Chapter 4

She looks the same. This is nearly twenty years ago, but she looks exactly the same. Auburn hair, blue eyes so pale they"re nearly white, sharp cheekbones, preternatural beauty. No wrinkles. She looks like she"s in her early thirties, at most.

More often than not, when we were out, she was mistaken for my sister or aunt rather than my mom simply because she never looked old enough to have had a teenage daughter.

Her eyes are red-rimmed, dried tears leaving salt tracks down her cheeks. She sniffles. Looks off-camera to her left, reaches out a hand for a moment and returns it to her lap—squeezing Andreas"s hand for support, I assume.

Looks back to the camera. "The only way I"m going to get through a second telling is to address this to…" She looks down, and the camera tips down as well, taking in her protruding belly, and then back up into the center frame once more, "her. I know this little one is a girl. I can feel it. She"s going to change the world."

My cheeks flame, my eyes burn, and my chest constricts until it feels like there are white-hot iron bands around my ribcage, scorching and crushing my lungs.

"Her name is Maeve." Mom glances down again, rubbing her belly with both hands in that calming, soothing way pregnant women do. "It doesn"t mean anything, it"s not a family name or anything, I just…like it. Maeve Sparrow." She absently rubs her belly for a moment, staring into space. "Maeve, my daughter. I don"t know you yet. I wish…well, I wish a lot of things. But mainly, I wish I could explain all this to you in person when you"re old enough to understand. I know that won"t be possible. You see, Maeve, I"m afraid I"m only going to be able to buy us a few years together. Eventually, they"re going to find me, and…that"ll be that. They can"t forgive me for what I did. I"m not sure they should if I"m being honest. Even Papa—" she says it the European way, puh-PAH, "can"t save my life after…well…I"m getting ahead of myself. I need to start at the beginning. But where is that? I"m going to have to trust others to make sure you know enough of our history for my part of the story to make sense."

She sniffles and wipes at her face with both hands. Takes a deep breath, holds it, and lets it out slowly. Tosses her hair behind her shoulders and tucks it behind her ears. Another deep breath, this one blown out all at once, sharp, short.

"Andreas and I…" her eyes well up with tears, and she glances off-screen, shakes her head. "Nope, nope, nope, sorry. Ugh. one second." She gathers herself once more. "I was riding my bicycle to the market to get more lemons for the grouper special. It was a beautiful day. Andreas and I had a wonderful life carved out for ourselves down in the Keys. Simple, quiet, lovely…peaceful. After all the wars between the nineteenth century and up through Vietnam, that was what we needed. We"d seen too much. Been through too much. We just needed some…peace. And that was what we had. For a while. I know nothing lasts, goodness knows I've been around long enough to know that. But…I suppose I had hoped it would last a little longer than it did." Her beautiful, pale blue, ice-chip eyes cloud with anger. "It was taken from us. They had no right. He had no right." Her eyes well up yet again, and she squeezes her eyes shut, hissing. A muffled voice off-camera inquires, and she shakes her head. "No, I"m okay, Dre. I"m fine. I"m fine."

I glance at Andreas. "She called you Dre?"

His Adam"s apple bobs, and he nods. "Yes," he whispers. "to her, and only her, I was Dre."

Mom wipes at her eyes again. "A big black Suburban with blacked-out windows pulled up beside me, slowing down to pace me, and a window rolled down. I saw the barrel of a gun, but I didn"t have time to react. I remember hearing a soft pop, and I felt something sharp sting my chest over my heart, and then everything went black.

"When I came to, I was in the back of the SUV. Papa was sitting next to me. I was handcuffed, my feet were shackled, and I was ball-gagged. My head pounded, and I was dizzy. Disoriented. Confused. Papa looked…sad." Her voice drops into a parody of a gruff male voice. ""I"m sorry, Eliza. I wish there was another way, but there simply isn"t. We must all make sacrifices for the good of our people, and this is mine…and yours. I will go to my grave regretting the necessity of what you are going to experience. I know you will hate me. I can only accept that as my penance."" She shakes her head. "I will remember those words until the day I die."

A huff, another head shake.

