A wind whistles through the cracks in the stone. The fishmonger. He could have had a wife. I imagine the woman waiting with me as the hours ticked by, apprehension building. And then, when my mother never came back for me, she panicked. Her husband would have wanted nothing to do with a hideous infant and her unknown powers, and so he delivered me to the Grace Council. Which means my mother might have walked these very stones. Smelled the salt and the mold and the reek of fish. It takes me a moment to find my voice and I struggle to disguise how much Kal’s words have affected me.
“She was—she was Vila?”
“Only partly. Like you. Oh, Alyce. I can see her in you. The same mouth and nose.” He lifts my hand. “The same fingers.”
I remove myself from his grasp and retreat farther into the sunlight. “Why would she have wanted to help you?”
Hurt flits across Kal’s features—an expression I know well from the number of times I’ve been brushed off or shoved aside—but he continues. “They did not know about her Vila blood. She disguised it well. And she found me here, much as you just did. We were kin, in a way, as both of us hailed from Malterre. And she understood the cruelty of this prison. No one deserves this fate.”
“But how did she hide from the Fae ambassador? I couldn’t.”
Endlewild.
A full-blooded Etherian appointed to the royal household and tasked with holding together the alliance between the Fae courts and Briar. It was he who recognized my Vila blood when I was dumped in the lap of the Grace Council. He who led the experiments to see if I was Vila enough to kill, or just a darker version of a Grace. My insides wither at the thought of his golden Fae eyes and bark-like skin, brown and grooved like that of an oak, and that same pain from Hilde’s shop resurfaces. This time, I can’t help but press the heel of my palm into the place on my middle.
“She appeared human. More so than you do,” Kal adds quietly, as if worried it will offend me.
“Is that why she never came back for me? Because it was easier for her to hide?”
“They killed her.” He grinds his teeth. “The beasts. It was just after she attempted to sever my bindings. But the power of the enchantment was too great. She went back for you. We would try again another day. I was watching her return to Briar as I always did, and they intercepted her. I do not know how they knew she was here. Or how they determined what she was. There was some kind of argument, and then they threw her into the sea. These abominable shadows rendered me powerless to stop them. And you—I thought you were dead, too.”
“Beasts? Who do you mean?”
It couldn’t have been Endlewild—then there would have been no questions about my origins when I turned up in the Common District. And I doubt it was the king’s men. But Kal’s mouth just opens and closes, the bones of his neck straining as he struggles to speak. Callow screeches outside, and it seems to knock a dose of sense into me.
I have no reason to trust this man. No proof that what he says is true. “This is too much. I have to go.”
“Wait! I can help you. I know the power that runs in your veins. The gift of the Vila.”
I pause mid-step. “The curse, you mean.”
His dark brows knit together. “Is that what you think? What they told you?”
Against my own instinct, I find myself rushing on. “What else can it be? All I can summon is ugliness and pain.”
“Alyce.” I’ve never heard my name spoken that way before, with compassion, and it almost hurts. “You are so much more than that.”
“What am I?” The question is barely more than a whisper, an aching need that’s plagued me since I was old enough to understand the extent of my otherness. “You said my mother looked more human than I do. Why? I’m part Vila, but what about the rest? Do you know?”
“I do.” A tide of Kal’s shadows rolls toward me, sizzling when it reaches the sunlight. “Are you certain you wish me to tell you?”
No. But I can’t seem to turn away, either. And so I nod.
“You are a Shifter. Just like me.”
CHAPTER SIX
I’m not sure how I got back to Lavender House.
As soon as I’d regained my senses, I fled the tower. Away from Kal. Away from the brand he seared into my back.
Shifter.
The word rings in my head, echoing off the curves of my skull until it swallows every other thought. Before the war, Shifters were one of the many creatures drawn to Malterre by the darkness of the Vila’s power. And like all the rest—Demons and Imps and Goblins and more—Shifters are bloodthirsty monsters. But Shifters are more than just vicious. They’re manipulative and cunning. They can turn themselves into whatever form they wish: beasts with the head of a wolf and body of a griffin. Beautiful maidens who lure their victims in and slit their throats.