*Lena*
The midwife handed a black and white length of glossy paper with a smile before turning to leave the exam room. Mom was talking to a nurse in the corner of the room as I pulled my sweater down over my belly and huffed a breath, wincing as I struggled into a sitting position.
I looked down at the length of pictures in my lap, my throat tightening painfully as I tried to swallow.
There she was, our baby. I could just make out her head and body in the blurred, sowhat distorted images. I was four months along and doing fine, from what the midwife had said. Nothing looked amiss.
I hadn’t ntioned to her that three of those months had been the equivalent of two weeks in the other realm. But Mom had held my hand through the appointnt, her eyes on the screen as she nodded and asked quiet, gentle questions. She was gathering every ounce of information being fed to us, because I barely heard any of it. I was disassociating, my mind far away, my thoughts lingering on the man who should have been here to see the first glimpses of our daughter.
Mom probably thought I was just tired, which was true. I’d spent the last two days training with my Grandma from the crack of dawn to the late hours of the evening. Two days was all it had taken for to get a grip on how to use each of my powers, and to discover a few new ones. Grandma had been stoic and calm throughout the ordeal, barely batting an eyelash as I shot blasts of white moonlight from my fingertips and opened portal after portal to realms of my own creation, which were little more than air and starlight.
“You ready?” Mom asked as she shrugged on her coat. I’d been looking out the window, lost in thought. I hadn’t realized the nurse had left the room until mom’s voice chid in my ears. “You’re probably hungry. I was thinking we could stop by the tea shop on the way ho and have so lunch.”
I mustered a smile. Of course, I could eat. That was the one thing I felt like I was capable of doing most of the ti. Otherwise, I was a tangled ss of grief and anxiety, just waiting for my first shred of bad news to co my way.
I’d received one letter from Xander since he and Oliver left for Breles, almost three weeks ago now. He’d been brief, to the point. He’d made promises that I knew in my heart he’d be unlikely to keep.
The news coming from the west wasn’t good at all. I was trying not to think about it.
I walked a few paces behind Mom as we made our way through the hospital. She looked around, smiling, and nodded at people as we passed. She held the door open for , and a gust of cool, early spring air washed over us. Outside, the snow was still thick but turning to slush, rotting away with each passing hour.
“That was a long appointnt,” Mom breathed as I tucked my hand in the crook of her elbow. “You know, back when Maeve was pregnant with the triplets, this place was a four-room clinic. Now it rivals the hospital in Mirage in size.” She turned her head to look back at the white, four-story hospital.
“I’m not going to be delivering the baby here, am I?” I asked, but in reality, I already knew the answer.
“I don’t know, honey. I... it depends. I’d like to get you ho, to Mirage.”
I nodded, swallowing against the painful lump in my throat that wouldn’t go away–go ho, go back to Mirage.
Only if Mirage was still standing.
We walked through town toward the city center, which was arranged in a circle with shops and apartnt buildings creating a wide open space in the center. Festivals and markets were held here quite often, but today, it was rather quiet. We trudged through puddles of cold water as we walked across the space toward the tea shop. A flickering open sign welcod us as we stepped inside.
“You sit down. I’ll order us so lunch,” Mom said as she unwound her scarf and started toward the counter.
I watched her for a mont before sitting at a cafe table near the window looking out over the city center. Children in rain boots were jumping into the puddles, which were the size of small ponds. Sasha was one of the children, her blonde pigtails bouncing as she jumped up and down in the water, her cheeks pink with chill.
I looked around, scanning the area for her mother. Clare walked into view, then turned and t my eye as though she’d felt my presence nearby. She gave a smirk then started toward the tea shop.
“Great,” I said beneath my breath, just as Mom set down two tea cups of milky, extra sweet tea on the table.
Clare walked into the shop, smiling kindly at Mom as she walked to the counter. She looked at over her shoulder, giving a teasing grin. I didn’t understand Clare. One minute, she was cold, and the next, she acted like we were old friends.
I brought the tea to my lips as Clare ordered sothing at the counter. Mom watched staring at Clare, her brow furrowed.
“What’s the matter?”
“I don’t think I like her very much,” I whispered into my tea.
Mom gave a knowing glance before looking outside where a group of people were passing by.
“I don’t think she cares whether or not you like her,” Mom said with a soft grin, shaking her head. “She reminds of your aunt.”
“Maeve?”
“Yes, and Kacidra. Maybe a mix of the two.”
“Hey,” Clare exhaled as she plopped down in the open seat at our table, a steaming cup of what slled like hot chocolate in her hands. She sipped it, sighing into her cup before she set it down. “It’s freezing out there. I don’t know how you all manage this place.”
“Sasha seems to be fine,” I quipped.
Clare shrugged, and Mom smiled.
