” Evie continued. “A note and a beautiful dress she had made, here, in Arcadia.”
“The very next day,” said Helen, “According to what I heard… theFae Prince of Winterbarged into her studio and humiliated her in front of her peers and her students, then demanded that she pay her debts lest she bring the wrath of winter down on her and the rest of her kind. The mages and witches of London didn’t want anything to do with her after that. She lost her studio, her peers, and any station she may have had… then she vanished.”
“Thatbitch,” Gullie said, frowning. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it!”
“Language!” barked Pepper from the kitchen.
“What bitch?” I asked. “Also, did my father really say that?”
“Your father was a jerk before your mother got to him,” Gullie said, “ButMadame Lydia Whitmoreis the bitch in question.”
I stared at her, my eyes wide. “Am I supposed to know who that is?”
“No,” Gullie said, “But your mother does. Or did, anyway.” She spun around in midair and stared at my grandmother. “Are you telling me she’s has something to do with what’s happened to us?”
“Dear,” said Helen. “I’m telling you she has everything to do with what’s happened to us. Everything.”
CHAPTERTEN
So, if I had processed everything correctly, my grandmother had just told me that the person now masquerading as the Queen of Windhelm, the crone I had met in my dreams, was a witch who felt like she had been snubbed by my father a long time ago.
A long time ago for me, I guess, but not for her.
As we all sat around, warming up and drinking tea, I found myself running through it all in my mind. I couldn’t figure out what any of this had to do with the Royal Selection, or why my parents had been trying to rush me through it, but it helped to be able to unmask the person responsible for the misery I’d had to endure recently.
Misery I was entirely and solely responsible for, yes, but misery nonetheless.
I had questions. So many questions. My grandmothers, however, didn’t have answers. They knew without a shadow of a doubt that this land, the Winter Kingdom, bore the mark of Madame Lydia Whitmore; a mark they would’ve been able to recognize anywhere given how prominent of a witch she was back in London.
While that was more information than we’d had an hour ago, it was about everything we had at this point, and I didn’t know how it helped us. Whoever that woman was before she came to Arcadia and did all this, she wasn’t that person anymore. She certainly hadn’t been able to shapeshift back on Earth—at least, that wasn’t an ability my grandmothers were aware she possessed.
For all intents and purposes, it seemed, she had somehow made herself Fae. One question above all others loomed supreme, though; was she still as powerful a witch as she used to be, or had she been forced to give that up?
“I knew that woman was trouble,” Gullie said, breaking the curtain of silence that had fallen around us for a while. “I didn’t think I’d be talking about her again, though.”
“You’ve been in Arcadia for a long time,” Evie said, “On Earth, not that much time has passed since Dahlia crossed over. People still talk about Whitmore… wonder where she went.”
“It was a tragic thing,” Pepper said from across the rim of her cup of tea, “Watching her implode like that. She deserved it, though.” I thought she’d mumbled a swear word before sipping, but I wasn’t sure.
“I remember you telling me about Lydia,” Melina said. She was standing by the bay window, overlooking the frozen pond. “I thought it was pretty funny that Cillian had chewed her ear out for Dahlia. Probably the first, nicest thing he ever did in his entire life.”
“To be fair,” Gullie said, “He was kind of possessed by his brother’s spirit at the time. Uncle Radulf was nasty, nasty, nasty.”
I shook my head. “That… sounds entirely made up when I hear it out loud,” I said.
Valerian remained silent, though his eyebrows were both arched, and his expression gave away his utter disbelief.
“I guess what I’m wondering is,” said Melina, “Does this give us some kind of edge?”
“Knowledge is power, dear,” said Grandmother Helen. “Knowing who lies behind the mask does indeed give us an edge.”
