He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. His shoulders didn’t seem as wide in the robe, and he looked comfortably vulnerable. “It’s possible. There were many pockets of elves that practiced mummification. All we need is one cell even marginally perfect. Just one.”

My eyes flicked to a stoic Quen, then him. “Piscary almost killed me trying to find out if you hired me to go into the ever-after. It’s not going to happen. I’m not going there.” I thought of Al waiting for me, my agreement worthless on his side of the lines. “No way.”

An apologetic slant came into Trent’s eyes as he watched me from across the coffee table. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for Piscary to focus on you. I would have rather told you the entire story last year when you quit the I.S., but I was concerned …” He took a slow breath. “I didn’t trust you to keep your mouth shut about our existence.”

“You trust me now?” I said, thinking of Jenks.

“Not really, but I have to.”

Not really, but I have to. What the hell kind of an answer is that?

“We’re too few to let the world know we exist,” Trent was saying, his eyes on his laced fingers. “It would be too easy for a zealot to pick us off, and I have enough trouble with Piscary trying to do just that. He knows the threat we will pose to his standing if our numbers increase.”

My mouth twisted and I pushed back into the leather. Politics. It was always political. “Can’t you just untwist the curse?”

His face was weary as he turned to the window. “We did when we discovered what had happened. But the damage remains, and would be worsening if we didn’t find every elven child and fix what we can.”

My lips parted in understanding. “The camp. That’s why you were there?”

He shifted reluctantly in his chair, looking suddenly nervous. “Yes.”

I pressed back farther into the cushions, not knowing if I wanted him to answer my next question. “Why … why was I at that camp?”

Trent’s stiff posture eased. “You have a somewhat unusual genetic defect. A good five percent of the witch population has it—a recessive gene which is harmless unless they pair up.”

“One in four chance?” I guessed.

“If both parents have it. And if the two recessive genes pair up, it kills you before your first birthday. My father managed to keep it suppressed in you until you were old enough to handle a full course of treatment.”

“He did this a lot?” I asked, my stomach knotting. I was alive because of illegal genetic manipulation. It was what I had guessed, but now I knew for sure. Maybe I shouldn’t let it bother me. The entire elf race relied on illegal medicine to remain in existence.