Part One: The Watcher
I am nameless in the ancient expanse of space, drifting out of time amidst the planets.
I was there when these stars first burned into being, their fire drawn from the void between worlds. I watched as Faery took shape beneath the eternal dance of light and shadow, as it opened its eyes and wept at the exquisite beauty of the fair ornaments I placed in the heavens above.
Once, I held dominion over the entirety of this realm—its skies, its seasons, its boundless magic. Now, I’m little more than a silent spectator drifting through the airless, windless cradle of creation. Where I lost my mind and my body, drifted, then awoke as something new.
Now ancient.
The children of Faery do not remember my name, nor do they know my face, and so I remain unseen, a wanderer among the stars I once called into being.
But tonight… something stirs in the endless night. A new star—one I did not create and place in my firmament—has risen. Brightly, it shines in the velvet expanse of midnight blue, a sparkling gem of rare splendor and even rarer magic. It fits in the hand of The Hunter, a herald or a beacon, set above the coldest and the darkest of Fae Kingdoms, but also one hearth-warmed and family-loved.
I do not know what the star-sign signifies. Not even I, the Father of Night and the Maker of Stars and Planets. And yet, there’s something familiar within it. A whiff of something lovely, a whisper of a scent, the ghost of a long-forgotten thought. Something nearly… almost… to remember.
What?
I do not know.
But the star has drawn me here. I’ve followed the trail of its glittering tail, the slow progress of its march across the sky. Here, in the silver and sapphire hues of the Winter Court, where frost clings to every surface like a dusting of fine diamonds… I will find it.
That thing… elusive.
I will remember.
****
Inside the palace, the air teems with the scents of pine, snow, and the faint sweetness of mulled wine. A great Yule log burns in a grand hearth, while icicles hang like chandeliers from every vaulted surface.
The throne room is the heart of the wintry domain, a sweeping space where an ice-carved throne etched in complex, frosty patterns sits idle on a lordly dais. Holly berries and evergreen garlands crawl up the frosted steps, while ribbons of mistletoe swing merrily from high rafters. In every corner, there’s joy and celebration, but also a deep and quiet stillness.
It’s late, and the guests have not arrived yet.
All is ready for their coming, or nearly so… but the queen of this mighty realm of frost and snow sits working beside a glowing hearth in the coziest of her kitchens. It’s deep in the bowels of the castle, far away from the frosted spectacle of the throne room, a small addition off the side of the larger food hall that serves the noble families. Alone, she sits in the modest chamber, bent over a worktable in the dying light of the fire, yawning with the lateness of the hour. She’s intent on her final task, the decoration of the exquisite sweets that will complete her Winter Solstice table. It’s the last thoughtful touch of a matriarch’s love. Softly, she hums as she works, a tune that, like the new star above, carries a hint of reincarnation.
This Winter Queen is unexpected.
Unlike the ones who ruled before her. Those were each unbending, wizened ancients, the embodiment of biting chill that saps the warmth from marrow in the deepest throes of barren cold.
This current monarch carries the healthy blush of early, festive winter. Her gown is simple but the hue of evergreen forests. Her gleaming frost-spun hair is thick and waving, a shining cascade festooned with holly berries. Her skin is radiant as the gentle glow of moonlight over freshly fallen snow…. and so is all the rest of her.
She’s regal, and calm. Kind. A natural nurturer.
Behind her eyes lies something more, a loneliness profound—a widow’s aching grief. A mother’s and a sister’s, also. Despite the warmth and joy she fosters in her court, she knows the weight of absence.
I know it too, and keenly.
As she loses her battle with sleep, the exertions of her day overtaking her…
I move closer.
I could fade away into Night and Space as I have done before. Observe from beside the planets…
Something holds me here. Not just the loneliness I see mirrored in her, but the quiet strength beneath it.
Carefully, I wipe a smear of icing from her delicate chin. Her skin is warm and soft beneath my thumb. I’m unsettled by it. Not only by the heat of her but by the sensations she evokes in me. The want, or the echo of it, so long a thing forgotten.
She stirs, but she does not wake. Unmoving, I hold my breath, my thumb still near my lips, where I’ve licked the sweet icing clean.
She mumbles a word in her sleep. A plea or benediction.
“Astraeus.”
It’s a name. My name. A forgotten one of them.
Disconcerted, I swipe a cookie from the platter beside the dreaming queen and move away from her. The sweet is cut in the shape of the newborn star, frosted with edible glitter and sugar crystals. It’s gilded with swirling curlicues of white piping in a pretty, whimsical pattern.