"His sacrifice—his sacrifice. I was his sacrifice. Me, the daughter he and Mama—" Again, she pronounces it muh-MAH, "wanted so desperately for so long…he sacrificed me for the sake of science and had the fucking balls to call it altruism. There was another way, goddammit. If he had asked me? talked to me? Given me some kind of option? But no. He fucking drugged me and kidnapped me off the street like…like…god, like he was trafficking me or something. I don"t know." She inhales slowly, and the anger ebbs a bit. "He explained things to me, then. Most of it I knew, or suspected. Immortal population numbers globally are down to critical levels. If we were animals, we would be on the endangered species list, he said. Which is true. We all know it. But what I didn"t know was that he"d been heading up a secret research council since the 1700s, trying to solve the problem of immortal reproduction, and this, what I was about to go through, was the council"s last and most desperate effort."

Mom blows out a breath, cheeks puffing, and tucks her hair behind her ears—and god, that gesture cuts my heart like a knife. So familiar it guts me to the core. I watched her do exactly that a billion times a day, every day for my whole life.

A tear falls and hangs from my chin. A sob escapes.

Maeve? Are you okay? I can feel you hurting.Caspian"s voice is a soothing weight in my mind.

I wipe my face. Yeah, I"m good. Talking to Andreas and getting some answers. He has a video of Mom he couldn"t show me until I"d…emerged, or whatever.

Okay, love. If you need me, I can be there in a heartbeat.

I know. I"m okay. It"s just bittersweet to see her face and hear her voice.

He doesn"t respond, but I feel him there, somehow. Not listening or speaking, just…there. it comforts me immensely.

On the screen, Mom squares her shoulders and lets out a long, slow breath. "Okay. So. I was in the SUV, bound, shackled, and ball-gagged. My own father was explaining to me why he"d kidnapped me. I was about to be the subject of a scientific experiment, he told me. Perhaps the most important experiment ever conducted. I have to be honest, here. He looked fucking miserable. If you don"t know my father, which, Maeve, I can only assume that you, however far in the future it is that you"re watching this, haven"t met him—but he"s a smooth, confident, powerful man. Well-spoken, educated, articulate, a consummate politician, a born-and-bred aristocrat. He fought beside William the Conqueror and helped establish the royal court. So, watching my father stammer and pause and stumble over his words? It was obvious he hated what he was doing. I could tell it was causing him immense pain, immense inner turmoil. Which, I suppose, speaks to the fact that he clearly felt what he was doing was exactly that important. But knowing it hurt him didn"t erase my own fear or anger or sense of betrayal. I loved my father, you see. I still do, it"s just…wildly complicated, now. He was a good father. Loving. Kind. Gentle. He taught me to ride a horse and shoot a bow. He even taught me some rudimentary swordwork. He allowed me to be educated, which, at that time, was just unheard of. So, this? Even before I knew what the experiment was going to be, I felt betrayed."

Andreas rises, crosses the room in a few short, angry, jerky strides, and pauses the recording. "Sorry, Maeve. I…I need a second."

Before I can answer, he"s out the front door, the screen door banging shut with a loud slam. I see him out the window, pacing back and forth in short stomping steps, hands clutched in his hair. Abruptly, he halts and sinks to squat on his haunches, head hanging, shoulders shaking.

He stands, after a moment or two, scrubs at his face. Stares up at the sky, arms dangling at his sides. A dull whitish glow emanates from him, gradually brightening until it"s a blinding supernova of heatless white. I hear a roaring noise—a more-than-human and yet entirely human guttural bellow of raw agony. The white bloom of light condenses to a narrow beam no thicker than my forearm, lancing into a nearby pine tree, an ancient sentinel at least a hundred feet tall. In an instant, the tree is…simply gone. No smoke, no fire, no noise, it"s just evaporated.

Andreas reappears as the white light dissipates. He hangs his head as if in defeat, and then his head jerks sharply, a gesture which looks to me like he"s swearing at himself. He plants his hands on his hips and stares at the empty space where the tree used to be, extends his right hand, arm outstretched, middle and index fingers pointing while the rest are tucked back, and draws a line down from where the top of the tree should be in a slow, dragging gesture. His arm shakes, as if encountering stiff resistance. When his pointing fingers reach the earth, he rotates his hand so his palm faces the sky, his fingers burst open into a clawed-finger cup as if gripping an invisible ball, and then swipes his hand upward in a rough, rapid, punching movement. There"s a brief burst of golden-white light and a loud WHOOSH of roaring wind which shakes the whole house, windows rattling and the floor juddering.

When the noise and the glow subside a split second later, the tree is there again, tall and proud and ancient, heavy boughs drooping and replete with deep green needles and pinecones.

Andreas returns to the house, shaking his head. He looks drawn, now. Wan and shaky.

