“Promise me!” I screamed into her face, shaking her with desperation. “Please,” my voice cracked with another sob. Ever so slowly, she nodded, her mangled arms resting gingerly around my shoulders as she pulled me close. “I’m a coward,” she whispered. “My back, my mother, the fae realm. It was all too much.” I squeezed her back, and she trembled beneath me. “But I promise. For you and the girls. I promise.”
