Manifestations of the problem. He said it so formally, so abstractly. A child is born unable to walk because a fae chose to impregnate a human woman. That child’s condition is nothing more than a somewhat regrettable side effect. Like breeding cattle experimentally. Eventually, you’re going to get one with a fifth leg, but the risk won’t stop you from breeding them.

I hated their attitude. But did I hate them for it? No. They interbred to survive.

“We’ve confirmed Olivia had this condition,” Gabriel said. “It has been verified beyond any doubt. But you knew nothing of it.”

“We knew nothing of Liv,” Patrick said. “Not until the Larsens were arrested. Then we realized that the girl was our Mallt-y-Dos. Which is why the elders facilitated her adoption. Hiding her until she was old enough to bring home to Cainsville.”

“The leak,” I said. “My identity. The Tylwyth Teg leaked—”

“Certainly not.” Patrick looked affronted. He might hold himself separate from the others, but he was still one of them. “We would not orchestrate such a debacle. It was careless and thoughtless, and could as easily have driven you to Peru as to Cainsville. I’m sure the elders would point fingers at the Cwn Annwn, but if pressed, they would admit it was too clumsy and dangerous for them as well. I don’t doubt that whoever leaked it wasn’t entirely human, but it was not one of us. Back to your condition, though. We had no knowledge of that. You were a healthy, happy child when we found you, and we had no reason to think you’d ever been otherwise. If it’s true, though, that this condition cannot be reversed by medical means, then you have almost certainly answered what was one of our biggest questions: why your parents did it.”

“You knew they were guilty.”

“We knew only what we read in the papers. We thought perhaps the mingling of blood, and the coming together of Tylwyth Teg and Cwn Annwn, produced . . . an unsatisfactory result.”

Turned my parents into killers, he meant. That their darker fae natures had played off each other and stripped away their humanity.

“This is a more satisfactory answer.” He caught my look and quickly added, without much conviction, “Though not as satisfactory as discovering they were innocent.”

“It was not the Tylwyth Teg who offered the Larsens this deal, then,” Gabriel said. “You are certain of that.”

“I am. We don’t have the power to reverse the condition, no more than we can alleviate the fevers better than modern medicine. At one time, that was different. Our knowledge of plants and herbal medicines helped. But these days, you can pick up something better on the shelf of any drugstore.”

Gabriel seemed ready to pursue it, but I shook my head at him. What I’d seen in the visions confirmed they could not fix the children their blood had damaged.