I stare at him in awed and uncertain silence. "Um, are you…are you okay? Or is that a stupid question?"

He sighs. "I"m fine. I lost my temper, I guess. I just…" he swallows hard, Adam"s apple bobbing. "I miss her so fucking bad, Maeve."

"I know how that feels," I whisper. "I mean, I only had her for eighteen years, not, like, two hundred, but…"

He reaches out and takes my hand, squeezing hard. "I know you know, Maeve. If anyone can know, you can."

"Um. What…what happened? With that tree?"

He looks sheepish. "I sort of deatomized it. Returned it to its base atomic components. I shouldn"t have lost control like that. I know better. I just…" he looks at me. "Anger is a powerful thing, Maeve. In magic, especially, it can cause you to do terrible things. I was forced to undo the glamour, which has obviously cost me significantly, in terms of vitality."

I blink at him. "You….deatomized a tree?"

He huffs. "Yes. And it was wrong. Rule number one of glamourworking is that you never, ever use it in anger against a living thing."

"Okay, got that. But…how? Can I do that? And you can undo a glamour?"

He sighs. "Yes, to your first question—eventually, with training and practice in a controlled and supervised environment. As to your second question, also yes. But it comes at a far more significant cost than the original glamour. Destruction is easy, Maeve. Creation is far harder, and undoing damage is harder yet. I will feel sick for at least twenty-four hours, and I'm going to be forced to leach vitality to restore my resources."

"Is… leaching, you called it…draining vitality…is that…is it sexual?"

He frowns at me. "I forgot you"re half vampire. You just look so much like your mother." He extends his hand, examining it—it trembles slightly. "No, pulling vitality is not necessarily sexual, not like I"ve heard drinking blood is for vampires. People use a variety of terms, by the way—draining, leaching, pulling. It can be sexual, of course, but it isn"t inherently so. It is intimate, however. Or, maybe ‘personal' is a better word. You get a bit of the individual when you pull vitality from them. not thoughts or memories, exactly, but…fragments, or…images. Pieces of the essence of the person. It"s hard to explain."

I realize my experience is going to be different since vitality and blood seem to be intertwined for me, and because I don"t know that I"ll ever drink blood from or pull vitality from anyone but Caspian. I don"t say this, however.

"I"m not sure if this okay for me to ask or not, so you don"t have to answer if it"s too personal, but…who do you pull from?"

He blows a breath, his face contorting thoughtfully before answering. "It varies. From suspects I"m interrogating, sometimes, or witnesses I"m questioning." He looks away, and then back to me. "From dates, most frequently. Yes, I go on dates. More for…companionship than anything else."

I can"t help smirking at him. "I know what that"s code for, Andreas."

He frowns, even as he huffs a laugh. "This is not an appropriate line of conversation for you and me, Maeve. I will neither confirm nor deny."

I laugh. "Again, I know what that means." I sober, then. "You"re allowed, Andreas. I didn"t know her the way you did, but I still know Mom, and I know she"d want you to be happy."

He shakes his head. "There is no happiness without her. Eliza was my mate. I will not have another. I go on dates for companionship. To talk to someone who isn"t my coworker. And yes, for companionship in that sense also, once in a while. But no one and nothing can ever replace Eliza."

There is nothing I can say to that, so I say nothing.

After a few moments of silence, in which Andreas stares unseeing into nothing, he shakes his head as if to clear it, and goes to the recorder balanced on the mantle. "Ready?" he asks.

I nod. "Yes, I"m ready."

He presses play and the recording resumes.

"I couldn"t do anything," Mom says. "Whatever they"d used to drug me had suppressed my vitality, so I couldn"t access it, and even if I could, I"ve never been very good at casting without words and gestures." She glances off-screen, a soft, proud, in-love smile on her face. "Not like Dre." Back to the screen. "Anyway. I was helpless. It"s a terrible, horrible feeling, to be so helpless. I hope you never experience it, Maeve."

A long pause.

"I spent more hours than I could even begin to measure like that, cuffed and gagged. Eventually, I fell asleep—a natural sleep. When I woke up, I knew I"d been drugged again—I could feel it. The sluggish thoughts, heavy limbs, disorientation, headache, sour stomach. Plus, my vitality was still suppressed. I was alone in a room. Perhaps ten by ten. Not huge, but not horribly small, either. Looking back, I would have expected it to be clinical, but it wasn"t. It seemed like nothing so much as a bedroom in a house anywhere on the planet. A bed—no headboard or footboard, just the frame against the wall. A half-wall about waist height around a toilet and sink. A TV on the wall, with a hospital-style remote, tethered to the bed. No windows, that was my first clue. No handle on the door, that was my second clue that I was a prisoner. There was nothing I could use to escape or as a weapon. I was left alone for…I don"t even know. Hours, at least. There was no way to measure time, so it could have been days, but based on hunger, it was several hours, but short of a full day.

