3. LONNIE

3

LONNIE

THE OBSIDIAN PALACE, EVERLAST CITY

S ince my earliest recollection, my mother taught me the art of deception. Lie to protect others. Lie to protect myself. Lie to confirm my humanity. Somehow, in all that time it never occurred to me that Mother was lying too.

For the past seven years, I believed my mother was dead until Ambrose revealed to me that not only was she alive, but he also knew her whereabouts. She'd gone to the unseelie kingdom of Underneath, at least partly, on his orders. However, he hadn't expected her to be living comfortably in Bael's father's castle. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't think of a single reason why she would have been there. Or—more importantly—why she wouldn't be happy to see me.

If she could lie about that, then what else was she hiding? Perhaps our entire relationship was false. Maybe she'd never really loved me

Barely twenty minutes later, I made my way down to the palace dungeons.

The smell hit me first.

It was worse than I remembered, and yet I knew it would only grow stronger when I opened the door. A mixture of sweat and shit and misery. Like rotting bodies and stagnant water.

I stopped at the top of the long stairs and leaned against the wall, my head spinning. This was the other reason I'd wanted to go alone. No one needed to see my reaction to returning to this place–least of all Scion, who had been the one to imprison me here to begin with. I knew he felt haunted by the guilt of that, and I didn't want to make it worse–not when he'd changed so much since then and we were finally in something of a good place.

I held my breath and forced myself to put one foot in front of the other, descending the stairs. Quill let out a mournful cry on my shoulder and dug his talons into my flesh. I glanced up at him, and without knowing how I knew, I was sure he hated being this far from fresh air. "Wait for me on the stairs," I told the raven.

He made a chattering sound that felt suspiciously like " Thank you ," and leapt off my shoulder.

At the bottom of the long stairs was a curved wooden door. Once a guard had been stationed here, but now it seemed that the diminished staff saw no reason to waste someone standing outside a closed door all day. I was grateful at least that no one saw me struggling to contain the panic that threatened to overwhelm me.

My hand shaking, I reached for the cool metal knob and pulled the door open. As I'd expected, the smell was 100X worse. The stench of death and despair overwhelmed me, and I struggled to remain standing as I let the door swing closed behind me.

As if I were a puppet on strings, and someone else was guiding my movements, I made my way down the long row of cells. The echo of screams and rattling bars rang in my ears.

"I'm sorry," I whispered to each prisoner as I passed. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

I was familiar with how it felt to be kept behind bars, and I felt a large dose of guilt and pity at every single face. I had no idea what these creatures had done to be kept here–many had likely been here for many years since before I was born, but I couldn't help but wonder if that was a mistake. Had they really deserved to be imprisoned, or were they like Idris? Who had been trapped for so long he no longer remembered how or why he'd been placed there.

Tears pricked at my eyes as I ventured deeper into the prison.

Before I'd seen the prison in Underneath, I never would have realized how the cells were organized. Now I understood that more dangerous captives were held in the back where the magic was strongest. Strangely, my mother's cell was at the very back of the long line of cages, only one over from where I'd been held last year.

I stopped in front of her cell and peered inside, guilt overwhelming me.

I hadn't wanted to put her here–I'd argued heavily against it, but had ultimately been outvoted. Even Bael, who usually took my side in everything, thought my mother was potentially too dangerous to roam freely. At least, until she was willing to explain what she'd been doing for the last seven years and how she'd ended up in Underneath.

I still wasn't sure we'd made the right choice. My mother might have tried to kill me, but she was still my mother…at least, I hoped she was.

Mother sat on the cold ground, leaning against the unyielding iron bars of her cell. Her knees were pulled up to her chest and her head bowed down in defeat. She was still dressed in the long, flowing crimson gown she wore in Underneath, but she had discarded the veil that once hid her face. Her once lustrous red hair now sported streaks of gray and hung over her face like a mop.

I let go of the breath I'd been holding. "Mother?"

My mother turned her head, her hair falling to the side, and looked up at me. There was no feeling behind her expression—hardly even any recognition. It was as if I were a stranger. "What do you want?"

I swallowed the lump that immediately rose to my throat, and pushed down the hurt that threatened to consume me. Instead, I reached for one of the lessons my mother had once spent hours hammering into me: Hide your feelings, and don't draw attention to yourself.

