Page 93 of Our Radiant Embers

“Well.” Laurie arched an eyebrow. “Seeing as there is no reliable data on gay mages because we collectively pretend they don’t exist…”

My mum pushed her plate away and fixed my grandmother with a serious look. “Tell them.”

“Tell us what?” Jack asked.

Nan Jean’s lips pressed into a thin line.

“Tell them,” Mum said again, with heavy emphasis.

For a moment, it looked as though Nan Jean would refuse. Then her chin dipped down in a near-imperceptible nod, her gaze taking us all in—Jack nearly vibrating in his chair, my dad silent and stoic, Laurie’s eyes bright with curiosity, and my mum tense. Me, I sat very still, belly tight with something like nerves.

“My father—” Nan Jean stopped. “My biological father was a powerful mage from a powerful family.”

Jack opened his mouth. Laurie elbowed him to keep it shut.

“I don’t know much—not even his name.” Nan Jean’s attention drifted to the window, voice growing translucent. “What I do know is that he was French?—”

“French?” my mum interjected, crisp surprise edging her tone.

“French, yes.” Nan Jean continued after a beat. “He took part in the Dunkirk evacuation as a civilian. Helped ease the passage of some smaller rescue vessels, from what my mother told me. They met after, and he remained in London for a couple of years before his family called him back.”

Powerful. A powerful French mage. From a family that wielded all four elements?

I blinked to stop my thoughts from spinning.

“So he just ditched a woman and a baby?” Judgement coloured Laurie’s question.

“He didn’t know my mother was pregnant.” Nan Jean’s forehead creased as she laced her hands on the table, her thin fingers hinting at a fragility I didn’t usually associate with her. “The way she tells it, he was engaged to another woman, the usual family arrangement to maximise power through alliances. Being in London also weakened his magic. So he left. He returned after the war, said he’d broken off his engagement—but by then, my mother had already married my father. She claimed I was his child.”

“And he believed it?” Laurie asked.

“He did.” Nan Jean drew a deep breath that lifted her bony shoulders. “I never learned my biological father’s name. Just that his family must remain unaware that I exist.” Her gaze swept across us—my mum and Jack, Laurie and me. “They are the kind that might have reacted badly to illegitimate offspring thinning out the gene pool. Either that, or they might have insisted on my mother moving to Paris with me so I could be raised there.”

All right. That was…

Something. I didn’t know what—my brain spiralling through questions that had no immediate answers. If my great-grandfather had been powerful, could his magic have leaped over three generations to now manifest in me? Who had he been? French. From Paris? Or another, smaller community in France? I didn’t know much about them, just that much like in the UK, a few pockets of magical activity were scattered across the country.

“You never told me he was French.” My mum sounded like she was still processing things, one of her fingers tapping an absent beat against the tabletop.

Nan Jean inclined her head. “I’ve been raised never to speak of it. That kind of conditioning is hard to shake.”

“Did you ever try to find out who he was?” I asked. It felt like I had to drag the words up from somewhere around the soles of my feet, the smell of our dinner lurching in my stomach.

“Of course I did.” Her smile was quiet, yet it carried just a hint of her usual mischievous energy. “But no luck, my dear. There aren’t exactly swaths of English books available that detail the nature of France’s magical communities.”

Valid. But I knew one family in London that might just have a book or two that could provide some answers.

Not a question to ask Gale. Adam, though? I trusted him, completely and irrevocably.

I also wanted him here. I didn’t want him at a fraught birthday dinner with only Gale and Cassandra on his side, head held high even as his family’s expectations nearly flattened him.

“So…” Jack drew out the word, tongue tucked up against his teeth. “If your dad”—he gestured at Nan Jean—“was powerful, how does that explain Liam suddenly going Nova on us?”

“Sun,” I corrected faintly.

Nan Jean paused, her eyes going slightly distant. “Well, magic is about bloodlines, isn’t it? Yet it’s also rooted in our environments, the stories and places that shape us. My father’s powers were diluted here—but perhaps, in the right setting, they might help explain the unexpected shifts in Liam.”

“I’ve never heard of anything like this.” Dad shook his head. “Seems to go against everything we thought we knew.”

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