"Eventually the door opened and four guards in full fae glamour-infused armor came in, carrying hastaxi."

"I'll explain later more fully," Andreas interjects, "but hastaxI are fae-made weapons. They"re not known outside of immortal circles, however, so it"s not surprising you haven"t heard of them before. They"re ancient, and not used by anyone anymore except IRRC Elites. Whom I hope you never meet."

Mom continues, on screen. "They were in a diamond formation, with a fae male in the center. He wore a lab coat as if to lend some kind of scientific authenticity to what was about to happen." She closes her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose and breathing slowly, deeply. "I am compelled to relate my experience with I fear must be unflinching truthfulness. It"s the only way the record will be complete." She looks off-screen. "Dre, my love…I need you to leave. I"m sorry. I can"t say everything I need to say with you here. It will hurt you too much, and that will distract me."

A pause, and Andreas—looking much the same, like Mom—appears on screen briefly, hugging Mom, cupping her jaw in his hands and kissing her gently. I hear him whisper that he loves her, and then vanishes. I hear a door shut, and Mom does something I"ve never seen her do before: she waves her hands at her face, tilting her head backward and blinking hard in a very feminine attempt to not cry.

"I can do this. I can do this." She looks at the screen. "I can"t imagine how this will feel for you to hear, Maeve, but I need you to listen to everything. I"m sorry." A sniff, a sigh. "The doctor, or scientist, or whatever he was, approached me. He had his hands in his coat pockets and refused to look me in the eye, looking at his clipboard instead. He told me I was a subject in a reproductive study, which I knew, obviously. He told me—and this is nearly verbatim—that certain chemicals would be applied to me, which would work in conjunction with approach-specific glamours—whatever the hell that meant—to ensure maximum effective results.

"It was all pseudo-scientific doctor-speak, of course, so he didn"t have to say in so many words what they would do to me. Which was rape. Plain and simple. The guards gestured for me to follow them. Seeing as they had hastaxI and I was still unable to reach my magic, I had no choice but to comply. They led me through a maze of hallways. We saw no one else. Eventually, we came to a door, and they ushered me in. The room was empty except for a medical bed with leather restraints for hands and feet. No windows or mirrors, just a camera in one corner."

She stops and swallows hard, closing her eyes and ducking her chin to her chest. Speaks this way.

"The doctor ordered me to strip. Male guard, male doctor, a camera with a red light indicating it was recording…but again, I had no choice. So I stripped down to my bra and panties. All the way, I was told. So, I took off those too. It was cold in that room. The fae males were all staring at me. The doctor indicated the bed, and I lay down. He fastened the restraints. I was spread-eagle, naked. Fucking humiliating, and terrifying in a way I cannot put into words." She shakes her head and sighs. "The guards left once I was strapped down. The doctor pulled a syringe from his pocket and injected it into my arm. I felt him pull vitality from me, and then he began casting a glamour. Nothing too complex, but nonetheless very powerful. And then he left, and I was alone in the room for a few minutes as what he did and what he gave me took effect. At first, I wasn"t sure what was supposed to happen, but after a few minutes, it became obvious. I lost muscle control—I wasn"t paralyzed—I could feel my arms and legs, but I couldn"t move them, even if I wasn"t restrained. I couldn"t speak. Again, I could feel my mouth and lips and tongue, but I couldn"t make them work." A pause, a sniff. "The other effect was…god. No way to say it but bluntly. I was…wet. Not aroused, not at all, but my vagina was behaving as if I was. My body as a whole was behaving as if I was aroused. My mind, my spirit, my soul—I was aware of what I was feeling physically but I was unable to control it. I was a prisoner in my own body. And I knew, then, what was going to happen. And I knew there wasn"t a single goddamn thing I could do."

She sniffs, and her shoulders shake once, and a single hiccuping sob rips out of her before she shuts it down and regains control.

