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It had been a long time since Lorelei had felt that she was pleasing her mother … but the force of that open disappointment now burned against her with unexpected force.

Finally, Morgana stopped her pacing. “Did it never occur to you to call upon me for help?” she asked tightly.

“I beg your pardon?” A startled laugh fell from Lorelei’s throat. “You’d left the court in Oberon’s keeping. Despite everything he’d done—”

“I left it in my consort’s keeping,” Morgana snapped. “Unfortunately, Reynard was taken unexpectedly ill after I’d already departed on my diplomatic mission. It was decided by the advisors I’d left behind that his son would be the most natural replacement. As I hadn’t the time or energy to return and sort matters out myself…”

“You trusted him to take your place? Really?” Lorelei couldn’t help the raw hurt that crept into her voice.

Morgana frowned. “He paid the price for his only true offense against me with his time of exile. When he returned, Reynard assured me that his remorse was sincere. I know he offended you, too, some time back, with an ill-judged attempt at romance, but you sorted that out yourself, didn’t you? Whatever you did made him the butt of every jest at court for ages afterwards. Are you truly so petty as to still hold a grudge? By now, you must be accustomed to dealing with courtiers whose company you don’t happen to enjoy. As queen…”

“As queen,” Lorelei gritted through her teeth, “I would never allow a man who attempted to overpower my daughter’s will with a love potion to set foot in my court ever again—much less allow him to wear my own crown in my absence.”

There was a long, pulsating silence. The silver walls and floor shifted sickeningly around them.

“A love potion?” Morgana said at last, her voice without expression.

“Slipped into my glass of wine,” said Lorelei with icy calm. “He had it all planned out. You see, I had already refused all of his more politely expressed offers.”

“And you felt no need to tell me what he’d done?”

Lorelei looked at the woman who’d been no more than a distant idol to her for decades … and the long sigh she let out combined sorrow and relief. Perhaps this conversation was necessary after all. It was certainly long overdue. “You haven’t let me close enough to speak of such matters since I was a child. You surrounded us with witnesses every time to keep me at a distance.”

I couldn’t bear to risk losing even that remaining place in your court. She didn’t speak the words, but that obvious truth resonated between them.

Morgana’s cheeks hollowed as her eyes widened. “You believed I would choose him over you?”

“I begged you to choose me once before,” Lorelei said quietly. “But even when I was finally allowed to come back and visit…”

It had been as if the warm and loving mother she remembered had disappeared, replaced by a cool and elegant moving statue who looked as if from a vast, impassive distance at the child she’d once rocked in her arms.

Morgana swallowed visibly, her long throat flexing. More leaves fell from her hair like tears, twirling slowly through the air. “Giving you up as I did … sending you to fulfil Sylvana’s promise…”

“I know.” Lorelei stiffened her shoulders and forced her voice not to crack. “You didn’t see it as a choice. You followed your duty as a queen for the sake of your people, under the direction of a goddess.”

“… And it nearly destroyed me. Did you not understand that?” Her mother’s voice carried echoes of falling rain. “I didn’t eat for months after you left. My handmaidens feared I might simply fade into the trees. I couldn’t bear to taste any food. Any pleasure. Any…”

She stopped, looking suddenly achingly fragile and nothing like the indomitable figure Lorelei had known all her life. “It took me years to fully come back to myself. And when I did…” She moistened her lips. “When I did, the scar ran so deep, I didn’t dare reopen it. The land had mourned with me in my grief and fallen into endless cold rain, misery, and hardship. The court erupted into chaos and turned bloody knives upon itself in answer. It took all I had, once I finally recovered, to wrest Efaelen into order and bring it back to health. That was why I couldn’t risk allowing you too close again on any of those rare, precious visits when I was able to see you. Human lives are so unbearably short.” Tears glittered in Morgana’s ancient eyes. “The first time I lost you, I almost shattered everything I had sworn to protect. I couldn’t allow myself to risk that again.”

Lorelei’s stomach lurched. It was unbearable—unjust!—to navigate this terrible conversation here, of all places, with no solid ground to stand on and no allies or lover nearby to support her. Conflicting emotions rocked through her like warring armies, and she fought to keep her balance in the morass of shifting silver.

Her mother had loved her and truly grieved her loss. Her mother still loved her, apparently. And yet …

Lorelei forced a wry smile instead of a sob. “So you chose the needs of your court over the needs of your daughter not once but twice, after all. I see.”

Morgana’s mouth dropped open. “I was in pain! If you understood how much I’d suffered—how much any mother would suffer—”

“Do you think I didn’t?” Lorelei’s laugh was shrill. “I was a child when you sent me into a court where I was universally loathed—and then, when I finally saw you again, you didn’t even offer me comfort or reassurance. Instead, you made it perfectly clear to me and everyone else that I’d lost not only my first home but also the only parent who had ever loved me.”

Her mother rocked back as if she’d been physically struck. “You still don’t understand,” she whispered. “I had to—as queens, we both have to make impossible decisions all the time. You must have learned that for yourself by now! Do you imagine I wanted to lose the only child I’ve ever been lucky enough to birth? Sylvana showed me: If I were selfish enough to keep you with me, every fae in the mortal realm would have paid the price in blood! Even here in Efaelen, we would have suffered and faded, in the end, from the loss of that vital connection with the mortal realm. Would you have chosen any differently, as an adult?”

Lorelei breathed deeply, taking the time to think through her words before she spoke. She wasn’t a child anymore to take instructions—or to vent her tumultuous emotions without care. “As queens, we do have to make painful, impossible choices,” she finally agreed. “That is why I made the choice I did today and broke my vow. Believe me, it wasn’t what I wanted, either.”

“No?” Morgana’s voice trembled like a leaf in cold wind.

“No.” Lorelei swallowed hard. “If I’d seen any other way to save us both … but I didn’t. So I would make that same choice again without regret.”

Her mother’s eyebrows arched in reproach. “You know I can’t set foot in the mortal realm.”