Moira let out a sigh and shook her head, muttering under her breath, while the Orcish Erudite rolled her eyes. Henry tilted his glass in my direction.

"Don't mind me or Feat. As part of the agreement, we both have to keep a simulacrum in this room at all times. All the real negotiations are going on in the throne room. Moira was just waiting for you and her kid."

"Come on, then," Moira said, giving me a gentle smile. "We can meet with my husband at the hotel, and tomorrow we can head up to your school."

Convincing the guards to give me Salem's stuff had been a hassle and a half, forcing us to backtrack to the room and get Henry to confirm that Salem had actually been possibly kidnapped by an ancient witch.

"So, what exactly are your intentions with my son?" Moira asked as we stepped out onto the street. I'd thought that getting Salem's stuff had been a pain, but all of the sudden, I wished that I'd been able to argue with the guards for longer. Maybe even all night, until Elder Tywyll returned Salem to us.

I took a slow breath to steady myself, then glanced at Moira, pressing my lips together and working out what I was supposed to say, what I needed to say, and what I actually wanted to say.

"We've only been dating officially for about two weeks now," I said. "That's not a terribly long time."

Moira inclined her head to me, like a fencer acknowledging an opponent who had managed to score a point. That analogy didn't exactly comfort me…

"But with that said, I don't intend for this to be a quick fling," I continued. "I respect Salem too much for that. I can't honestly say that I'm planning to ask for his hand in marriage or anything of the sort. It's been two weeks. But I'd also be lying if I said that I hated the idea. Not now, of course. But at some point far, far in the future? After Salem and I have graduated, and we're both fifth circle mages, and have had a few years together while we're not in school? It's something to consider."

Moira studied me for a moment, and I felt pinpricks of sweat breaking out under my collar.

"That's not the answer I wanted to hear," she eventually said. "But it's also not a bad answer. It's honestly probably the best realistic answer I could expect. I'm glad you're taking him seriously. He's a bright young man, and has a good future ahead of him."

"Absolutely," I agreed, bobbing my head. "He's already figured out ways to use his affinity magic to modify spells in a way that puts me to shame. Projecting the output of his own divinations into the minds of allies is the kind of thing…"

We wandered down the streets, talking about Salem, until we arrived at the hotel she'd picked, the Silver Quill. It was a fancy hotel, far fancier than I'd expected out of Salem's family – after all, they were functionaries for the Elder Council, not actual members of it.

"I'm just glad you didn't ask me about being a Dreki and dumping money on him," I admitted as we headed to the restaurant inside of the Silver Quill, a nervous smile ticking at the corner of my face. "I admit, that was one of the fears I have when it comes to dating anyone."

Moira's foot froze in midair, and she missed a step, toppling down the stairs. I drew on a touch of fire and caught her before she could fall, returning her onto her step.

"You're… a Dreki?" she asked, her voice hoarse and quiet.

"Uh? Kind of?" I said. "It's complicated. Did Salem really not tell you?"

"Salem said you'd angered the Matriarch and been forced to flee the isle, only winning your freedom in Holmgang recently."

"That's… true," I admitted. "But it's also incomplete. Why don't we go meet your husband, and I can explain?"

Moira nodded mutely and led me deeper in, where a small man, shorter than I was, with green eyes and a scent like ink and leather was sitting, eyes shifting nervously around the restaurant. Upon seeing his wife with a strange man, he cocked his head to one side, but rose to greet me.

"My name is Alloren," he said. "You must be Emrys of White Sands."

His accent was slightly strange, but not in the way that Moira's was. While she'd clearly trained to speak Ceyish with as little of an accent as she could, Alloren's voice was clipped and short, while also being unsteady. It was almost like someone being handed phonetic cards in a language they did speak, and reading off those cards to say words in a language they didn't know. Technically, everything was correct, but there was still something… off.

"Pleasure to meet you sir," I said, shaking his hand and surreptitiously taking a sniff of the air around him. He smelled normal enough, just a were-raven, though judging by the rougher, slipshod scent, one that had been turned later in life as opposed to being born. "Salem was taken by Elder Tywyll, which is why he's not here."

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"Ah. She does that. At her age, you get to be a bit… unusual. It's well earned."

"How old is she?" I asked curiously.

"I'm not sure. Some people say she's from the Age of Sunder, but others say she's only around eight hundred," Moira said as we took our seats. "That's not important, though. You said you're a Dreki, but that the Dreki family hates you?"

"I think it's a little more complicated than that now," I admitted, picking up some of the bread that the servers had put on the table and taking a bite. "It began when I was young…"

I told them an abridged version of my own past, skipping over some of the less savory parts, like how the Matriarch had forced me to eat the charred remains of my childhood friend, while leaving enough of a gap for them to read between the lines. I described running off to the northern Holds, and how I'd encountered my siblings, forcing me to run further south to White Sands. How I had learned wizardry from hedge witches, wandering wizards, and even someone who called himself a druid, despite not using any form of life enforcement.They listened, nodding along, and Alloren even let out a chuckle at hearing the wizard who was pretending to be a druid.