"Okay, okay. So. The door opened, and a shackled, cuffed, and hooded male was led in. He was tall and muscular—in other circumstances, I'd have been attracted to him. Young, or, young-looking. He was dressed in what looked like prisoner clothes—beige pants and shirt, ill-fitting. The same guards and doctor were with him., The doctor injected him with a syringe and then cast a glamour on him like he had me. They waited about a minute, maybe two. I could see, and I could move my eyes, and I could breathe, but I was otherwise paralyzed, except with the full ability to feel all sensations— heat, cold, pressure, pain, everything. Anyway.

"One of the guards prodded the man with his hastaxi, and he didn"t respond, which was what they were waiting for, I guess. The guards left. The doctor removed the man"s hood. He was handsome. Rough features. Not fae, and not a vampire. I knew he was a shifter. I could feel it. He saw me, and he growled. It sounded like a bear"s growl coming from a human throat. The doctor removed his handcuffs, and his shackles, and then he just…left. I heard the door lock.

"The male just stood there looking at me. His eyes met mine, and somehow, I knew…" She inhales a shuddering breath. "He was a prisoner in his own body too. I saw him fighting it. I saw the sorrow in his eyes… the pain at what his body was doing. What he couldn"t stop. He took off his clothes. I fought and fought, but I couldn"t so much as twitch. Just breathe, and watch. He had an erection. He climbed up onto the bed, on top of me, and he…he…yeah. I knew he had no choice. He closed his eyes rather than look at me, which I suppose was the only form of resistance available to him. The only thing he could give me was that little privacy. Not having to meet his gaze as he fucked me. Mercifully, it didn"t take him very long to finish. Just to be clear—there was no pleasure, despite my body"s reaction to whatever the doctor did. It didn"t hurt, physically, because of that, as well, but…I don"t know how to put it. My body…I can"t say my body wanted it, and again, I didn"t enjoy it. Not at all. The opposite. My spirit, my soul, my mind…it was rape. But he didn"t rape me—he was as much a victim as I was, for all that he was the one doing it. They were raping me, and they were raping him, too."

She"s quiet for a long time before resuming her story.

"When he finished, he got off me and put on his clothes. He was moving robotically. For that matter, even while fucking me, he was moving robotically, obviously not in control of his own body. Once he was dressed, he went to the door, knocked once, and just stood there. After a few minutes, the guards returned and cuffed, shackled, and hooded him, and led him way. A few minutes after that, the doctor came in and wheeled me, still strapped to the bed, back to the room I"d woken up in. He unstrapped me, and two guards transferred me to the bed and left."

She"s quiet again for a long, long time. The longest pause yet. "I wasn"t allowed clothing the entire time I was a prisoner in that facility. I was fed in that room, and never left it except for…the sessions. After every session, I was thoroughly examined. I wasn"t allowed to clean up. It was obvious the goal was pregnancy. The sessions were regular. They"d wait till I got my period, and then I"d be put through another session. It was always the same two males—a vampire and a shifter. Always in alternation, and always in conjunction with my fertility cycle. I was given a full range of fertility drugs, or so I assume. I never saw anyone except the doctor, the same four guards, and the same ten or so orderlies and nurses. I was in that room, where I was allowed to read books, which were taken at night, or whenever they turned out the lights to approximate night, and I was allowed to watch TV. Other than that, I was in that room, being…bred like a prize mare."

Jesus. I become aware that I"m weeping. "Oh god, Mom," I whisper. "I didn"t know. I never knew."

"She didn"t want you to. Not till you had to," Andreas murmurs.

"At some point, after a few months of this, someone decided the experiment was better being a double-blind, so they blindfolded me during the sessions after that, so I never knew who was fucking me, which of the males, the shifter or the vampire. The vampire never fed from me, I assume because that would have been a giveaway. I don"t know." She tucks her hair behind her ears and wipes at her eyes. "I cannot express what those months were like. There was no opportunity for me to even consider escape. The chemicals they injected me with kept me sedated and paralyzed for hours, and the glamour that kept me aware and awake faded quickly, so I always passed out while the medical team examined me. Checking for implantation, I suppose. What they neglected to realize, however, that eventually allowed me to escape, was that once the chemicals wore off, I had access to my vitality, but only to a limited degree. Not enough to do anything with it, and that was the problem. But I had a secret: having spent centuries serving as a nurse in mortal wars, I had developed a method of pulling vitality in such a way that even another fae could rarely tell I was doing it. Necessarily, I could only pull a very small amount. Enough to sustain me, and that"s it. I doubt you"ll understand this, Maeve, since when you are watching this I"m assuming that you"ll likely have just…become aware of yourself, of your true nature, which in turn assumes the plan Dre and I have come up with is viable and works—anyway, my point is that running on the minimal necessary amount of vitality is somewhat like trying to function at the edge of literal starvation. To call it miserable is a vast understatement. I had to ride a knife edge, balancing my need to keep my vitality reserves up, but not to a degree that would alert my captors to what I was doing. Bit by bit, day by day, week after week, I"d pull a sliver more vitality than the day before. It"s kind of like those finance fraud schemes where they steal a penny at a time. It"s not enough that it will be noticed right away, but over time it does add up."