An offering.
It’s lovely. Painstakingly crafted.
Delicious, too. As I wander the palace halls, unseen and unheard by all, I listen.
I watch.
And I wait.
For there’s ancient magic afoot.
A mystery.
It’s been an age since I touched, tasted, and wondered like this. I’ve nearly forgotten how. But tonight, in the heart of Winter, beneath a clear, frozen sky speckled with stars…
I ponder, and I observe.
Silent.
A watcher.
Part Two: The Hunter
The early morning air is crisp with winter’s sharpness, broken only by the soft music of silver bells. Sleighs, drawn by lithesome horses, glide over the snow.
Quinn rides at the front of the party, his dark blue cloak rippling like the deep ocean waves under moonlight. Frost clings to his hair like seafoam, but his arresting azure eyes sparkle with merriment as he orders his massive stallion through the gates of his Aunt Nora’s palace.
Aurora rides just behind him on her slender mare. Deep auburn hair spills like embers from beneath her crimson hood. Her cheeks are rosy with the cold, and her emerald eyes shine with a joyful, wild light. She laughs, the sound as bright as golden sunlight, her breath visible in the crisp air, mingling with a fall of shimmering snowflakes.
Dressed lavishly in thick furs, their entourage rides in the sleighs behind them. Like Aurora, the new Queen of Autumn is a pop of warm color against the white-silver and gray landscape. Her emerald and fox fur cloak a festive note in the icy dawn and a counterpoint to the dark Dullahan, dressed all in black, beside her.
The others are draped in rich furs and ornaments, too. These allies brought together in friendship from across the many realms. Even Summer and Spring are represented, and Night and Air and the Fomori.
It’s as noble and rag-tag an assembly as I have ever beheld.
Nora greets the party at the door. She’s changed into a regal gown of silvery-white, the fabric rippling in the pale light as though alive with Winter’s magic. Delicately embroidered frost-like patterns embellish the hem and sleeves, swirling up like the breath of a cold frost across a windowpane. Despite the arctic make of her dress, Nora welcomes each guest with a warm embrace, ushering them into her festal home beyond.
***
Indeed, it makes for a merry gathering. Or mostly so. A few members of the family seem to be missing. Still, there are plenty of games and feasting. Music and dancing, too. Then, the opening of presents, and yet more additional feasting. After that, again, more dancing.
Nora is especially light on her feet, and she’s especially eager to dance. She does so on the arms of her guests and her nobles, although not one of them can match her. She knows this, and she smiles and enjoys herself despite it. I see the longing in her, though. Her desire for the perfect dancing partner.
I do not remember the last time I danced. In truth, I cannot recall the last time I even thought of such a thing. And yet, watching the Winter Queen at home with her nieces and nephews, the last of her family, I think again of dancing. Of long-dead music, and dead lovers.
Is the music dead if I recall it? If I make it live again?
When you wish upon a star…
I remember the notes and the lyrics. I could put them back into this world, make them real, again.
My beloved isn’t truly dead. Not if there’s something left of her, of us, in this gathering.
***
Late into the evening, the party winds down beside the fire. Together, they sit and sip Nora’s mulled wine, Quinn with Aurora beside him.
A female of Night and Constellations eventually mentions The Hunter, the gathering of lovely stars marking the outline of a male posed with a bow and arrows.
They do not know what to make of the new star that’s appeared in his palm, but it draws them to an ancient story.
Quinn relates it to the party, mostly for the benefit of his wife, who has lately come into Faery and is not as familiar with our traditions.
“Once, there was a hunter named Eryndor who roamed the dark forests at the edge of Faery, in the Liminal Lay, where the shadows stretch long and cold. He was no ordinary hunter, but one born of the wild—touched earth and sky.”
“He was beloved by the forests and the wild creatures within, for he was their protector. Eryndor hunted only those who threatened the balance of life—beasts born of chaos, creatures who stirred before the dark moons. It was said that his cloak was woven from the winds of winter, and that wherever he tread, frost followed in his wake.”
“But in time, the coldness of his hunt, the eternal winter that gripped his heart, began to wear upon him. He became as distant as the stars he pulled his arrows from. The snow deepened, the forest grew silent, and even the moon turned her face away from him. Loneliness crept into Eryndor’s soul, for he was always alone, chasing beasts that came with the darkness but finding no warmth, no solace in the world he wandered.”
