Rosier looked confused. “If he didn’t inherit my power, what would he have been?”
“Your son!”
Damn it, just when I began to think Rosier might have some redeeming qualities, he pulled something like this. And he wasn’t lying; it was all over his face. He would have left a powerless child on earth, alone, with no explanation for his existence or further contact. He’d have written him off and moved on to the next experiment, and God knew Pritkin might have been better off if he had! But I knew what it was like to grow up questioning. To search out any clues to who you were and where you came from. To always wonder—what had they been like? Had they loved you at all? Had they—
Damn it!
“Did you even take him to see her grave?” I asked, after a moment.
“Whose?”
“Morgana’s. Morgaine’s.”
“What?”
“His mother’s grave. When you came back to claim him, did you—” I cut off. Because Rosier was suddenly looking . . . blank. Extremely blank. The kind of blank used by Vegas cardsharps and secretive vamps, which was a little odd on the face of someone whose coin in trade was emotion. “You didn’t, did you?”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Her grave isn’t on earth.”
“Where is it, then?”
“I assume it’s in Faerie.”
“You assume? You didn’t bury her?”
Rosier found an expression. It was crabby. “No.”
“Who did?”
“I have no idea.”
“You have no idea? She gave you this wonderful gift, the son you’d been wanting for centuries, and when she died, you didn’t even—”
I cut off.
“She . . . did die . . . right?” I asked slowly.
“Of course.”
“You saw the body?”
“Not
. . . exactly.”
“What do you mean, not exactly? You told Pritkin his mother was dead.”
“She is.”
“How do you know that if you didn’t see her?”
“I was told she would almost certainly—”
“You were told? By who?”