The House Of Gaian

messengers to warn the Clans east of here,” Varden said. “Won’t be enough Fae to stand against an army, not alone, but if they can get down the shining road in time, they may be able to save the witches in the Old Places and make sure a few less men arrive at Willowsbrook.”
    “What makes you think they’ll listen now when they never did before?” Liam asked.
    “Your sister is entertaining the Huntress and you ask me that?” Varden smiled grimly. “I doubt there’s a Clan in Sylvalan that wants Lady Selena looking in their direction—even more so when they find out what happened here today.” The smile faded. He shifted uneasily. “Besides ... we’re to blame for the Black Coats.”
    Liam straightened up and stared at Varden.
    “What are you talking about?” Donovan snapped.
    “The Black Coat almost escaped. He was wounded but he got away and got caught by Squire Thurston and the men the squire had gathered to come here to help you.”
    “How could a wounded man get away from a group of armed men?” Liam asked, wondering why Varden looked so sick.
    “He’d almost persuaded them to let him go when some of my men rode up. The Inquisitor’s Gift of persuasion works well on humans, but it doesn’t work on the Fae. We’ve the same gift, you see.”
    Donovan sank into the chair in front of the desk. “Inquisitor’s Gift of persuasion? They can persuade someone to believe what they want them to believe?”
    “They can. But since the gift comes from the Fae, we’re better at it—and we persuaded the Black Coat to tell us a few things.”
    “Varden, you make no sense.” A sick feeling churned in Liam’s belly.
    “He makes a great deal of sense,” Donovan said slowly, his eyes fixed on Varden. “He’s talking about magic, Liam. The Fae’s kind of magic. Which means the Inquisitors ...”
    “Are part Fae,” Varden said bitterly. He shook his head. “I never left a child in the human world, but I know plenty of men who enjoyed a girl until he’d filled her belly and then left her and never looked back.
    Among the Fae, a man sires a child, but it’s the woman’s Clan who raises it. But that’s not the way in the human world, and we understood that once—at least, understood it enough to provide gifts and bestow favors on the woman’s family so that having a child by a Fae Lord wasn’t something to be ashamed of.
    But things changed, and the Fae started abandoning the woman and child, making both outcasts among their own people. Outcast children, unwanted by either race, until someone recognized they had a power that could be shaped into a weapon.”
    “Mother be merciful,” Donovan said. “And some of those children would have been born of witches.”
    Varden nodded. “Fae Lords always found the women who lived in the Old Places appealing, even if we never understood who those women were.”
    “You provided the vessels for the Master Inquisitor to fill with his own fever of destruction,” Liam said. “
    Your people can shoulder the blame for abandoning the children and the women who bore them, Varden, but you didn’t shape them into what they’ve become.”

    “Which begs the question,” Donovan said. “If the Master Inquisitor was able to recognize a power he could shape to his will, what, exactly, is he ?”
    Silence.
    Liam stared at Donovan.
    Do no harm.
    Varden swore under his breath and turned away.
    “Witch’s Hammer,” Liam said quietly. “Does he hate what he once loved?”
    “Or what he once wanted to love him?” Donovan countered. “The son of a witch whose bloodline also carried the magic of the Fae?”
    “Whatever he is, he’s not just a human,” Varden said, turning back to look at them.
    “No,” Donovan agreed, “he’s not just a human.”
    Do no harm.
    Liam suddenly stood up, unable to stay in that room anymore. He wanted, needed , to see Breanna, to feel grounded again in that blend of practicality and power, that promise that being something more than just a human wouldn’t turn him into something monstrous.
    “I’d better see to my guest,” he said as he restrained himself from bolting for the door.
    As he opened the door, he heard Donovan ask, “What happened to the Black Coat?”
    And Varden’s heavy reply, “Baron, your people and mine are just getting to know each other and neither side feels easy yet. It’s better not to ask about some things.”
    Out of the study and down the hall to stand at the parlor’s closed door.