Briar gave me a curious look when I came in and asked why Valerien wasn’t with me, to which I said he left for who knows where. She wasn’t convinced, but since his absence proved my story, she let it go. 

I closed my bedroom door and sat on the chaise before the fireplace, where a few embers still glowed warmly. 

My blood had resisted his magic and burned him. Clearly this was something unusual, perhaps even dangerous, if he didn’t want me to tell anyone. Had it been fear in his eyes, then, or something more sinister? 

I glanced at the makeshift bandage to check if the cuts had bled through: they hadn’t. They still stung, though. Bastard better not have infected me with something. 

Valerien returned less than an hour later, a knock on the open door announcing his presence.

His expression was grim and invited no questioning on my part. I stood up. 

“Come.” He left the doorway without waiting for a reply. 

“Where are we going?” 

He ignored me. 

Fine. If he wanted to be like that, so be it. I was too curious to start protesting now, but at some point I would have to talk to him about how he spoke to me. It wasn’t the abruptness of his words that bothered me, rather the presumptuousness — did he realize I wouldn’t always obey without explanation? 

We exited Sorrow’s Nest and made our way to the frozen lake. The ice covering the surface cracked and split at Valerien’s approach, and the revealed water burst violently upward in the air like it was crashing against an invisible cliff. Instead of forming the usual water tunnel, however, it remained aloft like a sheet of glass. 

From my position a few steps behind Valerien, I watched as the image on the other side of the sheet wobbled and shifted, melting together before glowing brighter, greener, vague shapes sharpening into emerald trees and grass, showing a lively forest. It was like he’d opened a window in the air itself. 

He glanced over his shoulder, eyes searching mine to make sure I was following his silent instruction, then stepped through. I did the same.

When I looked back to see the lake, the portal collapsed into a small, overgrown fountain with a splash, sending green water flying all over my trousers. 

“Ugh. What are you, a child?”

“Keep up,” was his only reply. 

This wasn’t a forest, but a garden. Flat white rocks embedded in the earth formed a path that lead away from the fountain, and on either side were lush plants and shrubs overflowing with vibrant flowers. Tall, exotic trees obscured the sky with their heavy foliage, some raining down blossom petals. It reminded me of the House of Songs, the throne room in particular, except this time I knew we were still outdoors. And this place was wilder, more alive. Less manicured to ethereal perfection. Overgrown rather than cultivated.

The small stone path we’d been walking joined a wider one, and ahead stood a strange glass mansion, only two stories tall, lit up by the flowers blooming all around it. Ivy climbed across the panes while vines and moss hung from the wooden framework, making me wonder how the fragile building hadn’t collapsed under the weight of all this vegetation. 

The scent and heat of this place was overwhelming as well as jarring after the fresh emptiness of the winter around Sorrow’s Nest. I could already feel a headache coming in response to the abundance of strange aromas, not to mention the sneaking suspicion I was about to meet more high fae. 

“You won’t even tell me where we’re going?” I pressed. 

“We will arrive before I could start. This way.” 

The path split in three and Valerien picked the one on our left, a small breeze blowing in front of him to part the low-hanging willow branches blocking our path. Naturally, they swung back in my face when I made to step through. I was about to call him a ball-bag when I saw them. 

Two high fae men, sitting demurely at a glass table in an overgrown marble gazebo, each with a dainty teacup in front of him, and two more prepared. One of them, the shorter one, glanced up as we approached. The other sipped whatever was in his cup with a sour expression. 

The shorter man stood to greet us with a careful smile — his eyes bore into me without seeing Valerien at all. 

“This is she?” he said, clasping his hands together in anticipation.

“Why would I bring a different human here?” Valerien replied. 

He waved his finger for me to come closer and stand beside him. I obeyed hesitantly. This new fae wasn’t hostile, but his interest was rather off-putting. 

“Of course. I only expected …” The stranger paused, smiling sheepishly at me. “It doesn’t matter what I expected. Hello, dear. My name is Auron. Young Valerien tells me you are quite special.” 

To my surprise, Auron offered me his hand to shake. I decided not to ask why a fae knew of this gesture and simply took it, giving it a decent squeeze before easing off the pressure when his soft hand practically crumbled in mine. Auron didn’t seem bothered, his odd smile never faltering. 

Like all the other high fae I’d met, Auron was very handsome, with an open, inviting face and golden brown eyes. His skin and hair were dark brown, though the large flowers braided into his locks matched his bright smile. He was only a little taller than I.

“He didn’t tell me much about anything, so you probably know more than I do,” I replied cautiously.

Auron gave Valerien a look of amusement mixed with accusation. “I see. Well, why don’t you both join me and Ortagon? We were just having some lemon tea. I bet you’ve never had that this far north, hmm?” 

Auron placed his hand between my shoulder blades and ushered us both toward the table. 

The man already sitting there, Ortagon, glared as we approached. His mouth twitched in a repressed grimace when I sat down at the small table.

“Don’t mind him, he’s shy,” Auron said. He reached for the teapot in the middle of the table and filled my and Valerien’s cups with intensely red tea. “Sugar?” 

Three cubes from a porcelain beaker lifted themselves before dropping into Valerien’s cup. He stirred the tea with a silver spoon that was comically tiny in his large hand, wearing an expression only surpassed by Ortagon’s in its displeasure. 

I realized Auron had been speaking to me and shook my head awkwardly. 