“One winter night, as he hunted through the darkest woods, he caught sight of a creature unlike any he had ever seen—a great white stag, its antlers shimmering with frost, its eyes as old as the stars themselves. Eryndor pursued it for days, through snowdrifts and ice-clad trees, driven by something deeper than hunger or duty. The stag led him farther north, beyond the forests and into the endless night of winter.”
“It is said that the stag was no beast at all, but a spirit of the heavens sent to call Eryndor home. As the hunter drew back his star-bone arrow, ready to make his final kill, the stag stopped, turning its great head toward the sky. Eryndor followed its gaze and saw above him, for the first time in many seasons, the sky alight with stars.”
“In that moment, Eryndor understood. He dropped his bow and knelt before the stag, realizing his journey was never meant to end in a hunt. It was a call to join the heavens, to leave behind the cold loneliness of the forest and become one with the stars. The stag vanished into the sky, and Eryndor followed, his spirit rising from the frozen earth, becoming the constellation that now lights the winter sky, the one we call The Hunter.”
“Was Eryndor real?” Nora asks, breaking the spell that had fallen over the group.
Startled, Quinn replies, “You are eldest here among us.”
Nora shakes her head, her delicate brow furrowing. Pointing toward the Dullahan, she states, “I am not nearly as old as he.”
Smart. She is smart. The others forget the Dullahan’s age.
“Lady,” the Dullahan evenly replies, choosing his words with care. “I do not know of such a person.”
And yet, he can see the Queen of Winter is bothered by the details of the story.
“Perhaps, he will be real?” the Dullahan amends, sounding uncharacteristically unsure of himself.
“Perhaps,” Nora finally sighs. But then, softly, she smiles. “I think that’s our beds calling, loves. We’ve winter sports tomorrow. An early breakfast, followed by a trek to the frozen lake for skating.”
A few of the party groan.
“You know you’re going to love it,” Nora laughs, breaking the last of the awkwardness. “There are prizes for those who win my challenges.”
“Prizes?” the Summerlands lad parrots.
“Indeed, Ky,” Nora tells him. “And they’re worth the early rising.”
Part Three: The Winter Star
The assembly has gone to their beds. All, except a few of them.
Nora, for example, has not gone to bed despite her breaking up of the party.
Alone upon her balcony, the bracing arctic chill a biting barrage upon her skin, she gazes into the cold night sky, the stars above her dancing. Her eyes alight and fix upon The Hunter, on the new star sitting inside his palm.
“Is there anything amiss?” Quinn asks his aunt with concern, moving from inside the room to join her out on her balcony. “You seemed upset earlier.”
Nora tosses her head over one shoulder and shakes her head. But then, she shrugs, returns her gaze to the sky, and gathers her robe tighter about her shoulders.
“It’s only something your father said to me once.”
“My father?” Quinn thoughtfully muses.
Nora shifts her attention back to her nephew, intuiting something strange in the tone of his reply. “You know something about your father,” she guesses primly. “Out with it, boy.”
Quinn holds his palms up to signal a surrender. “I may suspect something, perhaps.” He frowns, biting his bottom lip as if unsure if he should continue.
Nora favors the man with a very aunt-like, penetrating look. “Quinnan. Aelvryn. Oceiros…”
“Hold on, Aunt Nora,” Quinn says defensively, withering just a little under his aunt’s glacial stare along with the usage of his full family name. To show he means to do as she wishes and only needs a moment to gather his thoughts, he steps up beside her, peering over the edge of the balcony railing and into the snowy woods beyond.
“Yes?” Nora breathlessly prompts.
“Father did say something to me once,” Quinn finally continues. “Long ago. I was just a boy. It was a night much like this one, with the two of us alone, him and me, looking out upon the water under the watching stars…”
“And?” Nora says to loosen her nephew’s tongue.
“He told me the story of The Hunter.” Quinn hesitates, his brow furrowed in thought. “The same I told tonight, except at the end, he said something exceedingly strange. Something that I omitted.”
“What did he say that you omitted?”
For a moment Quinn balks under Nora’s fervent stare. He swallows, once, clearing his throat. “My father said you and I are cherished by Eryndor.”
“Cherished by The Hunter?” Nora states dryly back. “If Eryndor exists only in a story, even if he does exist but only inside his starry abode, how could he cherish anyone? Surely, your father meant that figuratively. Perhaps, he only meant that you and I are both adventurous?”
