Luca said, “Yes, but I’ve got years until I learn whether I’ve met their qualifications.”
Years. Years? Maeve couldn’t mean for her to be here that long. She looked at Emrys. “How long have you been training?”
The old man snorted. “Oh, I was about fifteen when I came here, and worked for them for about . . . ten years, and I was never worthy enough. Too ordinary. Then I decided I’d rather have a home and my own kitchen here than be looked down upon in Doranelle for the rest of my days. It didn’t hurt that my mate felt the same way. You’ll meet him soon enough. He’s always popping in to steal food for himself and his men.” He chuckled, and Luca grinned.
Mate—not husband. The Fae had mates: an unbreakable bond, deeper than marriage, that lasted beyond death. Celaena asked, “So you’re all—half-breeds?”
Luca stiffened, but flashed a smile as he said, “Only the pure-blooded Fae call us that. We prefer demi-Fae. But yes, most of us were born to mortal mothers, with the fathers unaware they’d sired us. The gifted ones usually get snatched away to Doranelle, but for us common offspring, the humans still aren’t comfortable with us, so . . . we go here, we come to Mistward. Or to the other border outposts. Few enough get permission to go to Doranelle that most just come here to live among their own kind.” Luca’s eyes narrowed on her ears. “Looks like you got more human in you than Fae.”
“Because I’m not half.” She didn’t want to share any more details than that.
“Can you shift?” Luca asked. Emrys shot him a warning look.
“Can you?” she asked.
“Oh, no. Neither of us can. If we could, we’d probably be in Doranelle with the other ‘gifted’ offspring that Maeve likes to collect.”
Emrys growled. “Careful, Luca.”
“Maeve doesn’t deny it, so why should I? That’s what Bas and the others are saying, too. Anyway, there are a few sentries here who have secondary forms, like Malakai—Emrys’s mate. And they’re here because they want to be.”
She wasn’t at all surprised that Maeve took an interest in the gifted ones—or that Maeve locked all the useless ones out. “And do either of you have—gifts?”
“You mean magic?” Luca said, his mouth quirking to the side. “Oh, no—neither of us got a lick of it. I heard your continent always had more wielders than we did, anyway, and more variety. Say, is it true that it’s all gone over there?”
She nodded. Luca let out a low whistle. He opened his mouth to ask more, but she wasn’t particularly in the mood to talk about it so she said, “Does anyone at this fortress have magic?” Maybe they’d be able to tell her what to expect with Rowan—and Maeve.
Luca shrugged. “Some. They’ve only got a hint of boring stuff, like encouraging plants to grow or finding water or convincing rain to come. Not that we need it here.”
They’d be of no assistance with Rowan or Maeve, then. Wonderful.
“But,” Luca chattered on, “no one here has any exciting or rare abilities. Like shape-shifting into whatever form they want, or controlling fire”—her stomach clenched at that—“or oracular sight. We did have a female wander in with raw magic two years ago—she could do anything she wanted, summon any element, and she was here a week before Maeve called her to Doranelle and we never heard from her again. A shame—she was so pretty, too. But it’s the same here as it is everywhere else: a few people with a pathetic trace of elemental powers that are really only fun for farmers.”