So. You do magic?” he said after an extended silence.

“Pardon?”

“Are you able to affect the world around you in certain ways? Make things happen just because you want them to?” 

I raised a brow, “There are ways of enacting one’s will without using magic, surely?” 

“Yes, of course. But see, Valerien told me you summoned fury fire. No ordinary human can do such a thing.” 

I met Valerien’s gaze. Though I’d eaten with him before, the small table and enclosed space made the eye contact feel uncomfortably intimate, and I looked away before being able to communicate anything to him.

“When the troll king came after you and you set the forest ablaze, you must have seen the shape of the flames, the intensity and speed with which the fire ate away at it,” he said matter-of-factly. 

“Well, yes. But I just thought the fire here was different compared to the human world.”  

“It can be, but it has nothing to do with location, and everything to do with intent and power. If the flames are truly what they describe and think they saw, then it could very likely have been fury fire, and that is a spell even high fae rarely master,” Auron explained carefully, taking a tiny sip. 

I stirred my own tea. I hadn’t tried it yet. Ironically, I found it was too hot.

“They?” I said tentatively.

“Yes. Ortagon was … present,” Auron said with a meaningful glance at the other fae.

I looked at Ortagon, though could only muster a few seconds of eye contact before dropping my gaze. He looked positively furious, like he was a hair’s width away from closing his hands around my neck. I sat perfectly still for a moment as if that would make him forget I was there.

Maybe he got caught in the fire I started? He seemed perfectly fine, no horrible burns anywhere, and I doubted he’d be willing to explain what exactly he was doing in the Overgrowth when I set it ablaze. 

“Does this have anything to do with my blood?” I inquired. 

Magic or no, and whatever this fury fire thing was, the blood was the reason we’d come here. All this other stuff … I knew I should’ve cared more, but I couldn’t bring myself to do so without proper context. The fae always started conversations assuming I already knew everything yet nothing at the same time. 

“Valerien claims he’s seen you do magic. That your eyes glow sometimes, which can be an indicator, as you can probably guess.” Auron gestured toward Valerien’s face. “I don’t want to sound like I don’t believe him, but if your blood did truly burn him the way iron does, magic is presumed to be impossible. It’s either one or the other.” 

I stared between the two fae. My eyes glowed? That sounded preposterous, but I had no way of disproving it since I couldn’t remember the last time I’d looked in a mirror. I figured Sinéad or Grandmother or Reese would have noticed something like that, though. Reese was fond of saying how pretty my eyes were when sunlight struck them in a certain way. Maybe Valerien had mistaken that glow for magic. 

And what was this about my blood burning him like iron does? That part, I found despite myself, intrigued me. My doing magic or having glowing eyes was irrelevant, but if my blood hurting high fae was true, that could be quite useful indeed.

“You think my blood burns like iron?” I asked Valerien.

“You saw it, did you not? Only iron can burn a fae like that.” 

“If you would allow me to see it for myself?” Before I could reply, Auron had produced an elegant golden dagger from thin air and was looking at my hand eagerly. 

I sighed and offered him my palm. He grabbed my finger and deftly made a small incision, squeezing until it became dark pink and a large drop of blood grew from it like the belly of a frog. It spilled onto the table and landed between my saucer and a small tray of green macarons.

“Ory dearest, if you would?”

I frowned at “dearest,” but decided it was none of my business, something that was reinforced by Ortagon himself when he glared at me. 

He shifted before reluctantly gesturing with his hand in the air. I waited for something flashy to happen, like Valerien’s holes in reality or even Briar’s disappearing act, only to jump in my chair when a long vine reached down from the overgrown gazebo ceiling like a green, leafy finger. The tip touched the crimson drop before it shuddered and withered, a palm’s length of it scattering into dust as the rest writhed in pain before retreating up again. 

Auron leaned in to look at the mess of blood and ashes, intrigued.

“Fascinating! But how can iron blood allow for magic to exist within you? And you resist compulsion magic, too, meaning your mind is iron, which should prevent it from casting spells, even unknowingly. Hmm.” 

He got lost in thought, pondering some mystical nonsense, presumably. 

“My grandfather,” I offered half-heartedly. “He was a faery. At least my grandmother told me so. Would that change anything?”

Auron scratched his chin, humming some more. “It certainly could. A dormant drop of magic manifesting itself when near the fae world?” 

“But it is only her grandfather. Not nearly enough to manifest that strongly,” Valerien retorted. “Certainly not enough for destruction of that magnitude.” 

“Nothing is ever certain. Sometimes, a spark is enough to start a wildfire.” 

A spark was exactly what lit up Valerien’s eyes in a split second of surprise and alarm, fading so quickly that I questioned my own perception despite seeing it happen. 

Then he frowned lightly, the annoyance back in full force, “I see.” 

“I realize it’s not a satisfying answer,” Auron conceded. “My guess would be that she is just fae enough for some magic to slip through her own resistances.” 

The thought made me nauseous. I didn’t want to be fae, didn’t want any part of my being or my soul to be fae, no matter how small. 

My maternal grandfather was a distant, removed part of my life that I’d never cared about and had never been relevant until now, so him being fae hadn’t bothered me. Now, knowing he was one of them and a part of me might’ve been, too — it was infuriating. 

I didn’t want to have anything in common with these creatures. I was human, through and through. Anything else was a flaw of my ancestry and had no impact on my own being.

I had to believe this. It had to be true.