"It's common in areas with less of a connection to Etherius," he said. "People don't have access to the powers or training that come in high-ether density regions like here or Hydref. They use words, not knowing what they mean."

"Alloren's father was a druid, which is probably why it's so amusing to him," Moira explained, and I nodded. That made more sense. I was about to open my mouth to ask more about the branch of magic that I knew so little about when I noticed that Alloren's face had grown sour.

"Fat lot of good that he ever did us," Alloren said. "May his soul rot in the hells."

I must have not done a good enough job of hiding my surprise, because he gave me a thin-lipped smile.

"Apologies for that. It is, by and large, his fault that our son is infected with the strain of aberrant magic that he's been forced to deal with."

"I was under the impression that it was Elder Tywyll's, if I'm being honest," I said. "I seem to remember Salem saying something about her helping form his seal because she was partially responsible."

"She was, in her way," Moira said, her own smile growing somber. "That's how she became his godmother. In her own words, she took away his grandfather, so she would need to step up to become his godmother. As equal of an exchange as she could manage."

"I see," I said. "Salem hasn't told me everything that happened yet, but–"

"I will," Moira cut me off. "I'm sorry, but you've faced off against his form twice now."

"Once, the second was–" I started to say, but once again, she cut me off.

"Close enough. I'll be having words for not telling you sooner. You should know."

I shifted uncomfortably, but I didn't protest.

"How familiar are you with interactions between life enforcement and bloodline magic?" Alloren asked.

"A touch. I know much more about cultivation than druidic magic."

"A saying that's true, if oversimplified, is that cultivators focus life force internally, while druids focus life force externally. I don't know much about cultivators, but cultivation tends to absorb bloodline magic to strengthen itself, does it not?"

"There are issues of compatibility, but yes," I agreed. "I'm guessing that druidic magic can be used to empower a bloodline?"

"Exactly," Alloren said, sighing. "I had used the first circle ritual to ensure Salem's bloodline had Moira's strength and more, and wasn't tainted by my own."

"And as a gift at a baby shower, Elder Tywyll gave me a potion to increase the likelihood my child would be a psychic. She claimed that she herself was a threefold practitioner of hag magic, wizardry, and psionics, and that Salem could be the same," Moira added.

It took me a second to parse that, as the idea of any fae, let alone a hag, giving a gift was incredibly strange to me and set off a mental warning bell. After a moment, though, I realized why and how: the baby shower. The rules of host and guest were very powerful for faerie magic, and by attending a baby shower without a gift to be used for the baby, she would have been in violation of her duties as a guest.

"That's where my father ruined things," Alloren said. "My father approached with a plan to use his druidic magic to empower our unborn child's bloodline, and the both of us agreed. We had thought that we were doing the best to set up our child. Were-creature bloodlines aren't the strongest, but with so much empowerment, as well as psychic powers to call upon, we thought he might be an exception."

"The potion had an unintended interaction with druidic magic, however," Moira continued. "The potion, apparently, had already made strange alterations to Salem's nature. Children are heavily resistant to the Creep, but ancient druids?"

"This is where my father earns my ire," Alloren said, picking up the story. "He found the alterations, and sought to copy them into himself by binding his life force directly to Salem's. Apparently, a century of druidic magic wasn't enough for him. He thought with the binding, he'd be able to slip Magyk's normal limitations on growing pool size after twenty-five, and could become a psychic as well."

"I said no," Moira said, and her normal control cracked a bit, letting the anger leak into her voice. "He did it anyway, and transformed into a horrible… thing. A mass of strings made of vines and bones, with feathers making up a face. Elder Tywyll appeared and severed their bond, then killed the aberrant, but the damage was done. Traces of aberrant magic had slid into Salem's life force, and thus, merged with his bloodline."

I pursed my lips, then shook my head. I was glad to know, but I also hoped Salem wouldn't be too mad at his parents for telling me, or at me for not protesting harder. I'd put up a token effort, sure, but I had really wanted to know.

"I'm sorry to hear that. It explains quite a bit. But I want you both to know that, even if we're unable to find a way to remove the aberrant taint, I care for Salem. I'm not going to leave him, even if it fails."

"Consume bloodline?" Alloren asked. "I'm far too weak to cast it myself, but I did consider it."

"That's the leading idea," I nodded. "There just aren't an abundance of sixth circle mages about to be executed that could cast it. But I also have a curse affinity, and it incorporates sealing curses."

We talked for a little while longer about solutions, but eventually the conversation turned to lighter fare, and we had a pleasant enough evening.

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