Queens of Mist and Madness (Fae Isles, #4)

by Lisette Marshall

‘So impatient, little dove.’ But she clucked her tongue at the hunched humans at her feet, as if commanding a flock of well-trained animals. ‘Go ahead, then, loves – show your darling Miss Emelin.’ Their Emelin? And then the first of them obediently lifted their hands to their hoods, and faces began to appear before me – panicked, tear-stained faces, but still alive, still in possession of their own bewildered eyes … Faces I knew. Faces of home. My heart caught in my chest. No, no, no – but there was old Miss Ariella who’d tucked sweets into my palm, and cross-eyed little Edie who was no longer so little at all, and Aldous, the blacksmith’s apprentice, whose hand language I’d used to teach Creon … Neighbours, dozens of them. Family friends. Nephews and nieces, and— My thoughts stuttered. And— There, at the centre of the low stage, positioned right below the Mother’s feet with impeccable theatrical precision, sat the two people I’d called my parents for twenty years of my life, clinging to each other, gaping at me in mute, terrified horror.