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I sank back into the chair across from him and put my head in my hands.

“It won’t take long,” he said quickly. “But it’s rather essential.”

I clenched my jaw. “Fine.”

“Great. I’ll get right to it.” He forced a smile. “Don’t worry, there won’t be a quiz.”

I glared at him.

“Right, right,” he said hastily. “So you’ve heard the story of the Bloodmaiden before?”

“She was basically the first highblood, and the other highbloods think she saved the world. Yes, I’ve heard of her, Rodriguez. I may be from another world, but I haven’t been living under a rock.”

“She’s important to this story.” He took a deep breath. “You see, there’s another version. The true one.”

I rolled my eyes. “How do I know it’s true?”

“What?” He looked confused.

“How do I know what you’re about to tell me is any more true than what the highbloods claim to be true?” I leaned forward. “Just because we’re the good team and they’re the bad team?”

“That’s a very oversimplified way of putting it. But, basically, yes.”

I sighed. I could mess around and argue with him for fun, but then this would take even longer. “Fine. Proceed.”

Rodriguez stood up and started to pace. I got the feeling he was wishing the room had a blackboard. “Very well. You already know the official story. In the midst of a great famine, the Bloodmaiden saved her family, nourishing them with her special blood, and raising up a new race.” He paused dramatically. “But what the story leaves out is that this all took place long before the Veil existed.”

That got my attention. “What does that mean, exactly?”

He shrugged. “The stories vary but it means that once Sangratha was once part of a larger world. And in this world, people like yourself were much more common.”

I stared at him. “People who were fae, you mean.”

He nodded. “The word fae is not always used, but yes, on that the texts agree. There may or may not have been a famine—some texts simply suggest the Bloodmaiden was an ambitious young fae woman who was experimenting with ways to reach immortality.”

Fae were already extremely long-lived so that just seemed greedy to me, though not surprising.

“In any case, the Bloodmaiden’s people—the fae—were horrified by the way in which she had saved her family using her own blood.”

“They were also probably a little annoyed by the fact that her family now wanted to feed on them,” I pointed out.

“Well, yes, fair point. Anyhow, she gathered together all those she had saved—”

“Her little highblood cult.”

“And she led this group of her followers and family to a distant land where they continued to reproduce. Time passed and eventually the new race was hardly recognizable as fae at all.”

I stared at him. “Wait a second, Rodriguez. Are you saying all highbloods used to be fae?”

“Essentially, yes. Of course, riders come from an offshoot of mixed fae and blightborn bloodlines. Another breed entirely, one might say.”

“Un-fucking-believable,” I breathed. Wait until Blake heard this. He’d already told me about what he’d learned from Viktor’s journals in the Black Keep. Then I grimaced, wondering if I’d ever get to tell him. I wondered if Orcades already knew.

“This would have been fine,” Rodriguez continued, “except the other fae decided this new offshoot could not be allowed to continue. They readied themselves to fight a great battle against the Bloodmaiden and her followers. But the Bloodmaiden, knowing her people were far too few to fight, used her terrible sorcery—”

I snorted. “Not that I want to defend the highbloods, but this story rather demonizes female ambition, doesn’t it?”

“She used her terrible sorcery,” Rodriguez continued, ignoring me, “and broke Sangratha off from the rest of the fae realm.”