as she rummaged inside the bag she'd carried for the letter Headmistress Le Doux had sent Ivy.
“This cryptic shit. I get it now,” she announced, waving the pages around. “It bugged the hell out of me all night, the way Le Doux worded some things. ‘A large city of iron and stone? Don't be swayed by their beautiful faces or their sweet lies?'
“The sperm donor your mom chose is a Green Man, so that means he's Fae, and everyone knows Fae don't do well in big cities made of iron and stone.”
“Fae,” Ivy repeated numbly. “I'm... I'm half Fae.”
Rowena made an agreeable sound, taking Le Doux's letter from Juliet. “That makes sense then, doesn't it?”
Her brain overloaded with one shock after another. Ivy felt a buzzing sensation in her ears. Her lips felt thick and clumsy, but she managed to respond. “Does it?”
“Mmhm. With your powers bound, anyone seeking fairy magic wouldn't have been able to sense you among the other students at Haggara.
“If they were coming after you then, the school was the perfect place to hide you. And, now we know it's the Fae who are searching for you. We can guard against them specifically.”
Astrid cooed a soft sound, hugging her knees to her chest. “Now the only question left is, why? I'm no expert on the Fae, but I know once a contract is made, the Fae can't go back on their word.”
“No, they can't,” Callie agreed, glancing uncomfortably around the property. “But according to some of the lore I've read in passing, they live to find loopholes in the deals they make. Did your mom write down what it is she bargained for?”
Ivy shook her head, flipping back to the previous pages. “All she said was, 'I get my baby, and he gets his.'”
“Huh,” Kerrigan set her chin in hand, twirling a swizzle stick through her fingers. “Do you think maybe she had another child after you and gave it to the Green Man?”
Ivy shrugged, not sure she wanted to consider that her mother might have traded one baby for another. “I don't know. I want to say she couldn't possibly have done that, but you said it: desperate people do desperate things. Truth is, I don’t really know my mom at all.”
Uriah gave her another gentle hug and got to his feet, lumbering off behind the nearest tree with his jeans in his mouth. He came striding back out in human form a few minutes later and sat down behind her, wrapping her up in a fierce hug. He kissed her cheek, set his chin on her shoulder, and murmured just for her,
“None of this changes a thing, Ivy.”
*****
Every day for nine months, Ilsa Green documented her pregnancy. She wrote down her thoughts, her hopes and dreams for the future, what foods she craved, her happiness and excitement clear in every word she wrote. There were weekly photos of Ilsa standing in front of the mirror, glowing with health, her belly bare to show off her growing bump.
Five months in, Ilsa voiced the stirrings of doubt and dismay.
I went into this with my eyes open. I agreed to the deal and told myself it wouldn't matter, especially after how GM treated me the night I conceived. It couldn't have been clearer that I'm nothing but a vessel to him, and until today, I thought I could hold myself back from caring.
Solei came by and gave me my monthly check up. She said everything looked good, and right there with the heart monitor thumping away, I felt a kick.
It was so strong. A tiny pair of feet pushed up against my belly from the inside. Then a little pair of hands. Then two more hands, and two more feet.
My body has completely whacked out, my boobs are huge, I look like I swallowed a watermelon whole, but it took that riot of kicks and thumps to make the enormity of my mistake sink in.
I might be nothing more than a vessel to GM, but they don't know that. It's not my baby and his baby taking up space in my womb; they're both mine.
What have I done? How can I pick one of them to give up?
Heart racing as another bomb went off inside her heart, Ivy frantically turned the page to read the next entry, but her mother was back to sunshine and smiles, talking about a singular baby like the last entry never happened.
Ilsa took photos of the master bedroom closet she'd converted into