“He does.” And I had to change the subject before he started on the second round of the wedding conversation. “Father, why is our magic bouncing from humans possessed by an ifrit? Is it because of the geographical proximity?” Oh yes, that was smooth. Not.

“What did you try to use?” he asked.

“A power word.”

“I remember trying that. Worst pain of my childhood. Let me teach you. There is so much you don’t know, Blossom. Let me help you make sense of it. At the very least, let me keep you from making rudimentary mistakes.”

“You tried it.” I sliced another bite of the cake.

“I was eight.”

Oh.

“And I did it because I was specifically told not to.” Roland drank his coffee. “I wanted to know what would happen.”

That sounded very much like something I would do.

“You are partially correct, the resistance is due to the geographical proximity and a miscalculation on the part of your great-great-great-great . . .” He frowned. “No, that’s right. Great-great-great-great-grandfather. The ifrit were threatening his borders, and he decided that a child of mixed blood would be a great idea, so he married a half-human, half-ifrit woman. She was his fortieth wife. I remember because it was a nice round number. He begat a child, a daughter, and as expected, she had partial immunity to the ifrit magic and was fierce on the battlefield. She was far down in the line of succession, so he hadn’t worried about her, and by the time he decided to worry about it, it was too late. Bararu, the Shining One, the Star of the Valley, had cut her way through his progeny to his heart and took his throne. She was your great-great-great-grandmother.”

“She killed her brothers and sisters and her father?”

“Well, in all fairness, he did execute the man she wanted to marry.”

“Why?”

“He was trying to check her power. She was becoming too popular with the army.”

I rested my chin on my fist. “That’s a heartwarming story, Dad.”

“You called me Dad.” Roland smiled.

“I wouldn’t read too much into it. Were any of our family members ever famous for doing something nonviolent?”

“Your great-great-grandfather cured the Plague of the Godless. It was a very virulent strain of influenza and it threatened to wipe out the human population on the entire continent.”

“That’s good to know.”

“Of course, he felt obligated to do it, because your great-great-granduncle had unleashed it in the first place.”

I just stared at him.

“History provides us with vital lessons,” Roland said. “For example, I have no plans to murder Curran.”

He couldn’t murder Curran, not as long as our agreement held. “Why, you’re afraid I might take your throne?”

“No, I don’t want the heartbreak of having to kill you, Blossom.”

Mm-hm. “Heartbreak.”

“You don’t trust me,” he said.

“No.”