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“What do you know?” she asked.
“I don’t know if I can say it,” I said. “I’m afraid to even think about it.”
“All you have to do is avoid thinking loudly,” she said. “Mind magickers can’t hear our thoughts unless they are really loud.”
“Loud?” I asked. “I don’t even know what that means.”
Aislinn’s lips twitched with irritation. It reminded me of all the times she had tried to make me see the truth about the queen.
“What are you smiling about?” she asked tersely.
“Nothing,” I replied. “Please. Explain.”
“Feelings make thoughts louder,” she said. “Heightened feelings cause heightened thoughts. Try to think of everything as though you are simply reading about events from a history book. Disengage your thoughts and observe them from a distance.”
It sounded hard. Everything about the queen gave me strong feelings of hate, disappointment, and shame. My tactic so far had been to avoid thinking of such things. Aislinn’s method would be easier if I could actually do it.
I had to try. I pushed the concern for my loved ones to the back of my mind.
“She is the one who created the monsters,” I said to Aislinn, my tone flat as I distanced myself from any feeling. “The queen... And you were right. She ordered Master Leo’s death.”
Aislinn’s expression softened. “You do know.”
I nodded. “I hate her.”
“Hate is a strong feeling,” Aislinn warned. “Try to avoid those.”
“I am trying,” I said. “It is the only way to stay at the palace.”
“Why would you want to stay?” Aislinn asked.
“The queen wants me to have a vision about my sister,” I said. “I think it’s because Jasmine is with the Prince of Dark. Something happened a week ago. The monsters were all transformed back to fae. Did you know they were fae? The queen...”
“I know,” Aislinn stopped me. “We know now.”
“Who is 'we'?” I asked. “The ones you were sending the messages to?”
Aislinn nodded.
“You are a spy,” I said. “How?”
Aislinn seemed hesitant. Then, she pursed her lips and took a step to my right. As I turned toward her, she sat on the chair beside my desk and looked up.
“My father was a human,” she said. She looked at me as though she expected me to react. When I didn’t, she went on. “He worked at my grandfather’s house. He and my mother fell in love.”
She paused. It was too painful for her to speak, I could tell. I wanted to warn her about her feelings but decided against it. She had been a spy in the queen’s palace for a while now. She knew.
Aislinn shook her head as though that helped her distance herself from her painful feelings. When she spoke, her tone was almost cold.
“My grandfather caught them when they tried to escape into the human world to be together,” she continued with a flat tone. “He turned my father in, and the crown executed him.”
“For what?” I asked, feeling a weight on my chest.
“Nothing,” she said. “For being with my mom... For being a human... They claimed he had tricked her. My mom couldn’t do anything to stop it. And a few months later, when it became clear she was pregnant, my grandparents told everyone I was theirs and not hers. My grandparents were young enough to have a child of their own. Once I was born, they raised me. But my mom was always there, and she never hid the truth from me. Until my powers unleashed, my grandparents treated me like a servant. And once it became clear that although I was half human, I still had powers, they introduced me to society.”
That still didn’t explain much. I let her go on.
“I hated them,” she looked up. “I hated the fae and thought they were all vicious creatures with no concern for anyone else but themselves. But my mom wasn’t like that. And in time, I found others who were kind and compassionate, just like my mom. The singers did not believe that the humans were inferior and that the queen was good. They fought against the queen and the system she had created.”
