Page 22 of A House of Cloaks & Daggers

John had sworn, cursed, and muttered something about Malum earlier in the night after Wren mentioned a race of faeries who owned and controlled the caenim. If Wren considered them to be evil, I would spare myself the gory details.But if they are sending their beasts into the human world, hunting down anyone with faerie blood in their veins…

“It killed Jonah,” I remembered aloud. I squinted at Wren, trying to push my mother’s quietly horrified face out of my line of sight. “He wasn’t…?”

Wren shook his head. “He was a case of the wrong place, wrong time. Blasted things will eat anything that crosses their path, even on a hunt.”

I shuddered at the thought of Jonah beingeatenand wished the impossibly tall caenim had gone after my father instead.

“That was a little different,” Wren murmured thoughtfully. I shot him a startled look, but he was staring at his boots, clicking his heels together. “With your mother, I think it was confused. Her scent is very similar to yours, and they’re blind.”

The blood rushed to my head. I felt dizzy, sick, and on the verge of tears.

If they come back and get confused again…

“When John told me to go, he didn’t mean…home.” My shoulders sagged as the blood rushed down, all the way to my feet, leaving me light-headed and empty.

“No. Not this home, at least.” Wren raked a hand through his hair haphazardly. “I suppose it will save me a trip now if I’ll end up needing to come back for you eventually, seeing as though you can’t take care ofyourself,” he admitted, apparently coming to the same conclusion that I was and not caring atall that it was strangling my heart. He hopped down from the machine, as silent and graceful as a cat, and strode over to the back door as if something in the darkness had caught his interest.

I turned back to my mother, lower lip trembling as I opened my mouth to utter words I was struggling to even form in my mind. Brynn stirred in her arms, turning her rosy-cheeked face towards mine, wide blue eyes sparkling with mischief.

“Aura,” she whispered, the knowledge of all that had transpired glowing on her face. Out of everything she’d been secretly listening to, she had managed to find the one potentially nice detail and run wild with it in her imagination. “Are you a fairy princess?”

At that, my mother’s mental wall crumbled. Tears streamed freely down her cheeks, though she smiled as she stroked my sister’s hair and gazed at me with love, sadness, and regret.

“I am,” I replied, my voice steady despite the thickness in my throat. I bent my head towards her conspiratorially and grinned. “And you know what? Fairies love even harder than humans do. I loved you before, but I love you even more now. Both of you.”

Brynn beamed at me, a little gasp escaping from her lips. “Do you get a crown?”

“I’m not sure,” I answered, and I felt the tears welling up in my eyes. I resisted the urge to blink, trying to balance the moisture on my lower lids. “Maybe you can make one for me.”

She nodded eagerly. “Yes!”

My mother’s hand began to shake as it continued to stroke my sister’s head, and I noticed the tears dampening her hair.

The back door flung open, and I jumped, but it was only Wren—who, for some reason, had taken it upon himself to step outside to inspect the washing line.

Not the washing line, I realised with no small amount of horror.

Mywashing.

“I’ll be right back,” I whispered to Brynn.

I stood up, chair legs grating against the linoleum floor, and pressed a kiss to the top of my sister’s head. Then my mother’s.

She didn’t say it, though I knew she was thinking it too. I saw it in her eyes as she watched me walk away. And I saved that look, committing it to memory for when I would need it most.

Wren was inspecting a pair of skimpy red lace panties when I stepped outside, closing the back door behind me. He didn’t look up at me as I approached, and when I snatched them out of his hands, he simply moved on to the white lace bodysuit hanging next on the line.

“Stop it,” I seethed, swatting him away as his fingers moved to unclip the pegs.

He deflected my hands with his elbow, angling his torso away from me as he held the lace up to the moonlight. “Have you made your decision?”

I have.

I saw the look on my mother’s face. I felt my heart writhe in my chest in reply.

I had made my decision, and I dreaded it with every single fibre of my being. Wren’s obsession with my underwear only lessened the blow slightly, though the heat of my embarrassment and anger had evaporated the tears in my eyes.

“I’ll go with you,” I whispered. “But you have to make them forget.”

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