"I do not say this to be condescending, Maeve, but to put it into perspective since you can"t know—what your mother did, what she"s describing right now? It requires such immense skill and patience that very, very few fae, living or dead, could have pulled it off. Your mother was the most powerful and talented fae I"ve ever encountered, and among the most powerful to ever live. This is not an exaggeration. I just…I want you to know that. To know how truly remarkable she was."

Andreas has fit this speech into a pause in my mother"s speech, where she takes a sip of water and gathers her hair in her hands, pulls it back, and then fluffs it out once more.

That he knows exactly where the pauses are without having to think about it tells me he"s watched this video far too many times to be healthy.

Mom continues. "I can"t be sure exactly, but based on a calculation of my cycles, I conceived after six months. I remember it with vivid clarity. I"ll never forget the moment, to be honest. The males were different. I was blindfolded, but my tactile sensations were very much intact, unfortunately—I often wished they"d just knocked me out for the sessions. It would have been much more palatable. But I suppose they had their reasons. Something to do with fertility and the sex drives of the males being unresponsive to a starfish female. Anyway. I couldn"t be sure who was which, but I knew the difference in how they felt inside me. I"m sorry, I"m sure you don"t want to hear that. But I must be honest. I need to get the details out. Out of me—out of my head."

She wipes her face, sighs sharply.

"One of the males was simply larger, in all respects. Heavier, more thickly muscled. He was hotter—literally, his skin was always hot to the touch. I presumed him to be the shifter. Again, I cannot know for certain. The other was more slender, leaner, harder, and cool to the touch—I assume he was the vampire. Based on these inferences, Maeve, it is my guess you will be half-vampire, because I knew the moment I conceived, and it was the leaner, cooler male who sired you. He knew it too. There"s a…how to describe it? A wash of power. Not visible magic, just…a burst of energy. Records and tradition state that this burst of power happens with any immortal conception, regardless of the race of the implanted female. I think, however, that when two immortals mate, the wave is far, far stronger. The male who was penetrating me, at the moment of conception…he faltered. Even under the iron grip of the chemical and magical controls, he faltered, knowing what just happened. A vampire male impregnated, intentionally, a fae female. It was…historic. We both knew it. Neither of us, I"m assuming, was even certain it was possible. But in that moment, we knew the face of immortal society was forever changed."

She lets out a long, slow breath. Stares at nothing, thinking, remembering.

"I knew I had to escape. I knew once you were born, if the Council and the Tribunal got their hands on you, you"d never be free. You"d always be a test subject, an experiment. I suppose I should have considered the greater good of our society over my feelings and over your happiness, the happiness of one individual versus the survival of immortal kind, like my father did, but I…I just couldn"t."

Mom leans forward on her elbows, face close to the camera, eyes welling.

"I know you, Maeve Sparrow." She leans back and rubs her belly for the camera, then leans forward again. "I know you. I"ve seen you. I dream of you. You deserve a life, my dearest one. You deserve a chance to be… perhaps not normal, you"ll never be normal, not even by immortal standards. But…you deserve to grow up…" she gestures broadly, a wide swipe of one arm, "out in the world. Among people. You deserve to play on playgrounds and eat pizza, you deserve a boyfriend who"ll probably break your heart, and god knows heartbreak is a part of human existence. And make no mistake, my love, you are human. I"m human. Dre is human. We"re all just people, regular humans. We immortals are just…different. No better or worse. The Treaty…god forbid I fall into a history lecture, so I hope someone will have explained this all to you. The Treaty was wrong. We were wrong for agreeing to it, and the mortals were wrong for forcing it on us. I"m no revolutionary. I"ll never agree that a violent rebellion is the only way for immortals to have a place in society, but we do deserve to live, to be able to exist and mate and love and be open."

She rests back against the chair, absently rubbing her belly.

