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Saint is going to be furious!
“I’m not sure I do now,” I snarled. “Not if you used these means to find out.”
Cirilla’s rosebud mouth parted, but she knew me too well. Shrugging, she turned away. “Well, if you change your mind?—”
“Get your ass back here!” I barked. “What did you learn about Elix?”
Smirking, she turned and faced me. “First,” she said. “They aren’t full siblings.”
I felt like I had been punched in the gut. “What?!”
“They share the same mother but a different father,” Cirilla explained.
“That’s impossible,” I growled, thinking of their mother, Glynda. She was not the type to cheat. Was she?
Don’t be naïve. Anyone can be that “type.” And who knows the whole story?
“Do you think they know? Saint and Elix?” I asked aloud, but I was speaking more to myself than Cirilla.
“Saint has never mentioned anything like this to you?”
“Of course not. Not once, not ever. I still can’t wrap my mind around it.”
“That’s not the worst of it, Jace…” Cirilla sighed, and I raised my head to look at her blankly.
“What?”
“The reason I don’t want to bring Elix in here yet.”
I stared at her expectantly, and again, Cirilla seemed to be choosing her words very carefully, a sight I had never observed. “Out with it, Ciri!”
“Their fathers are very different,” the enchantress offered delicately.
“What does that mean?”
“It means… well…” Cirilla paused and cleared her throat lightly. “Saint’s father is just like Glynda. I suspect that he was the handyman who worked here, all those years ago, Glynda’s husband.”
“I still can’t…” I shook my head. “And Elix’s father?”
She bit on her lower lip. “I can’t get a proper handle on him, but there is undeniably dark magic in her bloodline. That’s where her powers come from, Jace.”
I recoiled as if Cirilla had attacked me.
“What are you saying?” I hissed. “You’re wrong!”
She shook her head. “I’m not wrong. I had them run the tests three times—until there wasn’t any sample left to run.”
“Then run a new sample. That one was tainted.”
Cirilla sighed heavily. “If that’s what you want me to do, I’ll do it, Jace, but we both know that’s the most feasible explanation for why she is the way she is.”
“She’s… no…” I insisted. “I…”
My arguments faltered as I wracked my brain for any other solution. “No, you have to run the tests again. And again.”
“Until what?” Cirilla challenged. “You get the results you want? I’m telling you what you asked me to find—the truth.”
The world spun around me, and I was glad I was sitting, or I was sure that my legs would have given out on me otherwise.