Quinn scowls, shaking his head in confusion. “But the story is odd, is it not?” he urges. “The Hunter who is no hunter? Who follows the White Stag into the stars? For what purpose? To become a constellation? And now a new star has been added to that very heavenly body?”
“What piece of this am I missing?” Nora inquires, seeing there’s more that Quinn hasn’t told her. Seeing there’s more that’s been bothering him, just as she’s been bothered by things she’s never put into words.
“I think the Cailleach bade me speak of it to you,” Quinn pensively replies. “Of my mother. Of her death that is no death.”
“Cailleach said your mother is a glaistig.”
“I do not know, Aunt Nora. But here are the facts I’ve lately gathered. She was struck with the Spear of Victory.”
“The Spear?” Nora exclaims. “But who knows what that might do?”
Readily, Quinn nods. “She was no spirit when Aurora met her,” he continues. “She appeared in a physical form. She was accompanied by a White Hart, and…”
“Accompanied by a White Hart?” Nora interrupts. “Like the symbol your father used upon his heraldry after he wed my sister? The symbol that caused such trouble when he changed the ancient crest of your household?”
“The one I use now in his stead,” Quinn confirms. “Aurora believes my mother travels with the Stag. She believes the two are bound.”
“Bound?” Nora wonders.
“What did my father say to you of The Hunter?” Quinn eagerly asks.
Nora squints at her nephew, her face still marked with surprise and bafflement.
“Nora?”
Heavily, the Queen of Winter sighs. “Gods, it’s been so long…”
Patiently, Quinn waits for his aunt to continue.
She turns and paces, the breeze picking up her skirts and cloak, tangling them about her. The pacing and the blowing of the wind are both signs of her inner turmoil.
“It was the same night that Cormac met me,” she begins again, turning to face her nephew. “Before he brought our family into Faery. He came to the mortal lands looking for a nursemaid for Phelan. But you know this.” She pauses, her mind racing. “But you don’t know that there, in the mortal lands, he scried beneath the stars. And there, he had a vision. The night he met me, he told me I was part of the same vision he had that very night. And that The Hunter… and I… would be his deliverance.”
“His deliverance?” Quinn questions. “How?”
Frustrated, Nora pivots and begins to pace, again.
“Nora?”
The Winter Queen turns and faces her nephew, ancient pain, guilt, and confusion written plainly upon her features.
“I do not know, Quinnan!” she finally cries, her face staining with tears. “Your father became my friend, one of my very best ones, and then he became my brother. He believed that I would save him! But I wasn’t there when he… I did not know what Niall would do. If I had known, I might have…”
“No, it wasn’t your fault,” Quinn cuts in firmly. “You mustn’t blame yourself for that. For any of it. You did more than anyone had any right to ask of you.”
Quinn strides to his aunt’s side. Aware of her history, of all she endured in the Autumn Court at the hands of Niall’s lords, he takes careful pains not to spook her. When she does not object, he pulls her close against himself, folding her into a comforting hug. There, she buries her face in his chest, pitiful, harrowing sobs wracking her slender form as she’s caught in those awful memories of the time when they both lost Cormac. And then, when they lost Etain. Of all they both had suffered.
And she thought that she was responsible? That Cormac expected her to save them?
The depth of her guilt and sorrow moves me, and for the first time in the shadows from where I watch, I’m also aware of this violation of her privacy. Of this overreach in my prying.
Of watching when I haven’t been invited to do so.
“But Nora…” Quinn finally says. “What of The Hunter? Who is he?”
Nora pulls away, wiping the tears from her cheeks.
“The Hunter was a part of it,” the Queen of Winter recalls. “I can’t remember exactly how Cormac put it. It was all… stars and stags and pieces of a puzzle that didn’t make any sense. Even then, it sounded crazy. But it did… I mean, I think it did… sound a bit like that story you told.”
“It’s why you came into Faery with him?” Quinn asks. “It’s why my father brought you with him? Not only to nurse Phelan? For something else besides? And his prophecy… it convinced you?”
Nora throws her arms into the air, her cloak billowing out behind her in a sudden gust of ice-laced wind.
“I came because he said it would be beautiful! A place of peace and rest and summer. A place where… I could put aside the sorrow of my husband, Roland’s, passing.”
“But it hasn’t been that,” Quinn says quietly, understanding his aunt’s frustration. “My father wouldn’t have lied to you.”
