She hesitated, biting her lower lip, and I saw that there was something she didn’t want to tell me.
“What?” I said. “Please…whatever it is, I need to know.”
“Well, it might have worked if your mother hadn’t become pregnant with you,” she said at last in a low voice. “I am so sorry, my dear, but after that, Lorella diverted all of her power to protecting you and making sure the poison didn’t seep into your tiny body, developing inside her own.”
I felt sick.
“You mean I’m the reason my mother and father died?”
“No, of course not!” Lady Isella reached across the coffee table and took my hands in hers. “There was almost no chance for them, even to start with, my dear. The Wicked Apple is a poison so strong that nothing can cure it—not even true love.” She sat back and ran a hand over her sleek blonde hair. “I mean, maybe if Tarren had met Lorella and Blood-Bonded with her when she was first poisoned—it’s less strong to start with and grows over time, you know. But he didn’t—he fell in love with her weeks and weeks after Mab tricked her into taking that fateful bite…” She shook her head sadly.
“I wonder if that’s why Queen Elia begged me not to eat or drink anything while I’m here,” I murmured, still feeling shaken.
“Quite possibly—and it was good advice,” Lady Isella said firmly. “However, if you are hungry or thirsty, I have my flask and cloth with me.”
“Your what?” I frowned.
“It’s a kind of magic that imports food and drink directly from the Summer Court or the human world to the Winter Court,” Lachlan explained. “Mother has used it to feed me and herself for years. It’s one reason I look Fae instead of appearing to be what I am—which is half ogre.”
“I was so glad when you came out looking nothing like Grund,” Lady Isella said fiercely. She looked at me. “I can provide you with safe food and drink if you are hungry and thirsty, my dear. It’s the least I can do after you freed me from a most miserable situation.”
“Well…” I hesitated. I had been wondering how I could manage to go a whole day and a night without eating or drinking anything. I was certain I could go without food—I was used to going a whole day without eating much of anything due to the awful quality of the Norm food in the Dining Hall. But going without anything to drink for that long was another matter.
“You can trust my mother, Emma,” Lachlan told me quietly. “She would never betray you.”
“Oh, I know!” I said quickly. “It’s just that I promised my grandmother—Queen Elia—that I wouldn’t, that’s all.”
My stomach chose that moment to rumble. It had been a while since the decadent banquet, which I had barely tasted because I was so anxious. I clapped a hand over my stomach in embarrassment.
“I guess that answers the question if you’re hungry or not.” Lady Isella’s emerald eyes, so like her son’s, danced with laughter. “Here,” she said.
From some hidden pocket in her gown, she drew out a small blue and gold checked handkerchief and a tiny blue bottle with golden lines etched on it. She placed them on the black coffee table between us, pointed at them and commanded,
“Grow.”
The cloth and bottle began to grow until the handkerchief was almost the size of a tablecloth and the bottle was as big as a large milk carton.
“Now, then—what shall we have for our midnight feast?” Lachlan’s mother asked.
“Anything but fancy fairy food,” I said with feeling. After the banquet with its many courses and bewildering array of silverware in the Summer Court, I was longing for something familiar.
“What about food from the I Scream Diner, where Emma works in the human world?” Bran suggested.
“Agreed—their burgers and shakes are the best!” Lachlan said, nodding eagerly.
“All right, then—I don’t know what that kind of food is, but I love to try new things,” Lady Isella said. Pointing at the cloth, she commanded, “Fill yourself with delicacies from the human eating establishment called the ‘I am Screaming Diner.’”
“That’s the I Scream Diner, Mother,” Lachlan corrected her, grinning a little. “It’s a play on words because one of the foods they serve is ice cream—which is like a sweetened, frozen creamy dessert.”
“Oh, well…all right.” Lady Isella shrugged and addressed the cloth again. “Fill yourself with delicacies from the I Scream Diner at once.”
The cloth was suddenly filled with everything on the I Scream menu from hot dogs to onion rings to cheeseburgers to the all-important “Best Cuban Sandwich in the World!”
As the familiar smells drifted to my nose, my stomach rumbled again.
“Oh my—that smells divine!” Lady Isella sniffed, her delicate nose twitching at the scent of the hot food. “What should I fill the flask with?” she asked us.