Once I’ve informed them to their satisfaction, Queen Asha allows me to resume my questioning.

“What does your magic have to say about all this?” I ask. “Does he think the parasite is truly gone?”

There it is, the question I haven’t dared to let myself ask, but now that someone who might possess the answer is right in front of me, I can’t seem to help myself.

We all wait impatiently for an answer. I play with the hem of the blankets, Ellie with the hem of her robes. Evander rubs the back of his neck. Only Kiran seems at ease waiting for Asha to relay the message she must currently be receiving from her magic.

Asha massages her temple and takes in a deep breath, as if she has plenty to explain. As it turns out, she does. “He seems to think death would have been a powerful enough force to rip his sister from your mind.” His sister? A shudder snakes through me. “My magic—long ago he punished his sister for taking hosts, then discarding them at will. Apparently, the human mind cannot handle the devastation that occurs when the Old Magic and its siblings rip themselves from their hosts’ minds.”

The king tenses next to her, fire blazing in those molten eyes of his.

“Most of his siblings loved their hosts. They would rather die than be separated from them. But humans are cursed with mortal lifespans, and my magic and its siblings could not extend their lives indefinitely. They were well acquainted with the grief of losing their hosts, but one of their members did not seem concerned with their deaths. In fact, she became bored with them so easily, she frequently jumped from one host to the next, leaving her previous host’s mind shredded to the point it could no longer even direct their body to breathe.

“Once my magic became aware of his sister’s behavior, he had no choice but to exile her. So he gathered the rest of his siblings, and the night of the full moon, performed a ritual that bound his sister to the moon. It wasn’t a perfect prison, of course. My magic claims such a prison would have taken a monumental force to build. But it at least bound his sister for a time, so she could only act freely for a few hours during the full moon’s rising. My magic knew the plan came with its faults, but he hoped it would prevent her from using up all her needs of a host in a short amount of time. That perhaps he would save, or at least extend, the lives of humans in the process.”

“Except now, thanks to N”—I stop myself, hardly able to speak his name because of the sorrow that swells in my chest—“the queen’s magister, his sister now knows how to release herself from those bonds. How to free herself from restraints and take complete control.”

Asha shudders. Evander does too, a full shiver raking through him and resonating in the bed. He runs his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry; I just can’t imagine having some parasite lurking within me—no offense, Asha—who could take over any moment.” He gives another full body shake, as if he’s trying to cleanse himself from the thought.

“The parasite wouldn’t have perished when she was removed from your body,” explains Queen Asha. “My magic too removed itself from a host many years ago, although this one was fae and survived the cleaving.”

“What do they do? Just float around space like magic orbs until they find someone to their liking?” I ask.

Asha shrugs. “When they aren’t bound by a curse, yes.”

“We figured as much,” I sigh, considering the conversation Nox and I had about sweeping the parasite into a box of adamant. All eyes in the room turn on me.

I realize too late what I said.

We.

I’m mortified, but I don’t show it. Instead, I shrug, like I haven’t just brought up the male I love, who I bargained never to return for. “It’s a boring life being taken as a prisoner and being experimented on. My apologies if I occasionally dabbled in conversations while I was strapped to that dais for hours.”

A shadow overcomes Evander’s face, and Ellie’s bloodshot eyes go wide.

The we strikes me too. And as much as I’ve tried to push him from my mind, he comes cascading back in, his presence a living force haunting the corner of the room. I hear, as clearly as if he were sitting next to me, the questions he would ask Asha: the fascination he would have with her condition, with the ability to speak with the Old Magic, a version of it that didn’t wish to take over its host’s body. A magic that cared for humans and wished to look after them, establish peace.

Suddenly, that thought leaves me feeling bare and alone.

Everyone in this room believes it’s Queen Asha who understands me, who can relate to my condition. But they call Asha Gifted—I believe that’s what they call humans blessed with magic. They don’t call me anything. I suppose they don’t yet know the name for my condition—vampire—but I can guess what they’ll come up with. Queen Asha is Gifted, and I am Cursed, and the only one who understands this is Nox.

Nox.

Nox who is also Cursed. Nox who is also possessed with a sentient being who wishes to wrestle away control.

The thought hits at the same moment Ellie speaks up. “Is it possible to know where your parasite went? Who it attached itself to?”

The question crawls up my spine, like a spider lingering at the spot on my back I can’t reach with my hands. There’s something about my thoughts of Nox, of Ellie’s question, that want to fit together in my head, but I can’t quite make it make sense.

I don’t think the parasite would have attached itself to Nox. From what Asha’s magic claims, the fae have the power to absorb the Old Magic, and if that were to happen, the parasite would be worse off than she was when she was trapped by the moonlight.

So no, I don’t think she would have transferred to Nox.

“Can the Old Magic make bargains with the fae?” I ask tentatively.

We wait a moment as Asha listens to that voice the rest of us cannot hear.

“The curse that was placed on the fae long ago would allow the Magic to ask a fae to make a binding promise,” she says.

“I could have told you that,” Evander says, and I remember that the parasite tried to use such a vow to force him into marrying her.

Unease bubbles on the surface of my gut, souring like milk left out in the noonday sun.

All the information I’ve just learned seems to blur together, as if three different letters have been drafted on the same piece of parchment, right on top of one another, and I’m having to sift through them character by character to decipher the meanings.

“There’s still the question of what the Queen of Mystral has to do with this. What she wants with the parasite,” says Kiran.

A single name whispers in my ear, carried on the draft let in from the hall.

“Farin,” I whisper. “She wants Farin.”

Asha’s spine goes rigid, but it’s Kiran who jumps to his feet.

“What did you say?”

“Farin. It’s her son. He died years ago, but she still has his ashes. She’s been trying to get him back, but the last attempt went all wrong and…”

“And what?” Kiran snaps. He’s closed the distance between us, but now Evander is in front of me, separating the two of us.

“Back away from her if you want to ask any more questions,” Evander says, glancing down at Kiran’s hands. They aren’t glowing red, but the temperature in the room is certainly simmering.

Kiran doesn’t move, not until Ellie calls his name softly. She’s made her way over to Asha, whose eyes have glazed over. She stares out as if into the distance, though there’s nothing to see beyond the walls of this room.

Kiran is back at her side in an instant, tucking his fingers into hers, but when he speaks, he addresses me.

“Farin was the name of the son. The one from the story Asha’s Magic told when we first married,” he explains.

“Well, was the son a murderous lunatic who got a thrill from hearing others scream?” I ask, with just enough jest to hide the way my mind is whirring, trying to put the pieces together before my friends realize the vase has been dropped and shattered.

Kiran’s tanned skin goes pale at my joke.

“Crap,” I say, at the same moment Ellie clamps her hand over her mouth.

“You said his body lies within the ashes?” Kiran asks.

Evander gestures to everyone and no one at once. “Would someone please be kind enough to explain what’s going on?”

Asha’s face has gone as white as bone, and I dread what’s about to happen, what I’m about to witness.