The dream played over and over in my mind as I slept, like some subconscious part of me wanted to puzzle through it, knew there was more that I should have picked up on. There were bits and pieces that didn't make sense, things that hadn't fit together like they should.

Mostly, I was relieved that Calen didn't appear in my dream this time, and I wondered if it had to do with our torn soul mate Thread. If anything, the dreams were more helpful without the trauma of his murders to overshadow the important details about my magic. 

That didn't mean that the Moon Goddess's words made any sense, though.

I dozed on and off, bits and pieces playing here and there in my head. Then, one of the times I was in some sort of half-awake state between dreams and reality, I managed to latch onto something I'd glossed over before.

"... Sylvans were created over generations of funneling magic into humans..."

"... Sylvans were created..."

".... Magic into humans..."

My eyes snapped open, and I sat bolt upright in bed, throwing off the blankets as I moved. Things were too hot, too cold, too heavy all around me as the full weight of Moon Goddess's statement from my dream finally settled into my very bones.

"Sylvans were humans once," I gasped, eyes blown wide open.

Sylvans were humans before their magic changed their biology.

Sylvans were humans.

Not always, I supposed. Magic probably altered their biology over centuries, like allowing vampires to be able to drink and digest blood, or were-beasts to see perfectly in the dark even in human form. It altered their biology to form wings and long teeth, and then at some point they were no longer considered human at all, to the point that... that...

That they started hunting humans.

I hugged my knees to my chest, staring at a blank spot on the opposite wall as I wondered what caused the severe divide between humans and Sylvans in the first place. Why weren't there more hybrids, like witches, around? Why were witches intentionally created by the Moon Goddess rather than developing on their own?

Too many questions, not enough answers. Maybe I could find some of them in the Sylvan Library, but I wasn't ready to talk about it yet. I wasn't even sure that having answers to those questions of early history would make the present any different. It could wait. I was more concerned about something else the Moon Goddess had said...

"The strength of human biology," I repeated, testing out the phrase on my tongue.

There was something that I didn't understand, something I from the dream that I almost certainly missed. I knew it was there, I knew I should be able to catch it, but it wasn't happening. In fact, I was still stewing over it, my knees tucked to my chest and leaning against the headboard, when the door to my room swung open and Dante walked in.

It was unusual of him not to knock, and even more unusual that he closed the door behind him, sighed, and proceeded to lean against the door with his eyes closed for a long moment. I almost didn't want to disturb him, but he'd come here for a reason, and I was concerned.

"What's wrong?" I asked, pulling aside the duvet and patting the spot beside me. His eyes fluttered open and he glanced from me to the spot in the bed, but seemed to make up his mind rather quickly. Dante hesitated for just a moment, but then he kicked off his shoes and started to unbutton his stiff jacket.

"If I tell you this, you can't tell a soul," he said as he undid the gold buttons.

"I never heard a thing." I traced an "X" over my heart, mostly for effect and partly to lighten the mood. He seemed not just serious, but gloomy.

Dante shrugged off his jacket and hung it over the armchair, sliding into bed beside me in his plain white shirt and soft pants. I wrapped my arms around his waist on instinct, snuggling into his side, and he absentmindedly fiddled with my pink and purple hair.

"Another Sylvan child was born without magic," he said quietly.

I went still.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, blinking furiously as I glanced up at him. "A Sylvan child was born... human?"

"No, not quite," he mumbled. "The child is Sylvan, born to fully Sylvan parents, but they have no magic. It's a rare case, or it was, but it's becoming more and more frequent, and the Council is worried."

Based on the dream I'd had the night before, that meant the child was, indeed, human. However, I wasn't quite certain I was ready to explain all that to Dante. I wasn't even sure how to properly explain it in a way that made sense, not after centuries of human and Sylvan fighting, after centuries of Sylvans hunting humans!

I felt a little dizzy trying to process it all, honestly.

"How often does it happen?" I breathed. "And what... what happens to them?"