I forced my face into a benign, calm expression, and held out the plate of dried fruit and cheese I'd brought for her. "Are you hungry?"

Her eyes narrowed, and I could practically see her wrestling with herself. Finally, a stubborn arrogance took over her features. "Not for your filthy fae food."

I sighed. Either she'd changed her mind upon seeing me, or Ambrose had a warped opinion of how "ready" Mother was to speak with me. This was going to be unpleasant.

"Suit yourself," I said as lightly as I could manage. "I have nowhere else to be. I can wait. But I imagine you'll change your mind before long. In my experience, one stops caring where the food comes from after several months in prison."

She looked sideways at me again, her eyes narrowing. "How would you know?"

I smiled grimly. "Because I spent a year in the palace dungeon."

She blanched, and for a moment the mother I remembered showed through her angry expression. "A year? How did you survive?"

Another pang of guilt hit me. Humans didn't typically survive this dungeon. I'd promised myself that if my mother didn't give in and answer our questions soon I'd take her out of here. Maybe she knew she was running out of time.

"It seems we both have questions for each other," I said. "I know you must be hungry, no matter what you say. Take the food, and let us talk."

After a moment of consideration, she nodded once. "Fine. Sit."

A tiny spark of triumph lit in my chest. Carefully, I set the tray of food down on the floor, close enough that she could reach it through the bars. Then, I walked back down the hall and retrieved the bench where the guards usually sat. I returned, placed the bench against the wall facing my mother's cell, and sat.

Mother reached a thin wrist through the bars of her cell and selected a husk of bread, all the while watching me carefully. I couldn't help but wonder what she saw–if it was as strange for her as it was for me to see each other after all this time.

Except for a brief glimpse in Underneath and when we were disembarking the ship, I'd hardly seen my mother in almost a decade. The last time we'd sat face to face I'd been barely more than a child. Now, as I assessed her, she looked smaller and shorter than I remembered. Standing, she was probably no more than an inch taller than I. Her face was pale and similar to my own, but more angular. She had lines around her eyes that I did not remember being there before, and her freckles had almost entirely faded.

I sucked in a deep breath. I'd carefully weighed how to begin this conversation, and had decided that the best way was to lay out my expectations beforehand. "I need to ask you some questions. I'm sure you also have questions for me. I will answer whatever you like, in exchange for your honesty."

As I expected, my mother sneered at me. "So you're offering a bargain?"

"Yes," I said flatly. "If you care to see it that way."

"And if I say no?"

I sighed heavily. "I would prefer not to have to threaten you."

She laughed bitterly. "What could you possibly threaten me with that's worse than this?"

I closed my eyes, unable to ignore how familiar her words sounded. I'd said much the same thing when Bael came to offer me a way out of my own cell. "I don't care to argue with you," I said, my eyes still closed. "I know it would be pointless, anyway. I'd love nothing better than for this to be a happy reunion, but until I can determine if you're trustworthy my m—men will never let you go free."

Internally, I winced. I'd intended to say "my mates" and stopped at the last second. Even so, my mother visibly recoiled at my words.

"Those aren't men," she sneered. "They're monsters. I can't believe it—my own daughter willingly becoming a whore for the fae royals."

I winced. "You have it wrong."

"I don't think so," she snapped. "I saw you with the Everlast prince."

I started to ask which prince she meant, then stopped. It didn't matter. Growing up, my mother hated fae more than anything else in the world, and it seemed that she hadn't changed.

"Forget about them," I said through gritted teeth. "Let's talk about how you ended up here. You hate the fae, so how did you find yourself in the court of Underneath?"

She glared at me, her breath heaving with anger, before she sucked in a long calming breath. Before my eyes, she schooled her features into the same flat expression I'd just used on her. "It's a long story."

A shiver of discomfort trailed up my spine. "I told you, I have plenty of time," I replied hastily. "After all these years, I feel like I deserve to hear the whole story."

My mother let out a deep sigh and adjusted her uncomfortable position on the hard, cold floor of her cell. She ran her fingers through her tangled hair before finally starting to speak. "I was brought to this land thirty-two years ago when I was only six-years-old…"