"You"re the key, Maeve. The fact that you exist is the first step to immortals taking our rightful place alongside mortals. We are not better. We do not deserve to rule or whatever some of the extreme factions might say, but we do deserve a place, and it is your destiny to lead us there." Mom sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. "My feelings are so complicated. I cannot excuse my father"s actions. But at the same time, he did the only thing he could do—cross-immortal reproduction is the only way forward. Mortals dying so we can live is not viable. It"s never been viable. But getting fae, vampires, and shifters to understand this? Good fucking luck. Millennia of enmity and animosity is going to be one hell of a hurdle. So I get it. Willing participants to this fucked up but wholly necessary experiment of theirs? Who in their right mind would have volunteered? If Papa had asked me? Maybe. Maybe I would have done my duty to my people. But Dre…god, Dre."

She sniffles, wipes tears away.

"I"m going to have to leave him. The only way to keep you safe and free is to go into hiding. I"m going to have to find a way to hide your true nature for as long as possible. I"ve been thinking about it a lot, and I think I have a way. It"s going to take a lot of magic, a lot of vitality. It"s a huge risk. I could burn out. Dre could burn out. You might never be able to unlock your true nature, or the glamour may not work. All I can do is try." She leans forward to the camera, weeping freely, now. "Dre, I know you'll watch this at some point. I"m sorry, my love. I"m so sorry for what I"m going to have to do. It"s the only way. There"s nothing I"d love more than to be a happy little family together, you and me and Maeve. I want that…more than I can say. I know you know. But I just…I can"t ask you to hide with me. I can"t hide her from them…we"ll be too obvious. They"re going to be looking. They"ll never stop. Never. I have to run. I have to hide. I won"t be able to stay in one place for more than a few months. I won"t be able to use magic except to cast a mask. I"ll have to hide who and what I am from Maeve. From everyone. They"re going to find me—it's only a matter of time. I"m just going to be playing for time, trying to give Maeve as much of a headstart as I can, as much normalcy as possible for as long as possible. I"m her mother. My duty to her supersedes everything else, Dre. Even you. I love you, Andreas. With everything I am. And I know I have no right to ask this of you, my love, especially after what I"ll have done to you by the time you watch this. But…when they get me, take care of her. You"re going to be the closest thing she"ll ever have to a dad, Dre. She"ll need you, when the glamour unravels, assuming it goes off the way I"m planning."

A long, long pause, as Mom buries her face in her hands and simply weeps.

"Here"s the last of the story." She shudders, forcing her breathing to slow, forcing away the tears. "I built up my vitality bit by bit, as you grew within me. Once I"d conceived, the sessions stopped, obviously. I have no idea if they succeeded with anyone else. If there was anyone else. I have to assume they brought in two of each race—male and female, fae, shifter, and vampire, and crossed each way, fae-shifter, fae-vampire, vampire-shifter, etc. Anyway. Once my vitality was getting to the point that I was going to start showing, I weaved a mask. That was honestly the hardest part. A mask to look human is easy. Second nature, at this point. But casting a glamour to make myself look like a fae lacking sufficient vitality? That"s a whole other thing. Far more difficult. Eventually, I got it right, and was able to keep building my vitality up until I was fairly boiling with it. And then more, and more. I was like a steam engine that hadn"t been vented. Remember the Edelson, Dre? That steamship in Liverpool that exploded? When was that? 1899? No, it was earlier. 18…85? Anyway. It exploded offshore, killing everyone on board. We were supposed to be on it, but we stayed up all night drinking ambrosia with Lockhart and Ramalah, and…oh, what was his name? The second son of the Coreliean clan. Bucephalus. Bucephalus Coreliean. As over the top as his name, wasn"t he? He got a kick out of introducing himself as Phallus, remember? Everyone who knew him called him Lucy, but those uptight Victorians? Oh my word, the looks on their faces when he would introduce himself as Phallus…that was priceless." She laughs, remembering. "I digress. I kept hoarding slivers and slivers of vitality. It"d pull it from the guards when they fed me, from the nurses when they examined me, everyone. Little bits, here and there, until I knew I simply couldn"t hold anymore. That was a scary feeling. I was a ticking bomb, and I knew it. I just had to pick my time and direct the vent. I waited until I knew Papa wasn"t around. I was being examined. No fewer than eight Elites were in that room with me, along with six nurses and four doctors. All listening to that little heartbeat on the sonogram. I faked being sick. And actually, it was only partially fake—I actually was sick to my stomach at the knowledge of what I was about to do. I"d seen it, once before. When Octavius Lucius Meridian vented—1766, in that little village on the AmalfI coast. He was Roman, born in Rome during the reign of Julius Caesar himself, and I think he was even a distant cousin of Julius. Poor old Octavian. He just went mad. Everyone he"d ever known and loved had died, and he just couldn"t keep going. He wanted to die, so badly. He was just tired of living. So he let his vitality fester until he just vented. Vaporized half the village and a good portion of the coastline for a hundred meters in both directions. Fortunately, he waited until Sunday when the village was all at Mass, so no one died but him."

