“So,” Fel started, now seated opposite me. “I assume you have some questions for me?”

  “Oh, loads,” I confessed. My mind was racing with dozens of things I wanted to ask. Could I learn to be so stably in one form? Could he help me figure out how to progress with my illusions, which I had been thoroughly stonewalled on for a short while now? Perhaps he could even tell me a little about the Feywild, which I had to admit I was curious about.

  However, ahead of all of these questions, each filled to the brim with practicalities or idle curiosities, there was one that rose to the top in an instant. One that I had been wondering about for over a year now, and had so far not managed to figure out on my own.

  “Are you my dad?” I asked Fel, watching his reaction closely.

  To his credit, he didn’t seem particularly taken aback by my question, but he also didn’t seem hugely prepared. “In a way,” he answered after a moment. “Parentage works differently for us, but I have enough of a grasp on human custom to say that it is… feasible.”

  “That’s not really an answer,” I pointed out.

  “I suppose not,” he admitted. “Perhaps… I suppose that I don’t see the harm in thinking of me that way. Although you are supposed to know your parents, are you not?”

  “Not always,” my Mum added. “Although it’s normally for the best.”

  “Right,” Fel concluded. “I don’t imagine I would fill the role well, but you are welcome to think of me that way if you so wish.”

  “Okay,” I said, filing that answer away for later. Unhelpfully, it seemed like I still needed to decide that one for myself, and I didn’t have the spare brainpower right now. “How about you, then? Tell me one thing about you.”

  Fel smiled. “Gladly. I am, among other things, the Master of the Hunt for the Crown. The fourth youngest in history, as a matter of fact.”

  “Bit of a mouthful,” my mother commented as I absorbed that information.

  “What exactly does that mean?” I asked, because I was curious. Sure, part of me wanted to jump straight to practical questions, but even if I’d never met him before Fel was an incredibly important person in my life. I felt like I could afford to indulge my curiosity right now.

  Fel chuckled. “Not much at the moment. I used to be in the Wild Hunt. I wasn’t the Master of the Hunt then, just a mere huntsman, but still. We haven’t run for a while, though.”

  “Why not?”

  “The closed borders,” Fel explained casually, like he wasn’t talking about the boundary between the planes. “The Crown decided that, as punishment for some misbehaviour, we weren’t to leave the realm for twenty years. Of course, that caused a bit of discontent, so we were let out a bit early, but no access to the material plane meant no hunt. The rehearsals just aren’t the same.”

  “Right. But you’re out now, so shouldn’t you be back hunting again?” I asked, because honestly I didn’t really understand half of what he had just said.

  “Ravia no! The next hunt is in… two years, two months and fourteen days. Every fifth winter solstice, like clockwork.”

  “What’s clockwork?” My mother asked.

  “Oh, nothing,” Fel waved her off. “Just one of those things you see across the planes. Although I do believe that you lot were pretty close before we were grounded, so you may have some here.”

  “Okay,” I interrupted. “Enough of the huntsman thing, we can get back to that later. When did the ban end?”

  Fel tilted his head. “Give or take four hours ago. Why?”

  “Just checking,” I dismissed. It was good to know that he had come straight here. It made me feel satisfied, somehow. “What about your abilities? I know mine, but I kind of want to know what I missed out on inheriting.”

  Fel grinned broadly. “Of course! As all fey do, I have access to the manipulation of the core three forces, that being mana, vitae and aether. I can also-”

  “Sorry, interrupting already,” I jumped in. “What exactly is aether?”

  “Not a problem. Aether is, in layman’s terms, the energy of the soul. May I continue?” He asked politely.

  “Of course, sorry.”

  My Mum stood up. “This conversation is already going over my head, and I think I’ve made my point. I’m going to make some tea for everyone. Just remember, if you do anything to my daughter, then I-”

  “Have nothing to worry about, Jenna. I promise.” Fel held her gaze. I wasn’t sure if my mother knew that true fey couldn’t lie, but I did.

  “I’ll be fine, Mum.”

  “Good,” she finished as she straightened up. “I’ll be back in a few.”

  As my mother shuffled off into the room with the fireplace to boil some water, Fel turned back to me. “Where was I? Oh, yes. I can manipulate the three core forces, I have the ability to take on and alter any form I desire, and the ability to travel between planes when the boundaries are sufficiently weak.”

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  “That’s… a lot,” I admitted.

  “I’m not done yet, young one. Those are the abilities that all of our kin possess. I personally was born of the Court of the Hunt, and as such boast the ability to bend the perceptions of others, find all that I may seek and, of course, I possess a set of instincts born of the most feared of predators. I have to admit, I am curious to know exactly what abilities you have inherited.”

  “Um. It doesn’t really sound all that impressive next to your list,” I faltered, a little self-conscious all of a sudden. I’d been feeling pretty powerful recently, but how did you beat that?

  “Don’t worry about me. I’m almost a thousand years old, of course I’m more capable than you,” Fel reassured me.

  “You’re how many years old?” I backtracked, shocked. “I thought making a changeling was a coming of age ritual?”

  Fel arched a single, pristine eyebrow. “Ah, yes. I understand mortals live to a mere one or two hundred years old, unless they’re completely exceptional. I have no idea how you get anything done.”

  First Noren turned out to be a teenager, now this. “Please tell me you’re still an adult in fey terms,” I begged. I really didn’t need an adolescent father.

  Fel scoffed. “Of course I am! We aren’t allowed out of the Wilds without supervision until we are matured, after all.”

