The healers who had diagnosed Camille’s mother didn’t have an explanation other than the circumstantial evidence that children born to two generations of unbound elves were dying fast. Marian’s parents and their parents had all been unbound, their offspring created through loveless unions. Camille had lost sleep wondering if that genetic legacy had played a role in her mother’s lifelong misery, only to culminate in her pitiful death.
Swallowing around a jagged lump in her throat, Camille asked, “And what have you found so far?”
Margot leaned back in her seat, her fingers half curled around the delicate handle of her teacup. Her angular features took on a look of frustration when she answered, “A lot and also nothing.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that in the effort to keep all of this a secret for so long, the actual pool of research is painfully shallow.” She heaved out a large sigh. “It doesn’t matter how much money you pour into something if you don’t have the right people looking into it. If the issue had been put on the medical radar across the world a hundred years ago, we might actually have an idea of how to help people by now. Or at least we could have warned you that elves were steadily poisoning their own population with unions.”
Camille held very still. She could feel her heart beating faster in her chest, the frenzied pulse echoing down to her fingertips. Guilt and anxiety twisted her stomach into knots.
Was she making the same mistake as her ancestors by pursuing a union with an elf who was unbound? Would her children suffer the same fate as her mother?
It didn’t matter that all available information pointed toward Camille herself being safe. Her parents were consorts, which seemed to wipe the genetic slate clean. But what about her own children?
“If we eliminated the need for pheromone binding in the first place, none of this would be an issue,” she breathed, thinking of her own torture, of the uncertainty of her future. Bitterness laced every word.
“I’m not sure that’s true.” Margot’s voice was prim, lacking any false sympathy or pity. When Camille glanced at her expression, she found it thoughtful. “And what I do know is that the better part of all that money and research has gone into trying to find a ‘cure’ for the pull — to absolutely zero success. The body needs hormones to function, Cammie, and you can’t turn off one without causing a ripple effect across the entire, complex system.”
Camille dug her capped claws into the edge of the table, the tips sinking through the white tablecloth all the way into the wood below. “How do you know for sure?”
Margot’s expression darkened into a grim mask. “Because I have access to highly confidential records, Cammie, and I can tell you that more than one team tried it.”
She sat back suddenly, cold astonishment stealing her breath. Camille wasn’t even aware of the kernel of hope that had existed, buried in her breast, until the life was snuffed out of it. “I…” She closed her mouth, only to open it again a second later. “What happened?”
“They died.”
Chapter Twelve
Margot looked away, her lips pressed into a firm, bloodless line. There was a lengthy pause as they both digested the grim truth.
When she spoke again, a thread of anger wove itself into her soft voice, “The results didn’t stop them the first, or second, or third, or even the fifth time. Six trials, all with desperate volunteers, ended with the death of the subjects due to rapid tumor growth, irregular hormone regulation, or heart attacks induced by shock.”
It was stupid, Camille thought, that she felt like crying over something that had never been a possibility to begin with. But she did.
Camille blinked hard several times and turned her face away, ostensibly to examine the beautiful restaurant but really to hide the devastation she knew was written across her face.
Her voice cracked when she said, “So there really is no hope.”
For her. For others like her.
The choice would always be impossible. Either you found a way to be with your consort or you suffered. If you dared to try and find some happiness on your own, you might very well doom those you loved to a miserable end at some indeterminate point in the future.
For her, there was no winning.
“I’m sorry, Cammie,” Margot murmured, soft and full of feeling. “I wish I could give you a better answer. I really, really do.”
She knew it hadn’t always been like this. Not everyone found their consorts even before the moratorium, after all. Was it simply that they had tipped the scales too far in their pursuit of isolation? Perhaps the poison couldn’t get a foothold when the majority of babies were born to bound couples, but when that number flipped…
We’ve cursed ourselves, she thought, assailed by grief and useless rage. Gods, there is no saving people like me.
A soft hand touched her arm, just above where her royal blue gloves ended. When Camille’s eyes darted up in surprise, she found Margot reaching across the table, her expression creased with concern. “Cammie, if you ever want to talk about—”
“Madam Solbourne.” One of her guards appeared by Margot’s elbow, his large, black-clad form bent slightly at the waist to speak near her ear.
Margot slowly removed her hand, though Camille’s skin tingled with warmth for several seconds afterward. Even when they weren’t actively healing, a healer’s touch was a balm.
She turned her head to look up at her guard. Her brows pinched with a look of obvious concern. “Yes, Aman? Did you or Erez want something to eat?”
Speaking through the distortion of the smoky glamour obscuring his face, the man Camille knew to be one of Theodore’s most loyal soldiers and the newly promoted Captain of the Consort’s Guard said, “No, madam. You have an unauthorized visitor requesting access to your table.”
Camille tensed, her eyes swinging toward the entrance. She couldn’t quite see anything except the shoulder of another Guard stationed by the maitre d’s little stand.
“Who is it?”
The glamour hid things like inflection, but Camille could swear she heard a note of annoyance — and the faintest southern drawl — in Aman’s voice when he answered, “Your brother, madam.”
Camille felt her eyebrows nearly hit her hairline. “Olivier du Soleil is here?”
“Ugh.” Margot looked vaguely dismayed. “Did he say why?”
“Only that he wishes to see you, madam. Would you like us to escort him away from the building?” Again, Camille thought she detected more than a hint of eagerness in that strange, inflectionless voice.
Margot made a soft sound of annoyance in the back of her throat. Shooting Camille an embarrassed look, she answered, “No, no, I should see what he wants.”
Aman nodded sharply before he rose to his full height and lifted an arm to gesture at the guard across the restaurant.
Margot leaned over the table to whisper, “I’m sorry. I had no idea he’d show up or else I would have said no to going out completely. If you want to leave, you can. I won’t blame you.”
“What is Olivier even doing here? Doesn’t he mainly stay in Malibu?” she asked.
A heavy sigh drifted over the table. “He bought a house here, Cammie.”