Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
I laugh with hysterical, giddy relief. Of course, it’s all a coincidence. Luthian was banished from court for five-hundred years, after Parphia’s death. I am not five hundred years old.
The cenere tree must have held special significance to Luthian because of Parphia. That’s why he granted my mother’s wish there. It probably wasn’t even the same tree, just the same, common type. There are cenere trees all over Fablemere. It is a coincidence.
That is what my heart wants to believe. My mind, however, accepts the grim likelihood that that diary I am reading belonged to my mother.
I’m drawn back to her final entry.
There is one person I can seek out to learn the truth of it. Not Luthian, for he will merely pile more lies upon the lies he already led me to believe.
I need Firo, and our meeting cannot wait until morning.
“Take me to Firo,” I order the palace walls, and stride to the door.
It opens onto a room full of clocks. Hourglasses, great tall, ticking things, smaller ones that rest on mantles and tables. All around me is the chaotic clicking of gears, faces without numbers, or with the numbers in the wrong order. Pocket watches dangle in the air; some of them have no numbers upon them at all. The ceiling appears to be missing, replaced, instead, with a swirling purple mist and a void somehow illuminated by darkness.
And in the center of it all stands Firo.
I wipe my eyes hastily on the sleeve of my robe. I’m a queen or will be in a few hours. I must occupy the role.
He doesn’t ask why I’m there. He simply says, “You could not know until the correct time.”
I open my mouth to protest, to demand how he knows and why he did not tell me. But he is from the Court of Time and Destiny. The only answer he will give me is the one he already offered.
Instead, I ask, “What does it mean?”
He gestures to a table, a huge clockface under glass. I do not recognize the hundreds of symbols around its edge and spiraling into the center, and I don’t know how to read the multitude of hands, some of them moving slowly, some quickly. Firo pulls out a chair and directs me to sit, then takes his place across from me.
“It means that you are the daughter of the late Queen Parphia.” He frowns. “You did read that diary, didn’t you?”
“Of course, I did! Why would I be here if I hadn’t?” I snap.
“I worried that I revealed the secret too soon.” He sits and conjures a fire in the hearth. The warm light lines the angles of his face. He looks more tired than I’ve ever seen him.
“I woke you,” I say, ashamed of my rudeness. That I am a queen is no excuse.
“No. I knew when to expect you.” He points to a symbol beneath the glass. A thin arm draws the eye toward it. “This is you, now. And this...” he strokes his fingers backward on the spiral, “is where Kathras left you the diary.”
I suspected he might have done so on purpose. “You told him to?”
“No. I don’t interfere with destinies. I merely watch them. I can no more influence the future than I can prevent it.” He meets my gaze with serious intent. “And I cannot, and will not, tell you what happens next.”
“Because it will alter destiny?” I ask.
“Because it hasn’t been written.” He touches the glass again, above another of the clock arms, and traces its quick, steady circle around the spiral. “This is possibility.”
“For me, or for everyone?” It seems unlikely that such a clock exists for everyone in Fablemere.
“For this court, and its history. For Arcus and Luthian and Kathras and Cassan. For Queen Theeda, for Queen Parphia. And for you.”
I shake my head, tears flowing down my face. “No. This can’t be. Luthian granted my mother’s wish.”
“No, he didn’t,” Firo says, and offers me his handkerchief. “He gave you to the faery who raised you and paid her in wishes to raise the queen’s child.”
“A child,” I remind him. “There are no faery children.”
“That’s true. Which was why it was so important to hide your faery nature. It was your mother, your true mother, Queen Parphia, who placed the enchantment upon you that stunted your growth and made you appear human.” He looks down at the symbols again. “It was her last act before the inquisitors took her.”
“That was five hundred years ago,” I protest. “Certainly I have not lived for five hundred—”
My mother. Not Parphia, but the mother who raised me, changed the seasons on our lands. A year could have lasted as long as she wished it to.
“You’re beginning to see the truth,” Firo says softly. “You understand now, yes?”
I touch my chest. “I’m a faery.”