Page 99 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
“The youngest sister went missing? Why? How?”
Steeler didn’t answer right away. His gaze lowered to my shaking hands, then to my uneaten dinner, the look on hisface so pointed and commanding that I didn’t need Mind Manipulating to interpret the words behind the gesture.
No more answers until you take a bite of your food, little hurricane.
My belly clenched as I heeded him despite my every instinct to resist the temptation. I shoveled a bite of food into my mouth, letting the blend of flavors explode across my tongue. Then another, and another, each mouthful as savory as the last.
“This is delicious, Felicity,” I said through a warm, muffled bite.
As if that had popped a bubble over the table, everyone else began eating again, too. Everyone besides Steeler, who merely resumed his story, apparently satisfied that I was getting something down.
“Nobody knows how or why Princess Chrysanthia disappeared despite door-to-door investigations across the queendom. But after she did, Dyonisia began pointing fingers at the queen, claiming their youngest sister’s disappearance washerfault—a treasonous statement, as you can imagine.” His jaw twitched again. “It got to a point where the queen was about to throw her only remaining sister in prison when Dyonisia challenged her to a duel for the crown.”
Dazmine glanced at me, her confusion echoing mine.
If Dyonisia couldsmotherother faerie magic but her older sister couldstealit, who would have had the upper hand in such a fight?
“And?” I asked.
“And Dyonisia lost.” Steeler shrugged. “According to those who were alive to see it, it was over quickly. But the queen didn’t kill her sister, even though she killed every other faerie who dared challenge her—nor did she steal her magic. With her final death blow hovering right over Dyonisia’s head, Her Majesty withdrew and ordered her sister into exile.”
Those words painted shivers up and down my neck. Not only because a wild, possessive energy beneath my skin wanted to snap at the way he’d saidHer Majesty,but because Dyonisia… she’d already been through the worst thing she inflicted upon her own people.
Exile.
“That bitch.” Dazmine had stiffened next to me, obviously of the same mind. “Obsessed with exiling others all because it happened to her. Except instead of actually kicking her throwaways out to sea, she’shoardingthem.”
Steeler nodded. “Along with the entire council of the queen’s most trusted advisors, all of whom she managed to steal before she fled. And for this added insult—for kidnapping the queen’s personal Good Council after she spared her life—Her Majesty has ordered her military that if they are to see Dyonisia in the flesh ever again, they are to kill her on sight… along with any offspring she might have produced in her hundreds of years playing queen on this island.”
Well, there it was. A segway back to what he’d told me in his mind.The tattooed faeries on that ship are all oath-bound to kill Dyonisia Reeve or anyone who belongs to her by blood.
“Does the queen…expectDyonisia to have produced offspring?” I asked, chewing each word carefully as I tried to figure out how to phrase it. For whatever reason, Steeler seemed to be hiding his suspicion from the others—and as much as I hated the sneaking and scheming, thiswasabout me. Nobody else but me. I didn’t want to share it with anyone else either, not until I understood it completely. “I mean, why would the queen even fear such a thing?”
Why would she want to have me killed for the misdeeds of a mother I’ve never even known until last year?
Steeler seemed to read the real question in the purse of my lips.
“Faerie children are becoming increasingly rare. So rare, in fact, that our queendom has begun to consider any offspring divine gifts of Fate.” Steeler glanced at Garvis and Terrin. “And Her Majesty has been unsuccessful at producing a potential heir of her own, a female to one day pass her crown to in a symbolic duel. So if Dyonisia had… involved a human to make a conception more likely, and if that child just sohappenedto inherit the type of antipower that would mark her as part of the ancient Reeve dynasty…”
I swept away the furious upsurge of revenge that wanted to rise inside me at the thought that Dyonisia might have somehow manipulated Fabian into… being with her in that way. Sweet, gentle Fabian, who’d only ever been in love with Don, who would have never chosen such a cold, brutal woman to sleep with and meet up with in secret of his own accord.
For now, revenge could wait. Because I’d just realized—
“Dyonisia’s not just playing queen,” I whispered. “She’s creating an army, isn’t she? An army she can perfect over the centuries until she decides it’s the right time to…”
I couldn’t even get out the rest of the words.
“To try to take over the throne she fumbled five hundred years ago,” Steeler finished for me. “To redo the duel with a new race of magic wielders—and an heir of her own—by her side. Yes. That’s what we think, too.”
God of the Cosmos. I couldn’t imagine the villagers of Alderwick forced to face thisMajestyfigure who could suck out each of their powers like sardines from a jar. My own innate power hadn’t even developed yet. To think that the queen could steal it from me before I had the chance to find out what form it might take…
A soft pressure against my blockade had me cracking open for Steeler. Letting him slide inside so that he could hear my thoughts.
It still doesn’t feel right, the idea of Dyonisia being my mother,I said.Why would she have manipulated Fabian, out of all people, into falling in love with her? There’s no way she would have ever actually lovedhim. They wouldn’t have had any compatibility whatsoever.
At that thought, another one struck me.
Why don’t you Walk us to Alderwick and get the truth directly from Fabian’s mind? He doesn’t even have to know we’re there…