  “Great,” I muttered. “Putting that aside, you asked for my abilities, right?”

  “Quite,” he agreed, nodding his head. “I expect you will have gained the ability to control one or two of the core forces directly, and you’ve clearly already inherited a rather powerful form of the shape-changing ability that we all possess to some extent.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “I can control vitae, and I also have illusions, but I’m not too great with them.”

  “You aren’t?” He asked, seemingly taken aback. “Why ever not? They should be innate to you.”

  “I know, they’re just… I don’t know, they don’t come out right. I can’t bend my mind around them correctly. I can copy stuff just fine, but making up new things is tricky,” I admitted easily. Illusions were easily my weakest skill, and I was only a little ashamed to admit it.

  Fel seemed to get lost in thought for a moment, before refocusing on me. “Could you do me a favour, Julianne? I have a theory, only I need to see more before I can be certain of it.”

  “Sure?” I answered. “As long as it isn’t anything bad.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly. Just… assume a form for me. Anything will do, but preferably something original. I wish to see the artist’s hands at work,” Fel requested, standing.

  I did the same and, after a moment, made the obvious choice and shifted into my war-form. Since he requested something original, I went for the iridescent shell I had originally used rather than the shifting pink and teal one that my body defaulted to.

  Fel studied me like a sculptor examining his magnum opus, even going so far as to pace around me to see me from several angles. It made me feel incredibly self-conscious, but I did my best not to squirm on the spot.

  “Might I ask what the purpose of this form is? And also, did you make it all yourself?” He asked after a while.

  “Yeah, mostly. I stole a lot of the component parts, and I took some advice from C- from a friend, but it’s pretty much mine. It’s for combat, mostly. I kind of shape it on the fly a lot, but I prefer to keep it as intended when I can.”

  “You do? I see. If I may ask, how do you feel about damage to your form? Do you restore it immediately, or do you allow it to remain if it doesn’t hinder your performance?”

  I pondered the question for a while, thinking over the times I had worn this form into battle. It had only really happened twice, plus a half-point for getting damaged when Noren broke that huge window breaking into the Fairworthy estate yesterday.

  “I… think I tend to restore it? I can’t say I’ve ever really thought about it,” I answered finally.

  “Yes, that does sound about right,” Fel murmured. “How about… Ah, yes. That does fit rather well.”

  “You mind sharing with the class?” I inquired, getting a little sick of being examined.

  “Of course, as you wish. I believe that you are… something. I can’t figure out the word for it in this language. The word for it we would use is Loighciúil. I suppose the closest translation would be Logical One,” Fel established.

  “Which means what, exactly?” I prompted, because I wasn’t quite sure where he was going with this.

  “Oh, it isn’t anything to worry about or anything. Just a… disposition. Very rare amongst our kin, but changelings specifically tend to inherit it far more often. It fits, though. You struggle with the creative side of illusions, this form which you profess to have made yourself is almost perfectly symmetrical where possible, and you dislike small, involuntary changes to your form, preferring to maintain your shape as you imagine it to be when possible. Does that sound correct?” Fel listed off several traits which… yeah, I could see how he got that from our conversation.

  “Pretty much?” I answered a little hesitantly, slightly overwhelmed by his pointing out so many of my behaviours. I hadn’t even realised most of this stuff, but my war-form was symmetrical, down to the fuzz that crowned my neck and shoulders.

  “You seem worried. You shouldn’t be, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. As I said, it’s simply a disposition, one of many. It makes you unique,” Fel reassured me, seemingly picking up on my discomfort.

  “Great, another thing to make me unique,” I grumbled. I was starting to get sick of things that made me stand out. I was the only changeling I was likely to ever meet, I was almost incapable of blending into a crowd, I could control vitae in a way barely anybody else could. Just once I wanted some traits that dozens of other people had, that I could ask for advice with and bond over.

  “What’s wrong with being unique?” Fel asked. “We all are unique, are we not? Not just fey, but humans too. Allegedly, anyway.”

  “Sure, but I keep standing out,” I complained before I could stop myself. I didn’t know why I was ready to pour out my woes onto Fel, but I felt like I could. Maybe it was the knowledge that he literally couldn’t lie to me, but he was surprisingly comforting to talk to, in a weird way.

  “Which is bad why?” Fel prompted. “I can’t speak for everyone, but I personally love standing out. Standing out is what got me my job, my place in life, in part it’s the whole reason you stand here before me.”

  “What do you mean,” I asked confused.

  “Well, technically I was a few years early to my solo trip out,” Fel admitted. “But I was trusted, because I was a known quantity. That was only the case because I stood out.”

  “And if you hadn’t come by when you did…” I let the words hang, not needing to be spoken. If Fel had left years later, I wouldn’t have made it through my infancy. “Oh.”

  “Quite. You needn’t love standing out, but it isn’t always a bad thing.”

  “I guess,” I conceded. I doubted that I would ever love the spotlight, but everything that made me stand out was a side-effect of something else that was more beneficial. I could stomach it for now.

  “Regardless, if you ever get really tired of it you could always steal someone else’s identity,” Fel joked, at least hopefully.

  “I’m probably not gonna do that,” I responded. “I appreciate the advice though.”

  “Any time, young one. I’m sure that you have a lot more questions, and I am willing to answer them for now though, why don’t we leave those for later? I would rather like to get to know you.”

  “Yeah, I think I can do that,” I answered him. Even if I’d only just met him, I quite liked the man already. He may not be father material, but he did kind of bring me into the world. With that in mind, I wanted to know more about him too.