If the sarcasm got any thicker, I was going to need a shovel. “Maybe if you’d try to help instead of attacking me all the time, we’d get better results. What’s this about a hill?”

“Maybe if you knew what you were doing, you wouldn’t need my help!” She glared at me. I glared back. Maybe she’d just lost her best friend, but that didn’t excuse her behavior; trauma only works as an excuse for so long. There’s a point when you have to take back the responsibility for your own actions.

“You’re riding us pretty hard for someone that doesn’t have any answers. It’s a little suspicious that the things that keep going wrong are all Coblynau technology.”

“You got a reason I shouldn’t ride you hard? You come here with your little pretty boy, sucking up to Jan, acting like it’s going to be okay now that your precious liege is involved—weren’t we good enough to save before he cared?”

“We didn’t know you were in trouble. No one told us what was happening here.”

“That’s not good enough!”

“It’s going to have to be good enough, because it’s the truth. I’m sick of you treating me like crap, and Quentin even worse, just because you’re scared.”

“You should have known something was wrong. Your precious purebloods should have figured it out.” Her eyes were bright with past hurts and anger. “Isn’t that what they’re for?”

“You don’t like the purebloods much, do you?”

“What was your first clue?” She turned her face away. “I’m just returning the favor.”

It’s not unusual for changelings to be resentful. Hell, I’m resentful. Our immortal parents get the best of Faerie and take what they want from the mortal world, and we get the things they let us have. Even so, the level of her resentment was unusual. She almost burned with it. “Mind if I ask why?”

“Yes,” she said, curtly. Then, in a quieter voice, she said, “Mom was pureblooded Coblynau. Dad was a changeling, and I was an accident. I’m just mortal enough that the mines won’t have me, and I’m not mortal enough for the mongrel workshops. You want to spend your life getting screwed? Try mine on for size.”

I winced. “You’re right. That sucks.”

The Coblynau make their homes in deep mines, deeper even than the Dwarves and the Gremlins. Being a changeling made Gordan unsuited for a life lived entirely at those depths. Being more fae than human, on the other hand, would make her too sensitive to iron to deal with the changeling workshops, and get her eyed with suspicion in the border communities. It was a tough break, no matter how you wanted to slice it.

“You have no idea.”