“It was good at first, of course,” Nora acknowledges shortly. “In the Land Under Wave with Cormac. When our family was whole and living. But then came the wars and the separations. My son’s return to the mortal lands. My own transformation. Cormac’s loss, and then Niall’s harems… and… it’s been so long that we’ve been alone… fighting on our own…”
“You don’t need to continue,” Quinn says softly. “I do understand, Aunt Nora.” Gracefully, he gestures to the snowy landscape beyond the balcony. “Certainly, it hasn’t all been Summer.”
“It isn’t about the seasons,” Nora specifies dismissively. “I don’t mind it here in Winter. What I do mind is the solitary nature of it, of where I find myself.” She huffs a plain sound of exasperation. “But this isn’t a conversation for aunts and nephews, is it?”
“That isn’t all we are,” Quinn reminds her gently. “We’re both adults. Sovereigns of our own separate kingdoms. Friends and allies, as well as family. So, say what needs to be said. I’m not a child any longer.”
“Fine,” Nora capitulates. “Your father made a vow. He promised if I came with him into Faery, I would find my second half. He said it was part of what he saw.” Turning to face Quinn, she adds, her voice cracking with emotion, “I loved Roland, but he was never a second part of me. Still, I understood what Cormac meant in what he promised. I saw what he and your mother found together. I see it in you and Aurora, too. It’s what I believed I would find when I came into Faery… because it’s what your father promised would be here waiting.”
“You think you’re fated to be with Eryndor?” Quinn extrapolates.
“No,” Nora replies, shaking her head vociferously. “I’m fated to be with Astraeus, and I do not merely think it.”
Quinn blinks in shock but governs his reaction judiciously. “Aside from the Cailleach, none of us know anything about a person who is named Astraeus.”
“Your father knew Astraeus,” Nora curtly replies. “I am certain they two had a friendship.”
Frowning, but with his thoughts obviously racing, Quinn suggests, “Remind me what Cailleach said.”
Nora recites it from memory. “She said he languishes. That he doesn’t care for the tidings of Faery any longer. She said that I must, finally, find him. Something about harmony being restored. Oh, and if I fail, I’ll watch as I lose you and your siblings as chaos overcomes us.” Nora shakes her head, her sorrow of a few minutes earlier rapidly being replaced with growing bitterness. “I must, finally, find him? Like I haven’t been looking since the moment I entered Faery? Like it isn’t all I’ve ever wanted? To be worthy of? To fight for? It’s the whole fucking point!”
Quinn moves toward his aunt, wrapping her cloak firmly about her thin shoulders, then rubbing her freezing arms to bring heat back into her bones.
“You’re freezing,” he murmurs, concern written across his features. “It’s a cold night, even for you. We all had too much to drink…”
“No, Quinn, I felt him,” she says despondently, her face lifted toward the heavens. Her gaze fixes on the star that had lately appeared, the one that shines so brightly. “He was here. Last night. Tonight, maybe. Observing as this world crumbles. As Maeve advances. As we fall into chaos and madness. As my family is all that stands left between us and oblivion. As my family continues to fall, one at a time…”
“Now?” Quinn asks, casting sidelong glances into the shadows. “Is he here with us now, Aunt Nora?”
Nora shrugs, still gazing away from Quinn and up into the stars. “The Cailleach said: The glaistig’s son will help you.”
“And I will do,” Quinn sincerely promises.
But despondently, Nora adds, “He was here, and he did not show himself. He did not care enough to do so. So many years, so many centuries, and it’s always been me to wonder if I’m the one who isn’t worthy.” She shakes her head, anger pinking her cheeks just as the stark chill has robbed the color from her. “Me, worthy? Who is he? Who is he to watch us struggle, and do nothing?”
“Not nothing,” I finally say in my own defense, stepping out of the shadows from where I’ve been watching them. I release the last of the glamor obscuring me from their view. “Not entirely.”
Quinn and Nora gasp. Nora’s chest rises and falls in quick succession as she gapes at me in shock and disdain.
“Aether?” Quinn whispers in confusion.
“Or Astraeus,” I acknowledge baldly. But my eyes are fixed on Nora. “What did you say Cassandra said of me?”
Neither of the pair move. They only continue to gawk.
“Callie?” I try again, using a different name for the one I mean. Still, no recognition dawns. “The Cailleach?”
Finally, the name dislodges something in Nora’s memory. The Winter Queen draws herself up to her full height, her eyes bleeding from bright blue to white with vexation, her hair gleaming under the starlight, and her pale skin emitting the softest, shiningest glow.
