Her brow arches as her grin gives way a little more.
“The fae-kind? Or the beings that are so wild and craven, they’ve lost their tamed forms forever?”
A grin splits my face so wide my cheeks ache.“The wild kind.”
My mother finally allows herself a small smile. “I met one once...”
My eyes go wide in awe. “Really?”
She nods gravely. “Yes, she was a queen... A long, long time ago.”
A queen.
As if my mother can read my mind, her eyes meet mine in the mirror in front of us. “And not by a king either. She was a queen who took the throne. By her own power.”
My eyes round and my lips part.
“What happened to her?”
“She succumbed to her beast... Just like me?—”
My mother lets out an inhuman roar and buries her face in my neck as she pretends to devour me. Peals of laughter escape me as she scoops me into her arms, careful of my delicate wings and slender tail, and pins me to the ground to tickle me until I can’t breathe.
After a few moments, her hands still before she swipes a finger across the end of my nose. “We haven’t got much time, Violette. Let’s wash your face, braid your hair, and put on the green dress he got you?—”
“But I hate that dress, it’s so uncomf?—”
The jolt of her raised voice makes me start.
“Hush, Raia Violette! This is important!”
“Why does it even matter? If he doesn’t care enough to even live with us, then why would he care about what clothes I wear?”
My mother’s jaw works as she bends to take my head in her hands.
“He does care, Violette. More than you know. He just...”
Her words drift as if trying to find the right ones.
“Your father is… unwell.”
She looks like she regrets the words as soon as she speaks them.
I rear back. “He never looks sick to me.”
Her expression tightens as she pauses. Desperation leadens her gaze as it bounces between each of my eyes.
“Not all illnesses can be seen, darling.”
A thread of concern weasels its way into my heart.
“Shouldn’t we help him then?”
The suggestion seems to stress my mother out even more.
“More than anything, I wish we could.”
Frustration burns through me.