Wait.
"How are jevadu born again?" I asked.
Torian's smile grew, and it was sly. "The father is a jevadu. The mother is a sidhe. The child's type is determined by gender."
"And do these jevadu raise the kids?"
"Nope," Wilder said. "The mother does."
"So they're fae enough to fit in with other fae?"
"All of us are fae," Hawke huffed. "Even Jack. The difference is the magic. Sidhe or wildling. Sidhe call theirs one way. Wildlings call it another. They neutralize each other."
"Oh," I breathed, looking over at Torian as subtly as I could. "Tor, are jevadu evil?"
"They can be terrifying. That is not the same as evil," he assured me.
Which was when I remembered something my dad had told me. Fae weren't good or evil; they were simply fae. He always made it sound as if that was its own thing. As if being fae was more of a cultural confusion than a morality issue.
"Ok," I decided, nodding my head with my internal decision. "Because fae are pretty fucking scary sometimes, so I figure a jevadu can't be any worse."
"They can," Keir assured me. "Rain, jevadu are fae monsters. Things from nightmares."
"So are Morrigans, it sounds like," I countered.
He opened his mouth, but paused. "Yeah, I guess you could say that too," he admitted after a long pause.
"But, um..." I looked over at Torian. "Is Nevaeh going to be ok? I mean, if she's Winter, and people hate Winter, and she can't defend herself... Did you screw her over?"
"I did," Torian admitted. "I also feel no guilt because she wanted to kill us, andnoonecomes at my court."
Slowly I nodded, his answer all the confirmation I needed. "Ok," I breathed. "Then jevadu are assholes, but I'm a bitch, so team jevadu, right?"
Hawke had his glass to his lips and nearly choked. "What?" he asked.
"I'm cool with jevadu," I explained. "Because I'm down with the Wild magic, and Jack, and fuck racism, even the fae kind."
His autumn eyes found mine, and then he smiled. "Yeah. Fuck racism."
"Fuck racism!" Aspen declared, raising her voice to do it.
Torian just leaned back, but the smile on his lips this time looked real. It looked almost warm. Most of all, it looked relieved.
Chapter Seventeen
KEIR
Yeah, I wasn't a fan of fae myths - or nightmares - so the whole jevadu talk didn't amuse me. But Rain had a point - and it was exactly what made her so amazing. She didn't have the biases we did. She hadn't grown up with horror stories of monsters who could rip magic from a person, leaving them handicapped and useless.
But that was the problem, wasn't it? Fae assumed more power meant more strength. It made usbetter- but it really didn't. Because Rain didn't know a thing about our lore, she looked at it all with new, fresh eyes, seeing the inherent prejudices we missed because we were so used to them.
Still, her magic lesson had worn her out, so we all encouraged her to eat more fruits. Aspen gave her pure sugar in those paper tubes the girls liked so much. And throughout lunch, people kept looking over. More when we were laughing, but they weren't simply curious. Sadly, there was true concern in their eyes.
I headed to the gym after lunch, thinking about that. Did people really believe Torian was a jevadu? He didn't have wings! Ok, so those were supposed to be magical, and stories said they could be hidden because the jevadu walked among us to hunt. But those were just myths and legends, weren't they? Nothing more than faelings being scared of the stories their parents had told them?
I shook it off the moment Bracken started class. Rain wasn't in this one,which meant I didn't have an excuse to take it easy. Instead, Bracken took the chance to push me hard, and he certainly did.
So when Rain showed up to Defensive Combat, I was a gross and disgusting mess. Through that class and Offense, I managed to rest a bit, and then came Rain's mandatory last class of the day.