She is Winter. Beautiful, wonderful, blizzarding, galing Winter, cold and violent as death, but graceful in turbulence, too.
“She said you need to pull your fucking head out of your ass and help us!” Nora hisses, moving forward so swiftly she surprises even me. With her slender index finger, she pokes me hard in the center of my chest, murder still in her eyes.
I cock my head to the side, transfixed as I look straight into those big, bright, lovely, homicidal depths… and then, I really can’t help myself.
Her audacity is… well, it’s a thing I haven’t experienced in a very long time.
I throw back my head, and I laugh.
It’s the wrong move to make. Incensed, Nora pulls away, cursing under her breath as Quinn takes the two of us in, his arms crossed over his chest, his face carefully schooled, his feet spread a bit wide in a stance I’m not sure what to make of.
“A little help?” I finally muster, appealing to my friend.
“No, thank you,” Quinn grunts coolly. “Unlike you, I’ve learned the finer points of staying out of my dear aunt’s line of fire. She’s normally slow to anger, but once her wrath is kindled, you’d best be ready to weather it.”
“And I gave you stars and taught you to fly,” I say with a note of disappointment.
“You taught my nephew to do what?!” Nora responds, her distress unabated. “By the gods, how do you know each other?”
“Careful, Nora,” Quinn warns. “I think he is a god. And the flying thing… it’s really more… he taught me how to float.” Quinn lifts a quizzical brow. “It’s a secret, though. Shall we all go inside and have something warm to drink?” In a winning, boy-like manner, the lad adds, “It is rather cold out here, Aunt Nora.”
“Inside,” Nora relents in a clipped tone, moving across the balcony with her majestic head held high. Pointedly, she ignores me as she passes.
“There don’t happen to be more sugar cookies?” I inquire as I trail into her bedroom behind her. “Also, I’m not exactly a god. I don’t think. But maybe, I was? But not now?”
“No?” Quinn queries, bringing up our tail. He pauses to see the balcony doors closed and properly latched. Nonchalantly, he asks, “How does one lose one’s divinity?”
For the first time since it happened, I realize I haven’t a clue to the answer. It’s also the first time something about myself, as I am now, bothers me.
“Not a god, but you taught my nephew to fly,” Nora murmurs under her breath.
“To float,” Quinn amends.
“Some things,” I say slowly, searching my memory and finding it disconcertingly blank, “I still can do.”
Some parts of me are still me.
A plate of cookies waits for us by the fire, along with steaming cups of hot cocoa. Eagerly, I dig into them, anxious to fill myself with something other than these suddenly disturbing questions.
Instead, I dunk the cookies in the chocolate and devour them as if they’re the only thing I’ve eaten in the last millennia.
Quinn and Nora sit together and examine me in silence, taken aback by the savagery of my appetite. It’s just… I haven’t eaten much more than this in the last thousand years.
Suddenly, I am famished.
Alarmed, Nora rises. “You’ll make yourself sick,” she says matter-of-factly. “I’ll have something hearty brought up from the kitchen. You need a meal, not a bellyache, and then you need to rest. In a bed. Where it’s warm. We are not savages here.”
Rest? In a bed, where it’s warm? Do I remember what that feels like?
She vanishes, leaving the room markedly dull in her absence.
Quinn continues to hold his tongue. He scrutinizes me with an intensity that’s new and a bit unnerving.
“I heard everything,” I say, waving my hand dismissively at Quinn as I destroy yet another of Nora’s sinfully decadent cookies. “I heard what your father implied of me and him. What he implied of me and Nora.”
“Were you friends?” Quinn asks, calling back to Nora’s assertion that she thought I knew his father.
“Yes,” I reply directly. But something about it troubles me.
“What do you think about what he said?” Quinn questions.
I reach for another cookie, but Quinn cocks his brow at me in a clear sign of disapproval.
Why am I so scattered?
I draw my hands back, folding them together and placing them in my lap. Then, I close my eyes and force myself to make a stern evaluation.
“I think there’s something very wrong,” I finally confirm, opening my eyes. To clarify, I add, “Not with what your father said. With me. There’s something very wrong with me.”
“What is wrong with you?” Quinn interrogates.
“Something has diminished me. Made me forget how it happened, too. To be fair, it may have been me who did it.”
“Why would you diminish yourself?”
Bitterly, I laugh. “I really haven’t the foggiest.”
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
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