Sylvan magic was tied to their very existence. It was what gave them their long life spans, and their magic tied them to the Veil and allowed them to cross into Sylvan lands without extra assistance. It's why I had assumed that the child had been born human, but Sylvan biology was, in some cases, very different from humans. Some fae were born with inhuman skin colors, weres often had golden eyes and teeth that grew particularly sharp, and don't get me started on mermaids.

No, really, don't. We'd never lived near the coast, and lake mermaids weren't incredibly common. I didn't know much about them.

"You know the stories of changelings in human fairy tales?" Dante frowned as he spoke.

"I do, but they were rare—" I paused, suddenly understanding. "Oh."

"Yes," he confirmed, sighing. "Most often, the Sylvan parents would find the nearest young witch child to switch for their own. It gave them a family in the human world to help raise them without magic, while the Sylvan parents had a child who could still survive in a magical world."

"That seems fucked up," I muttered without thinking, and then clapped my hand over my mouth.

"No, I agree," Dante said, patting my shoulder. "More recent cases involve dropping babies off at human orphanages, which still isn't fantastic, but it's better than stealing a child and replacing them."

Something started to click into place as he spoke, like a flickering lightbulb in the back of my mind.

"How often does it happen?" I asked, my nose wrinkling as I pursed my lips.

"It used to be something like once in a century. Now it's closer to ten children every year— sometimes more, sometimes less, but generally it's increasing," he said.

That was an alarming increase. Stories of changelings dated back to the Medieval era and earlier, but to increase from once a century to several in a year was significant, even over a thousand years. Even over two thousand years!

"What's causing it?" I mumbled, half thinking out loud.

"I couldn't tell you, and neither can the Council," Dante huffed. "All we know for sure is that by another generation or two, the magic seems to resurface in their bloodline. They'll marry humans, of course, but then it almost seems like a witch spontaneously appears in the family."

I tossed that information around in my mind for a minute, but it did make sense, and... And it would explain exactly what the Moon Goddess tried to tell Ataraxia in my dreams. If magic died off over time only to resurface later, then the lack of it wasn't a product of the magic itself disappearing. It was like old attempts royal families made to keep the bloodlines pure by marrying within the families. Obviously, now we knew that inbreeding meant there wasn't enough genetic variation over generations to—

Wait.

Something did click into place then. Magic, bloodlines, traits resurfacing after becoming dormant—this wasn't just a problem of magic. This was a problem of science.

"It's the gene pool," I whispered, more to myself than anything.

Intermarriage, historically, made offspring weaker. It was better to introduce variants into the gene pool to keep people strong, and to make sure they didn't end up with serious health issues caused by overlapping genetics. Obviously, Sylvans weren't all marrying their cousins, but if a species stayed within itself long enough and didn't vary, it might cause problems over time.

What if Ataraxia was supposed to hold onto magic so humans could re-introduce it into the Sylvan gene pool, and then share magic among humans and Sylvans?

"What on earth are you talking about?" Dante stared at me, blinking very slowly.

Witch families had this problem, too, I realized. Witches seemed to get weaker and weaker as generations went on. In theory, my mom wasn't as strong as my grandma. I wasn't going to be as strong as either of them unless something dormant popped up or some anomaly occurred— and it did. My dad was a Sylvan.

I glanced at Dante. He was the strongest healer I'd ever seen, and I was willing to bet that wasn't all he could do with his magic.

"You're part vampire and part fae, right? Is there any chance you've got human or witch in you?" I asked, working off a hunch.

He seemed to think for a moment, thankfully humoring me rather than asking too many questions all at once.

"It's possible, yes," he admitted. "There was a rumor that my real grandfather was a human man, not the Sylvan that my grandmother married for political reasons, but no one was ever able to prove it."

I took a deep breath and finally uncurled from my seated position, carefully letting my legs dangle so I could test my weight. My health still wasn't fantastic after the Thread cutting incident, but I was getting stronger every day, and I needed to go somewhere.

"What are you doing?" Dante stuttered, immediately on his feet to support me. My legs shook, but I was able to stand.

"I'm going down to the Council," I said firmly. "I have to talk to them, and I have to do it now."