Kevin Quinn looked far better than he had the last time I'd seen him three years ago. I blinked slowly and looked him up and down. He might even look better than I had ever seen him. His wild curls were tamed into submission, and his clothes actually fit his slim figure. In fact, the only thing he shared with the man I'd said goodbye to was the sad smile on his face as he waited for me to say something.

"Looks like you iron your clothes in your new life," I snapped, pushing his hand away and standing.

"Luna, please calm down. I can explain."

"Calm down?" My voice reached a shrill octave. "You dare ask anything of me right now? Tell me something, Dad. Did you think about this moment? Where I found out you were alive?"

"All the time," he said in a whisper.

The surrounding Fae muttered under their breath, and I looked over my shoulder to see Kinley was waking. A bit of relief stole through my anger. I was glad I hadn't killed her.

Looking back at my father, I said, "And I bet you imagined me falling into your arms, weeping with joy?"

Honestly, if someone had asked me how I would respond to finding out my father was alive before I actually discovered he was alive, I probably would have told them just that. There were few things I had wanted more in this world than another moment with my father, but now I knew seeing him came at the cost of my trust.

Unless...

"This isn't some sick joke, is it? You're not glamoured to look like my father?"

"No, Luna. I'm not." He held out his hand, and when I refused to take it, he sighed. Then pointed toward a door to the far left. "Let's go in here and talk."

"Kevin," Nas shouted. "She should be thrown into the cells. She's dangerous."

"I was provoked," I snarled.

"You were throwing a temper tantrum over your mate—"

"Nas, enough." Kinley sat up with a groan. She held onto him as she looked at me. "I'm sorry for what happened."

Her apology caught me off guard, taking some of the heat out of my anger. "Just don't do it again."

She laughed, then winced. "Oh, I wouldn't dare try. Dream Weavers know better than to tangle with other Dream Weavers."

A collective gasp spread through the room. My father didn't look surprised, and I realized that shouldn't surprise me. The man had kept secrets from me my entire life.

I followed my father into a small office. He turned on the lights and closed the door quietly. There wasn't much in the way of furniture. A single wooden desk with two rickety chairs on either side of it, and a lumpy, beige loveseat pushed against the ship lapped wall.

My father sat in the chair behind the desk, and I opted for the sofa, preferring lumps over proximity to a betrayer. My aching bones protested almost as soon as I plopped down, and I shifted a few times to find a spot that didn't have a spring poking through the worn material.

"I have a first aid kit," he said, pulling open the top drawer.

"I'm fine."

I scrubbed at my chin and bits of blood flaked off. My tongue felt slightly too big for my mouth and talking made it sting. In Faerie, these wounds would have healed already. It was far worse feeling weak now that I had tasted actual power.

"Are you going to tell me why you faked your death?"

Instead of answering, he said, "You found your way into Faerie."

That confirmed whether he knew the truth or not. "I did."

"I shouldn't be surprised because you always had a tendency to be drawn to dangerous things."

"I tried not to be," I blurted out. Then added softly, "For you."

"Baby girl..."

He slid his glasses off and cleaned the lenses with the edge of his t-shirt. It was a small thing, but it was very much a him thing. And I felt the first crack in my walls.

"I'm sorry that you felt you had to change for me. If I could go back and do it over again, I would hide my fear better."

"You just wanted to keep me safe."

His glasses slid back up his nose. "I did, but I didn't understand the cost until much later."

"What cost?"

"I made you weak. When your mother brought you to me, you were such a magical creature. Skin clear as glass. Ears so pointed they hurt to touch. Little fangs, and the tiny wisps of wings. I couldn't take you out in public until you were almost three. That was when you first understood it was dangerous to take off your cardigans or move your hair behind your ears. I was so proud of you, but the more cautious you became, the more you changed. With every passing year, you became more and more like a human."

I knew the creature he described. She was who I had become in Faerie. I thought the Coire had changed me, but apparently, she had been inside of me all along.

"Dad, please. Who is my mother?"

With a sigh, he ran his hand through his hair. "Let me start at the beginning."

He slid his glasses down his nose and dropped them onto the desk. The sight of him rubbing the space between his eyes, the way he always did when gathering his thoughts, sent an ache pinging through me. How many times had I sat across from him watching him do the exact thing while I waited for a lecture about being impulsive or careless? Then I had held my breath, dreading the words he would speak, but now I fought to swallow the huff of impatience that pushed against my lips.

The office chair creaked as he leaned back in it. Folding his hands across his stomach, he stared at a point behind my head, and I could almost see him walking backward through his memories. Emotions flitted across his face, and at last, he exhaled and focused on me.

"Did you know I was in a band when I was younger?"

I crinkled my nose. "Like a marching band, right?"

Dad barked a laugh. "No. Like a rock band. I was the lead guitarist."

"No..." I shook my head. "I've learned a lot about you today, but that's one thing I cannot imagine."

