Touch (Touched by the Fae 3)

“It’s fine. Forget it. It’s not important right now.”

“Riley—”

“Forget it,” I say more firmly. “Tell me more about what you were doing in the human world before I was born. What was so important that you almost got trapped here in the sun? What exactly were you searching for?”

I can tell that he doesn’t want to discuss it, but since I’m refusing to talk about his prophecy, he has no choice if he wants to keep the conversation going. And he does. Don’t know why, but he does.

“Not what,” Nine says at last. “Who.”

“Sure,” I agree. “Who were you searching for?”

“Oberon.”

The name sounds familiar. “Who’s that?”

“The rightful king of Faerie.”

Okay. Back up.

“If he’s the rightful king, then what’s up with the Fae Queen?” You know, now that I think about it… “Hey, if everyone hates Melisandre, how did she become queen of Faerie in the first place?”

“Simple. She convinced the Seelie King that she was his ffrindau. I don’t know if that’s true or not. Only Oberon and Melisandre know if she was truly his fated soul mate, or just a consort. But, either way, he made her his queen and then...”

“Then what?”

“She overthrew him and had him banished him to Brinkburn.”

Brinkburn. Wait a sec—

I slip Gillespie’s necklace out from beneath my shirt, showing Nine the crystal. I’m careful not to get too close, just in case, as I tap it with my finger. “Isn’t that what this is?”

“It’s only a piece,” cuts in Ash. I give a start. I’d forgotten that my parents were still here. “It holds a sliver of that terrible place’s power. It’s why even a tiny stone or crystal from Brinkburn can break most spells.”

When we were planning our heist at Black Pine, Ash made it clear that a Brinkburn was the crystal hanging off of Gillespie’s necklace while Brinkburn itself was a location in England. Since going there was out of the question, I promptly forgot all about it.

Probably shouldn’t have done that.

“So what is it? The place, I mean?”

“It’s where fae get sent to die.”

Wait—

“Aren’t fae immortal? Well, except for cutting off their head because, okay, no one can survive that. But I didn’t think there was any other way to kill them.”

“There are three other ways.”

For the first time since we walked into the apartment, my mom speaks up.

Nine glances over at Ash. “You told her of our weakness?”

Ash juts his chin out defiantly. “She’s my ffrindau. I told her anything that might help her survive when Melisandre came for our child.”

I try not to wince. I still can’t get over the fact that I’m their child—and that, in their eyes, I’m supposed to be this chubby infant with rosy cheeks and a tuft of white-blonde hair sticking out of the top of my head.

No wonder my dad looked like he was ready to light Nine up. Not counting this crazy long and complicated history between them, Nine’s still a grown male who laid a claim to his daughter and none of us know how we’re supposed to deal with the overall weirdness of this strange situation.

Callie lifts her folded hand up. She extends one finger. “Iron.” She extends a second. “Either the sun or shadows, depending on if they’re an Unseelie or Seelie.” She extends a third. “Brinkburn. You bury a fae on that land and there’s no magic that’ll save them.”