Ice drizzled through my veins, his tone telling me nothing good would come from whatever he had to say next. “What about them?” I asked.
“There’s no easy way to say this, Aflora, so I’m just going to tell you what I learned.”
“Okay.”
He took a deep breath, his gold irises swirling with remorse. “The Midnight Fae Elders killed them for being known Quandary Blood sympathizers.”
I froze, his words not fully registering beneath the thudding in my ears.
No.
No, that couldn’t be right.
“They…” I cleared my throat, my voice a rasp of sound. “They were Royal Fae…” I trailed off, my voice still not quite right. It sounded loud now, like a squawk. Or maybe that was just me.
And wow, I was dizzy.
Stars danced around me. Real ones. Huh. That reminded me of Dream Guy again and his nickname for me. I never did ask why called me star, of all things, nor did I know his name. I should probably give him one.
You know, after I figured out the whole dizzy thing.
Because yeah, um, the world was starting to go black.
“Aflora.” The urgent tone felt like a slap to my senses, yanking me back into… Zeph’s room.
I stared at the windows overlooking the building across the street, tilting my head slightly at the strange exterior. “Is that brick?” I asked. Such an inane question but it seemed easier than facing the tumultuous thoughts in my mind.
Zeph’s palms burned into my cheeks, forcing me to look at him. At some point, he’d pulled me beneath him, his elbows braced on either side of my head. “What the hell just happened?” he demanded.
I looked up at him, noted the fury in his green eyes. “What do you mean?” And wow, my voice sounded dreadful. I really needed a glass of water because my throat was killing me.
“You just spent the last five minutes screaming,” he ground out. “I couldn’t wake you the fuck up and had to put my palm over your mouth to silence you before you alarmed all the damn humans in the building.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh. What the hell, Aflora?”
I opened my mouth to tell him, but I couldn’t. The words were trapped in my throat.
And then his phone began to ring.
“Answer that,” I managed to say.
“Fuck the phone.”
“It’s Kols,” I said, knowing I’d probably scared him by leaving so abruptly. But there was no way his words were true. “My parents were Royal Fae.” The statement was meant more for me than for Zeph. “It doesn’t make sense. They wouldn’t be able to do that. The Elemental Fae Council…” I trailed off, trying to figure out how the Midnight Fae had gotten away with murdering my parents.
And what did Kols mean about them being Quandary Blood sympathizers? I didn’t even know what that was until recently.
Except…
I am one.
My eyes went wide. “Of course,” I whispered. “They… they were protecting me.”
But that could only mean they knew about my abomination status. Was one of them really a Quandary Blood?
“Not possible,” I continued out loud, oblivious to everything around me. “A Midnight Fae can’t connect to the earth source. Unless…” My lips parted, my throat going dry. “Unless a Quandary Blood rewired it…”