“A man?” Darius asked, and I shrugged.
“I am not sure. We became friends. That’s all I know. I never met them or saw them, not even a picture. I have no idea if they were male or female. Could have been anybody.”
“Yet you went looking for them instead of calling on us,” Darius said, leaning back in his seat. He turned his gaze to Kalen. “What was this person’s name?”
“Does it matter?”
Darius shrugged and since they didn’t have a name, I didn’t see the harm in telling him.
“I only know his login name. It was part of the chat group.We weren’t allowed to use our real names, kind of like a pen pal. HTIARW,” I answered.
“You still remember their login credentials?” Kalen asked.
“Well, I spoke to them every day for nearly four years, and they never changed it, so yes.”
“Why would you go looking for someone on the internet?” Darius asked, his eyes darkening.
“Because the person mentioned if I was ever in Astrid to look for them. I was hoping when I got there I could get access to the internet and track them down, but I never found the place. I gave up after a few years. It wasn’t on any map, and I figured they gave me a fake name for that, too.” I shrugged.
“But you have heard of it, so it must be real?” I asked, wondering if I was indeed sent on a wild goose chase.
“It’s not on any maps because it isn’t a town or city. It’s the name of a place,” Kalen answered, and Darius growled at him.
“What sort of place?” I asked, but one glare from Darius prohibited him from answering. Kalen looked down at his hands and picked at his nails.
“What about friends at the boarding school or from your previous school? Did you keep in touch with them?” Darius asked me. I shook my head.
“Mom mainly homeschooled me. It wasn’t until high school that dad convinced her to let me attend a real school. That only lasted a few months before they died, and I was shipped off to live with my grandmother,” I said. That thought saddened me as I remembered my parents.
“You didn’t like my grandmother?”
“Hmm, she was the best. She reminded me of my father. He looked a lot like her, stern like him, too. But she was good to me. I miss her,” I said, glancing at the fire.
“She died only a few months later. She used to visit when I was a kid, never missed a birthday or Christmas. She was the only family I had besides my parents.”
“We looked into your family background but only found your father’s side. Your mother’s records didn’t exist, and we also thought it odd nobody knew her,” Kalen said, scratching the back of his neck. I knew no records existed. My father went to great lengths to hide what I was, and that meant getting rid of everything on my mother’s bloodline. My brows scrunched together, wondering how he’d managed it.
“Your father was an important person, worked for the fae government,” Kalen said.Now, that surprised me. That I didn’t know.
“Really?”
“You didn’t know?” Darius asked me.
I shook my head. “I thought he was just a businessman. Mom told me he worked for the bank?”
“No, he worked for the dark political party,” Darius answered. “He was one of the chairmen like my father.”
“Your father worked with mine?”
“Yes, but on opposite sides, though. They hated each other.”
“What did your father do?”
“He was an advocate for white fae.”Now, that shocked me further.
“But you’re dark fae.”
Darius nodded. “Yes, my father was shocked when he found your father actually had a daughter. You were his best-kept secret. We didn’t even know he had a wife, let alone a daughter,” Darius answered.