“We are not peasants, Evangeline. That is not how you speak to a queen.”
“It is if that queen is my mother,” I muttered.
One of her dark eyebrows rose.
“Mom. Come on. What do you want?”
She huffed. “I want a cup of tea and to see how my daughter is.”
Sensing she wouldn’t give up, I sighed and opened the door. Mom sailed in before I could swing it all the way open, her eyes cataloging everything and missing nothing. I kept all my treasures hidden in a below ground room and spelled to avoid detection. My mother had been to my house a few times and had yet to sense it, though it wasn’t for lack of trying.
She tried to inhale discreetly, scenting out magic.
“Searching for anything in particular?” I asked, my voice dry as the Sahara.
Mom clicked her tongue. “You honestly think the worst of me, don’t you?”
If the shoe fits. I stilled my tongue and busied myself putting the tea kettle on. Mom walked around the living room investigating everything before she pulled a chair from the island and settled onto it, crossing one slim leg over the other.
“Tell me how you are settling in, Evangeline.”
“I’ve been here for five years.”
Five years was nothing but a blink of an eye to the Fae, and I sometimes forget how ancient my mother truly was. Understanding her felt like someone dumping Scrabble tiles onto the floor and asking me to assemble a ten-letter word in five seconds. Overwhelming and futile.
I pushed over a cup of Earl Grey tea and took out a small jar of sugar and the small silver container of cream I kept fresh just for her random visits.
“None for you?”
“No. I’ve been outside all day. Summer in this town is rough.”
Mom paused in the act of stirring. “You don’t enjoy it here?”
What I didn’t enjoy was the sudden gleam in her eye. “I enjoy this place very much.”
“Hmm. You can always come home, you know.”
“Home?” My mother put me out at eighteen with a small amount of cash and a pat on the back with strict instructions to make my way in the world and never come home again. Now I was even more suspicious.
Mom’s delicate snort put me on edge. “Yes, home.”
“As in the Otherworld?”
Mom gave me an annoyed look. “Where else could I be speaking of, darling?”
I stared at her for a long moment, wondering if she was gaslighting me. “I’ve never lived in the Otherworld. Why would I want to go back there?”
She scoffed. “Nonsense, Evangeline. You lived there for years!”
I one hundred percent had never stepped foot into the Otherworld. My mother had left me with human parents until I was fifteen, though she’d paid them handsomely to ensure I stayed alive, I guess. She visited me twice a year, and it felt like the sun had come out every time I saw her. After that, she purchased a house in Seattle, and we lived there until my eighteenth birthday.
“Mom,” I said firmly. “You left me with humans, remember? Then we lived in Seattle?”
Mom’s brow furrowed. Her eyes clouded for a moment before she smiled. “Oh. Silly me. Yes, of course. It doesn’t mean you can’t visit now.”
Mom always swore I wouldn’t be welcomed into Underhill because of my “filthy human blood.” What the hell was going on?
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said slowly. Mom’s moods were capricious on a good day, and with Ben in the woods, I didn’t want to set her off.