“Kids are impervious to the cold,” Mom laughed, leaning back in her chair and crossing her legs. “We used to spend at least an hour bundling you kids up, only to find your jackets and gloves at the end of the gate at your grandparents’ old house, and the lot of you out causing chaos sowhere.”
Clare was watching Sasha through the window with a distant look in her eyes.
“What happened in Cedar Hollow?” I said, a little sharper than I ant to.
Clare’s eyes snapped to my face, and Mom sucked in her breath. Clare brought her hot chocolate to her lips slowly, looking up and down. Outside, Sasha was running and jumping with a group of five or six children now, likely her new classmates, watched over like a hawk by a group of three people who must have been their teachers.
“Does it matter?” Clare asked, and I nodded.
Her nostrils flared as she set her mug down and squared her shoulders. “I was coming back to the castle with Sasha when the attack began. We’d stopped for dinner after her playdate, and she’d fallen asleep on my shoulder on the walk ho. I think... I think that was the reason we’re alive, honestly. I was slow carrying her weight, and when that screeching began I just... I looked up to the bluff and saw the castle go up in flas. People started running into the woods from behind us, and I got knocked to the ground with Sasha in my arms.” She swallowed, then lifted her hot chocolate to her lips again, shaking her head.
“Sasha started wailing. She was scared, woken up by the panic going on around us and then the fall. That’s when a... whatever they were–those things just started coming out of nowhere, walking out of thin air right behind us. I barely had ti to get to my feet before they were on us. They’d heard Sasha, and they were going after anything that made noise. I ran with her as far as I could, but everyone was running in different directions. I dropped her again, tripping over soone who had fallen in front of us. It was chaos. Soone else fell on top of , and I scread at Sasha to run, and she did.”
And then I’d found her, just before the winged hybrid plucked from the ground and through whatever portal they’d opened with their bloodstones.
“Then I saw... wolves, but they weren’t people who had shifted, no. They were like... spirits, like glowing ribbons of light.” She narrowed her eyes at mine before continuing, “I’m assuming those were your wolves, right?”
I nodded. That was one power I hadn’t been able to summon again when training with my grandma.
“I searched everywhere for her. I thought maybe she’d gone back to the castle, so I went there and... Goddess, it was gone. The whole thing burnt to the foundation. I didn’t even think that Hale was in the castle until I couldn’t find him again when I went into the village looking for Sasha. Everything was gone, Lena. The village was ashes. I scread and cried for Sasha and my brother until I lost my voice. I barely rember being led out of the village and to the bus station. I just woke up on a bus and had to be held down until we reached Red Lakes.”
“And then you ca here–” Mom began, but Clare exhaled loudly, shaking her head as she tried to gather her thoughts.
“I ca here because I knew that Rosalie was the only one who could help find Sasha. I knew that Lena wouldn’t have abandoned her. I knew Sasha would be with Lena, or Adrian.”
“And you ca here because you’re Lycennian, as well.” Mom tipped her teacup back, draining it. I was shocked by the look on her face, which was cold and suspicious. I’d never seen her look at anyone like that before. “You look like him,” she said flatly, eting Clare’s eye.
“Like who?” I asked, my heart skipping a beat.
Clare swallowed hard, tearing her eyes from Mom’s to et mine.
“I didn’t know,” she ground out, fury blazing behind her eyes. She pointed a finger at mom with a sneer. “And your family interrogated for days trying to pry answers out of , answers I didn’t have.”
“Didn’t know what?” I asked, feeling helpless as I looked between Clare and Mom.
“Clare is Carl’s daughter,” Mom said simply, draining my tea, which I hadn’t touched in a long ti.
“I never knew him. I didn’t know his na–”
“Her mother was a Lycennian refugee that crossed through Winter Forest when Maeve and I were here, before the triplets were born. Her mother’s na was on the register. We checked.”
I’d heard of Carl, the only one of Tasia’s accomplices that had made it out of the moonstone drama alive. But he hadn’t been seen in over twenty years.
“I have nothing to do with Lycenna. I told you everything I know,” Clare said hotly, and my mom nodded, shrugging casually.
I felt my stomach twist into a knot as a disgusting thought crept into my mind. I tasted bile as I looked up at Clare, noting the crimson shade on her cheeks. Lycenna used to selectively breed their won to strengthen the powers passed down by Lycaon. It wasn’t uncommon for cousins, or brothers and sisters to, uh....
“Carl is not Sasha’s father,” Clare said, as if reading the expression on my face. “His na was–”
A warrior burst through the tea shop door, scanning the room before he settled his frantic gaze on the three of us. He bowed to Mom, then said breathlessly, “Queen Hanna, you’re being requested at the castle–”
“What’s going on?” Mom said as she rose to her feet, her face shadowed with concern.
“Breles has fallen,” he replied, his eyes glazing with fear.
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