Mom rakes her fingers through her hair, shaking her head. "I wasn"t even sure it was possible to vent without killing myself in the process, or burning myself out, or harming you, but it was the only option I had. So I…basically, I cast the magical version of a nuclear bomb. It was a matter of very specific timing. I had to wait until the instant before I felt like I was going to involuntarily vent, and then I had to focus the energy of the vent upward and outward, away from me, without releasing all of the vitality. That"s what kills you in an involuntary vent—the sudden and extreme purge of all the body"s vitality, which for fae is tied into our entire physiology. I had to forcefully retain at least a fragment. Something. Anything. I managed it, obviously. The resulting…explosion, really, is the only word…it was…catastrophic. To this day, I don"t know how many people I killed. I actually passed out, and when I came to, the room was…well, it was gone. There was nothing left but bare rock, and even that had been scorched away for several feet. A vitality vent detonation is not like anything else. There is no heat, no pressure, no shockwave. It"s pure energy. Pure, raw magic, raw destruction. It seared away layers of rock, vaporized all organic matter in a radius of…I don"t even know. All man-made objects were gone, all people, everything and everyone. There wasn"t even blood. Just nothing. And me. Pregnant, nearly dead from the vent, alone, and god knows where.

"I managed to find the exit, as much by accident as anything else. I was close enough apparently that the blast even vaporized the doors, which were foot-thick steel blast doors. And when I stumbled out…" her voice breaks. "Dre was there waiting for me. He had a car, and all my clothes, our photos, everything. He brought me here, and now…I"m about to give birth. I"ve actually been having contractions for a few hours now, pretty far apart but regular. You"re coming, Maeve. I can"t wait to meet you. I"ve seen your blue eyes in my dreams. I wish I could say more. I wish I could…I wish you could know me like this, as a fae. I"m proud of my heritage, Maeve. I"m proud to be fae. I"m not proud of some of the things my people have done in our history, but I think every culture has that."

Her eyes go intense, whitening, glowing.

"You"re the future of immortal kind, Maeve. You"re the first of a new race. If you are, as I suspect, vampire and fae, I've been thinking of you as being vaer. V-A-E-R. You are powerful. I can feel it. What you can do, what abilities you"ll possess, how much vampire and how much fae is anyone"s guess. And I'll never know if the glamour Dre and I are about to cast on you works properly. I just need you to know that I love you. Everything I"ve done, every decision I"ve made since the moment I felt you implant in my womb, and every decision since has been for you. I"ll…"

She hiccups, sobs, ducks her head and tries again.

"There are stories and rumors, apocryphal and unsubstantiated, that upon the moment of death, a fae, with enough preparation and power, can somehow…I don"t know how to put it…stitch their essence into the dream-plane. I know I"ve had visitations from my grandmother, who passed when I was twenty. I know the difference between a normal dream and a visitation from the dream-plane. It"s a mysterious place, the dream-plane." She blinks rapidly, glancing off to the side, thinking. "I can"t make any promises, obviously, just that I will research and work on this in hopes of being able to visit you after I"ve shuffled off this mortal coil, as William Shakespeare once wrote."

Mom is silent for a while again, thinking, considering her words.

"I think I"ve related all that is important and relevant, and probably then some. I wish I had more time. I wish…I wish a lot of things, my daughter. You can trust Andreas. He"s the best and finest man I"ve ever known. A powerful fae, and a mighty warrior. he"s good, and kind. I love him with all that I am. But you must be my priority, now. I can feel…I can feel the threads of fate being woven around you, even now." Her eyes go white, glowing so brightly that the screen washes out, leaving only her voice. "You will meet my father. Tell him I forgive him. You will bear a child. Name her Andrea Eliza Sparrow. You are the future, Maeve. Be strong. Trust yourself. I love you. I"ll see you in your dreams, Maeve."

The recording ends on a white screen.