Chapter Nine

Law and Order

Aiden felt bad for Posy the day they discovered she could hear his thoughts. She could listen involuntarily and involuntarily for hours a day without even noticing. When he asked her how it felt, she described it as having headphones on 24/7 with the volume on the lowest setting possible. When he asked her if she enjoyed this, she had admitted she wasn’t too sure but as time passed, she had grown used to it.

Now, as she sat sniffling far, far away from Avery he wondered if she had been lying. It must have been shitty to hear his thoughts grow tenser as the lie went on. And he honestly struggled not to be angry at his mom for putting all of this on her shoulders. He ignored any thought of that to avoid her feeling any worse and simply decided to start the conversation again now that the two girls had been separated.

“When you said that mom and dad are going to die, what did you mean exactly?” It was hard not to stumble over his words and sound like an idiot as he spoke. But he couldn’t fall apart right now. He had to be strong.

“She said that she had tried to argue with the Seelie council for us. Mom gained some of their favor when going back and forth to work in the land of the fey for them,” She added the last part when she saw how confused he looked. “They know about the fight with dad, who we are friends with, what we look like, everything mom just told them. She couldn’t stop.”

Aiden felt like he was going to be sick. “They used magic to compel mom from communicating with us, didn’t they?” That would make sense, fey had two names with one holding more power over the other. It was like some hypnotic switch had been pulled when they said that name, your true name. The Seelie council would have to know every fey’s true name who worked under them. 

Posy nodded, her eyes growing red again as she started to cry some more. “They commanded her by saying her true name whenever they spoke. The strongest commands were said when we were in middle school, she would be unable to tell us in the human realm when we would permanently become Seelie citizens. And that she would be punished if her husband was told.”

There was a small noise that came from Avery at this point with her hand covering her mouth. Her face was tear stricken and it was obvious she was struggling to keep her sobs to herself. There was guilt in her eyes just as strong as the guilt that currently weighed Aiden down. They had unwittingly broken their mother’s oath, an oath sworn under her true name by some of the most powerful fey in all of the land.

No wonder her reaction had been so dramatic, she knew she was going to die and that she had sentenced the love of her life with her. And now they had no parents, they would be whisked away to the fairy realm without any warning. And all this time he had been selfishly asking his mother to help him find Cassandra when she was under an unimaginable amount of suffering.

“Mom found a loophole by talking to me. They didn’t say anything about communicating through the realm between dreams and reality, the fey world and humanity.” Posy was destroyed as her guilt began to flood through her words she became choked up. “I just thought if I said we could come up with a plan without breaking the oath, I was an idiot. And now mom’s dead and you guys hate my guts.”

From the corner of his eye, he could see that Avery had gone ashen in the fae, all of the blood had drained to the point he was worried she would pass out. She was horrified by her actions and so was he by his indications as a bystander. She could have pummeled Posy to the floor because he was too much of a coward. And now she was tear-stricken from her actions that they knew the cold, hard truth.

“We don’t hate you, you should hate us,” Aiden said after what felt like an eternity. “You didn’t know we would try to confront mom like that. Mom’s death is on the Seelie council for making her take that oath.”

“But I shouldn’t have said anything, mom begged me not to and I did!” Posy argued, broken from it all. It wasn’t fair that she had to go through this alone for so long. 

For one of the first times in his life, Aiden found himself hating the fact that they were part fey. If they were just fully human none of this would be happening. They could live normal lives and go off to college to pursue their dreams. Maybe, a small part of him even wondered if he had been fully human Cassandra possibly would still be there. She could have had a normal boyfriend without a truckload of baggage to carry all on her own.

“It’s still not your fault. It’s not mom’s either.” He snapped back instantly, recoiling from how aggressive he sounded. He was just too emotional to care at the moment. 

“If we have to face those bastards I’ll beat them senseless,” Avery's voice was emotional as she sniffled and wiped at her wet eyes. “They killed our parents for what? For what?” 

No one had an answer, they just sat there. Frozen in time as they were unsure where to go from there. They couldn’t run from the Seelie council, they were extremely powerful and in charge of most changeling adoptions. This meant they had a network of people who could be given information on their looks and personalities to hunt them down. There were eyes and ears everywhere meaning there was nowhere to hide. All he felt was defeated, it was damp and cold inside his chest as he listened to his sisters cry as the grief began to overwhelm them.

This couldn’t be the end of the line. There had to be a way to save their parents from this punishment. There just had to be a card on their hand that they could use to fight back. Aiden shook from a mixture of heartbreak and rage, and even stronger heartbreak than the one he felt when Cassandra’s missing posters blew down the streets. Ignored by the passersby who acted as if she never existed these days. He was boiling inside from how much pain he felt. A shallow breath left his mouth as he interrupted his sisters' conversation.

“They won’t die unavenged,” He said angrily. “We’ll face them head-on and use whatever we have to get back at them.”