"I know, I know. But it's true. Even had hair down to here." He waved a hand toward his shoulder. "Drove the women nuts."

No matter how I tried to form that version of him in my mind, I couldn't do it. As soon as it started to come together, it was replaced by the man who raised me. With his mustard stained sweater vests, perfectly trimmed hair, and sensible glasses. Across from me, my father smiled as if he knew exactly what I was thinking, and that familiarity grated against the fresh wounds his deception had created.

"What does this have to do with my mother?" I asked impatiently, dragging my toe along the scarred wooden floor as I refused to look him in the eye.

He cleared his throat, and the smile vanished. "Everything. You see, we were actually really good. Really, really good. The only problem was none of us were great songwriters, and to stand out, we needed to write our own music."

"I met your Uncle Luke—"

"Don't you mean Nas?"

"I didn't know his true self until much later, but whether he goes by Luke or Nas, he is still a good friend. A brother."

A vindictive part of me debated telling him what his brother had suggested doing to me in the woods. My father may not be the man I thought he was, but he had always been wildly overprotective when it came to me and boys. My first kiss happened when I went to college because he could no longer chaperone my dates. I can't imagine he would take kindly to hearing Nas would bend me over the moment I asked him to do it.

"Fine." I crossed my arms over my chest. "Was Uncle Luke part of the band?"

"No. He was an agent, and he had someone he wanted to introduce me to. Said she was the best upcoming writer in the business, and if we meshed, then he would sign us."

"My mother?"

Dad nodded. "She walked into that room that day, and I swear all the air fucking disappeared."

His voice went ragged, and he paled. Gripping the arms of his chair, his knuckles turned white, and his pupils grew until the black swallowed the green. I knew this look. This was a man consumed by his need for someone.

No. Not just someone. I gasped.

His mate.

"Dad..."

He stood up and walked over to a bookshelf. He ran his fingers along a row of books, stopping on a dark brown journal. It slid free with a whisper of leather, and he opened it as he settled back in his chair.

Voice shaking, he said, "She went by the name Ashley. She seemed as floored by me as I was by her. But let me tell you, that didn't make any sense. She looked like a goddess, and I was...well, I was me. A nerd with long hair who could play the guitar."

There was a long pause. Then he handed me the journal. I took it, flipping open to the middle of the book, and running my fingers over the words. Dad's handwriting was hard edged and precise. These letters looped and slanted, sometimes crowding together when the writer was about to run out of room. Sometimes it changed in the middle of a sentence, swapping from cursive to print and back. No rhyme or reason was evident.

"My mother wrote this?"

"She did. You'll find some of her songs, but most of it is a diary. She wrote in it constantly. Almost obsessively, as if she had to chronicle everything." A dimple popped in his left cheek as his lips quirked to the side. "She spent an hour writing about the first hot dog she ate."

I snorted and reminded myself to find that entry later. After eating such delights, I wondered what she thought of such a human food. Calix would—My gut clenched. He was here somewhere. Held in Kinley's spell, and I was getting distracted.

I closed the journal. "I'm guessing your artistic partnership didn't work out unless you'd like to confess to living a double life as a rockstar - not that I would be surprised at this point.""

Dad blushed. "It might have, but we were, um, too busy with other things that summer."

The old Luna might have shivered with disgust to hear her father allude to his sex life, but the Fae within me only acknowledged it as natural. If they were truly mates, they would have done little else. I wondered if she meant to get pregnant, or if the magic Calix used to protect us wouldn't work the same way in the human realm.

"When did you discover her true nature?"

"She was about seven months pregnant with you, and she had been looking tired for a while. I assumed it was the pregnancy. Luke came over for dinner, and he took her aside. They argued for a long time, and then she told me she needed to go back to her home. Just for a quick visit, but that I couldn't come. You can imagine that didn't go over well."

"No, I imagine it didn't."

"She vanished in the middle of the night, and two days later, Luke showed up." Dad wiped a tear from his eye. "He wasn't alone. You were in his arms. Too big to be premature, and too beautiful and fierce to be human. When I refused to accept what he said, he revealed his true form."

"Did he say why she didn't come back?" I knew the answer. If she was one of the Ancient Ones, she was frozen in the temple, her power forever feeding the Vow.

"He said there was turmoil in their homeland, and since she was a member of the royal family, she had to stay behind. That's how he got stuck here. By the time he brought you to me, the veil had been sealed."

Poor Nas. It was almost enough to make me feel sorry for him.

"He also gave me something for you. Look at the back of the book."

Eagerly, I turned to the last page. There was a simple cream-colored envelope with the name Luna written across it in the same chaotic handwriting as the wrest of the journal.

"I've never been able to open it. Nas said she spelled it so only you could."

Without another moment's hesitation, I tore open the envelope and pulled out a single, thin sheet of parchment. Written in the middle was a single word.

A name.

Aisling.