16
THE ROAD TO BEDLAM
about, I’d been told to mind my own business. “She’s my daughter,” I had protested. “All the more reason that you shouldn’t ask.” “Have you told her about me being fey?” I asked her. “No. You’re her father. When the time is right, you should tell her.” Blackbird left me with that thought. I’d held off telling Alex about the gifts I’d inherited from our unknown fey ancestor and the possibility that she would also inherit them. I reasoned that it was partly because I didn’t really know whether it would happen or not, and partly because I dreaded what it might mean if it did. My own gifts came from my affinity with the void, an element that the Feyre believed separated one thing from another, preventing matter from collapsing in on itself. If Alex had inherited that from me then she would inherit the female form of the gift, an ability to become incorporeal, a ghostly shadow of herself, invulnerable to physical harm. She would also inherit darkspore, a corruption that she would be able to spread at will on any surface, allowing her to consume other beings and feed on their flesh. It wasn’t the best news a father could give his daughter. I imagined her reaction, the curling of her lip in that peculiar way as she elongated ‘eww’ into a whine. I smiled at the thought, but it had kept me from telling her. It wasn’t certain, though. I had also been told that humanity had introduced a random factor into the inheritance. The Feyre had long had problems with fertility. When they did have children they bred true, each to their element, their forms reflecting their differing affinities. When they discovered that the union