“It was more than dangerous.” Gus folded his hands in his lap, continuing to stare at his fingernails. “You wouldn’t have survived. The Faction would’ve targeted you before you became an adult, before you realized your full powers, and they would have eliminated you. When your mother came to me asking for my opinion, I gave it to her. She asked if it would be selfish of her to steal you away, to curse you so that nobody could find you until you were old enough to understand the risks yourself, and I told her no. I didn’t think it was selfish then, and I don’t think so now.”
“My mother cursed me herself…” I still couldn’t understand it. Not completely.
“I advised her to do it,” Gus said. “And I stand by my words. I helped her escape that night, though we couldn’t tell anyone else. I’m still sorry that your mother couldn’t say goodbye, but it was just too risky. If someone suspected, if someone interfered with the curse, all would have been lost.”
“What happened to her?” I swallowed. “Is she…alive?”
Gus blinked, once and then twice, before continuing. “The Faction realized what was happening as soon as she reached the mainland. They got to her, but it was too late for them to find you—the curse had already been enabled. Your mother was not as fortunate.”
“And my dad?”
“Lily, the man you grew up with is not your father,” Hettie said. “He was a decoy.”
I shook my head. “Excuse me?”
“Ainsley.” Hettie stepped forward. “You know the name?”
“Are you talking about my assistant from Lions Marketing?”
Hettie laughed. An actual chuckle. “I suppose.”
“What about her?”
“She is so much more than a marketing assistant,” Hettie said. “She is a Guardian.”
“I don’t understand.”
“MAGIC, Inc. is the name of our central governing body on the mainland. It stands for Magic and Guardians Investigative Committee. Ainsley works as a Guardian, and that means it’s her job to watch high-risk targets.”
“That’s impossible,” I said. “She only worked with me for a short time.”
“She’s been around,” Hettie said. “We learned of her after your twenty-fifth birthday. The curse was also a protective charm, and it meant that Ainsley was bound to you for the length of the curse—twenty-five years—and it was her duty to protect you from any and all harm.”
“That’s impossible,” I said again. “She’s not old enough to have been around that long.”
“Aging as a witch is much slower than aging as a human.” Hettie’s face turned mildly amused. “In Ainsley’s world, she’s only been watching over you for two years. She got the job on her twenty-first birthday, a young little pipsqueak. She just turned twenty-three.”
I frowned. “But what about Poppy and Zin? Are they my age?”
Hettie nodded. “The slow aging only begins as an adult. Children grow at the same rate as human children. It’s only once witches hit adulthood and full power—sometime between the ages of twenty and thirty—that the aging process slows. You, Poppy, and Zin are all just beginning the process, but Ainsley started early. Probably on her twentieth birthday, if I had to guess.”
“Back to Ainsley…” I said. “So, she has been watching over me my entire life?”
Hettie nodded. “Did a good job of it, too.”
“She’s magic,” I said flatly. “She knew about magic this whole time.”
Hettie nodded again. “More than you, I’d say.”
I frowned, trying to process. “Does that mean I can see her again if she already knows about this world?”
My grandmother waved a hand. “Of course you can. But let’s focus for now. Time for parties later.”
“Let me get this straight. The man I always thought was my father was a decoy. Who was he?”
“A Companion.” Hettie winced. “A shifter from the mainland who was tasked to protect you.” She gave me an apologetic expression. “I hear he wasn’t the most friendly soul. Sorry about that. But he turns into a bear, and I hear he’s pretty ferocious. You couldn’t see that part, of course.”
At this point, my mouth just hung open, and I gave up trying to make sense of anything. “Then who is my real father?”
Hettie shook her head. “I can’t answer that for you. I don’t know. Your mother never told us.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“We don’t have time for that story today,” Hettie said. “I’m sorry, you can talk to your aunts about that some other time, though they don’t know anything either.”