Copper Ravens Read Online Free Page A

Luckily, Mom had been in the rare mood to share some of her history. It seemed that she had made quite a few enemies while she was queen of Connacht, back in her mortal days, and a fair few during her later days as the queen of the Seelie Court. “And that was how you ended up in Fairy?”
    â€œNot exactly,” she replied. “My mortal enemies grew to be more than my court could handle, so I retreated to a brugh.” A brugh , I then learned, was a fairy hill. A single night’s revelry under the hill could be as short as a day, or as long as a century in the Mundane realm’s timekeeping.
    Mom didn’t just party there. She became their queen.
    â€œDrink enough of their wine, and one’s mortality burns away,” she had explained. “Then the prior Seelie Queen, Eleanore, was killed, and I took up the throne.” I’d learned long ago that when Mom uttered innocent-sounding phrases such as “took up the throne,” she actually meant something along the lines of “I fought a long and bloody battle and killed all who opposed me.” My mom’s badass that way.
    â€œSo when did you decide to leave?” asked Sadie, who had literally been on the edge of her seat. Not that I blamed her, since a story about Mom’s past was a rare treat indeed.
    â€œI never decided, not one way or the other. Beau did that for me.” Mom smiled, gazing at a far-off memory. “He’d managed to infiltrate his way into the brugh , all yells and kicks. He was a scrappy boy, Beau was.” Sadie and I had laughed at that; around us, at least, Dad was anything but scrappy. “Once my guard captured him, he was dragged before my throne, this impertinent mortal with the greenest eyes I’d ever seen.”
    â€œLove at first sight!” Sadie squealed.
    â€œMore like love after his next bath,” Mom said. “After a few days of having your dear father around, I realized that my court’s magic would eventually overpower Beau’s, leaving him more fey than Elemental. I couldn’t let him lose his identity, so we slipped away.”
    â€œAnd your court never looked for you?” I asked. If Micah went missing, I had no doubt that all those of metal would overturn every rock and twig in the Otherworld in order to find him. Shep would follow, straightening things up in their wake.
    â€œI imagine they were too busy naming my successor,” Mom replied, in that way of hers that meant something a bit more involved had happened.
    â€œYou gave up being a queen for Dad?” Sadie asked, a bit awed.
    â€œOh, it wasn’t such a sacrifice,” Mom said. “I left behind a lonely life as a monarch for a husband and three wonderful babes. I’d make the same choice again a thousand times over, and I wouldn’t change a thing.”
    â€œEven though he’s gone now?” I ventured.
    â€œAye,” Mom murmured, tucking a length of hair behind my ear. “Even so.”
    As I remembered that short discussion, I wondered if I should go down to the gardens and try to talk with her. I mean, all of this moping disguised as meditating was getting us nowhere. In the midst of my internal debate, Max emerged from his room.
    â€œHey,” I greeted. All I got was a grunt in reply. “What’s up?”
    â€œNothing, yet.” Max shoved past me and made his way toward the kitchen. Not having anything better to do, I followed, then watched in utter amazement as he ate four bowls of oatmeal in the space of a few minutes, drained two truly enormous mugs of coffee, and then asked for a plate of eggs. It was like he was fattening up for hibernation.
    â€œWhere’s Micah?” he asked as he shoveled eggs into his mouth.
    â€œWith the bigwigs.” I picked at some bread. “And Sadie’s trying to build a library with the silverkin, and Mom is doing the strong and silent thing again, which means that I’m bored out