drink. “Do you remember our cat?”
“Aggie.” I had loved that sweet, old cat.
“You found it dead in the garden. You were so distraught.” He rubbed at his head. “If I wasn’t standing there, if your father hadn’t seen it also, I would have thought it was a trick of my brain.”
I sucked in. The memory was spotty and muddled. I had only been six, but I was sure the cat was still alive when I found it. It died on my lap.
“You were sobbing and went to pet it.” Andris shook his head. “The cat came back to life.”
“What?” I stepped back, feeling the wall press into my spine.
“It climbed in your lap and meowed. You were so scared you jerked your hand away. It instantly went limp. Dead.”
“Maybe it wasn’t dead before,” I whispered.
“Rigor mortis had already set in.” Andris sat back. “Believe me, we tried to come up with every excuse possible. But that moment set your father on a trek, a quest for answers.”
“Answers?”
“Answers to what you were.”
“So, what are you saying? I’m fae?” I let my fear slide off my tongue, my chest clamping down in terror.
“You’re not fae.” Warwick shook his head, his forehead rumpling, his eyes digging in as if he were trying to see past my shell, poke in and find a reason.
“How do you know?”
“Your parents were both human and mortal,” Andris replied.
“You knew my mother?”
“Met her once.” He nodded. “Eabha was stunning.” My mother’s name drove into my chest, hearing the lyrical AY-va sing from his lips. My father used it so little, always saying your mother, I almost forgot she was a person, with a name. A woman with hopes and dreams. Not some fairytale I made up in my head. “Your father was devastated when he returned from the war to find she had died the night of the Fae War. Between your birth and the magic from the Otherworld crashing into Earth, her body couldn’t take it... He never even got to say goodbye.”
I licked my bottom lip, peering at the ground, the guilt of her death on my conscience. I understood his subtle meaning; if she had been secretly fae, she wouldn’t have died in childbirth or from the magic. Humans succumbed to that.
“Then there is no way I could have brought the cat back to life.” I could hear the hope in my voice, the need to counter the sickening squeeze deep in my soul.
“As far as I know, only necromancers can raise the dead.” Warwick’s focus trailed up and down me. “You are not that.”
A picture I saw once of a necromancer scared the crap out of me. Skin and bones, hooded in robes, ghostly looking monsters.
They were the origin of the image of death with a scythe.
“What about a natural obscurer? Isn’t Queen Kennedy rumored to be one… that she can raise the dead?”
“You’d have to be a Druid.” Uncle Andris shook his head. “A very powerful one.”
Right.
A natural obscurer came from the most dominant Druid line. Their mothers purposely worked with black magic while pregnant, wanting the power to seep into the unborn child. And yet, it was still a long shot the baby would become one. The leader of the Unified Nations was exceptional and queen for a reason. Her roots came from the most top-tier Druid.
“Then what am I?”
“We don’t know.” A pained expression settled on Andris’s face. “At least, I don’t think your father ever learned. He grew more and more withdrawn. Slipping out, leaving for days. He stopped telling me anything, saying it was for Rita’s and my protection. If Istvan found out what he knew...” Andris choked over the last few words. “All he made me promise was to keep you safe. Make sure Istvan never learned what we suspected.”
“By putting him as my guardian?” I tossed my arms out.
“I was supposed to be your guardian.” Andris tipped his head. “But it could not be. I talked your father into making Istvan your caretaker.”
“Why? Then I’d be right under Istvan’s nose.”
“Exactly.” Andris’s gaze snapped to mine.
“Keep your enemies so close they become family,” Warwick stated, nodding in understanding. “Blind them to suspicion.”
“It worked too.” Andris folded his hand on his lap. “For the last five years, you have been hidden right in the open. Your father and I knew that the closer you were to the Markos family, the safer you were. Until…” He shook his head at me.
Until I landed my ass in Halálház.
“Baszd meg.” I swiped