Dear nephew,

I do not know when I will give you this box. At this current hour, you are eight, and your parents are in the Imperial Kingdom, and you are mercifully fast asleep after a rather difficult day. Rest assured that whatever you find in here is yours alone, and has been shared with nobody else, and if ever you need to speak to somebody about its contents, I am an impartial and patient arbiter. Please, realise that while the information I am about to give to you is difficult and will likely change your life, it does not change this: your family loves you, and blood does not make the man.

Firstly, the good news. You are an Eremont. You are the heir of Temple Hill. Everything that is here is yours, if you want it. If you do not want it, you do not have to feel guilty. I would understand that once you have digested this note, staying in Marbury might feel like a punishment or a judgement.

Secondly, the bad news. You are not, unfortunately, a healer adept.

I do not know what you hear, when you tell me you hear the songs and they help you sleep at night. It is not what I hear, or your mother, or your father. It is something else that will not rear its head, no matter how many times we attempt a casting or a stance together. The movements we have practised should, by now, have allowed you to at least heal yourself of minor cuts and scrapes, but alas, there is nothing. Sometimes, when I place the bells beside you, the music I hear… it is not the music of the Eremonts, or the Meers. It is yours, though. And whatever it is, it cannot be changed by will alone.

Perhaps by the time you read this, none of this is news. I expect that when the time is right to present this box to you, it will be after whatever you are is revealed to us. Whatever happens – or, to you, happened – that day, it does not change that you are my nephew and that I love you. It may change how you feel about yourself.

None of this is your fault, Idris.

Your mother would rather I did not write this and that I had not collected these scraps. Likely, your father will be relieved. He is a good and kind man, and he raised you well, despite it all. But he is not a brave man. If he could tell you this, I am sure he would have already done so. We have spoken many times about what that conversation might be like, but I fear it will never happen.

Here it is, then.

You are not Obrin Meer’s son.

Idris increased his grip on the paper until the words creased and ate themselves, and he closed his eyes tight and wished he could unread what he had read. Instead, he cried, and he felt, to his shame, relief.

“Thank you, Uncle,” he whispered. “Thank you, thank you.”

When he had collected his wits again and had stopped crying enough to be able to read again, he smoothed out the paper and continued.

Your father – your blood father, mind, not the man who raised you and loves you – is a man I do not truly know. I remember him, but his family name was never imparted to me and his visit here was brief and confusing. Regardless, I will recount what I remember, in the hopes that someday, you may be able to find him.

I repeat, though – this man is not your father. Not in the true sense. He did what all animals do and created a life. That part is not difficult. Flowers can reproduce. Worms and birds and fish can conceive children. The difficult part, your true father, Obrin, did. He stepped forwards and he cared for you and your mother. He nursed you when you were sick and he was the first person to see you walk, to hold you once you were born. He loves you so keenly that the knowledge of your blood father likely gives him sleepless, rage-filled nights, as it does me. Do not ever doubt him. Please do not be angry with him. He has done all he could do.

Before Obrin was married to your mother, he was a healer here at Temple Hill. As the first son of one of the healer families, he was sworn to the care of your grandfather and mother as a live-in healer. He was always rather sweet on my sister and I long expected they were talking about marriage and having a family before this happened. My sister – your mother – is a particularly skilled magician, and as such she often visited other noble houses to treat their kin and was sought out by visitors to Temple Hill.

She was also, to my sincere sorrow, rather naïve. Men would woo her with as little as a smile and a kind word. She was not promiscuous, mind, but she fell in and out of love like the seasons. Perhaps she enjoyed the attention, or the freedom. Whatever it was, she grew out of it rather quickly once that spring rolled in.

A man arrived here, complaining of a terrible cough. It was terrible – it rattled and was ever so persistent – and I was surprised that he had managed to ride here with the affliction. Your mother ushered him into the nobles’ suites and spent some time administering medicines to him, and he stayed with us for two weeks while the symptoms cleared. I tended to him, once or twice.

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There was something about him, Idris, which felt… strange. He did not behave in a rude or uncouth manner, or make odd conversation, or do anything awful of any sort. Truthfully, he was pleasant to be around and he told the most fantastical stories, with a soft, almost timid voice. He was, in fact, rather handsome, if pale, with straw-coloured hair and grey-green eyes. There was a birthmark that was curious, just under his left ear, shaped a little like a wolf’s tooth. I say this so that if you look, you have some identifying features.

But when I sat with him, I felt like somehow all of this was a bizarre game to him. As if he was ten steps ahead of every other sentient creature in the county, like he could see what was going to happen next and we were all dancing to his particular tune. It made me uncomfortable but I could not explain why. I thought maybe he was not a noble, like he claimed to be, and he was perhaps a charlatan trying to see if there was anything worth looting in the village, but Astrid claimed he was just a recluse and unused to company.

Regardless, I allowed Astrid to continue his treatment. I did not like to be around him. That was likely a mistake on my part.

Not three weeks after he left, your mother found out that she was pregnant.

I believe Obrin when he tells me that he had not lain with your mother before then. He has no reason to lie about this. I also do not think that your conception was without consent. If your mother had been harmed, she would have told us immediately. She was naïve but not stupid. She knows the difference between right and wrong.

Obrin did the right thing and he married Astrid as soon as they found out. Our father was pleased and never knew the truth. I almost never knew the truth. They were so very careful about the information I have here. Shamefully, I discovered everything over the course of years and by prying into things I should never have looked at. Your mother has never told me for sure and if asked, she says you are an Eremont and that is that.

You look like an Eremont. That helps, I presume. She is probably ashamed. Denial is easier than the truth. But there is no denying that you have not presented any healer magic, ever, and I do not think you ever will.

Idris – there is no mathematical way that you could be Obrin’s son.

When your blood father left us, he rode towards Outer Arbedes. I have looked for him in recent years in the surrounding villages and never seen him. I will not set foot in the ruins, and I believe that if he intends to stay hidden that he counts on that particular statement to protect himself. He told us his name was Layton but I have neither heard of nor met a man named Layton before or since.

If you need further proof, find enclosed your father’s personal journal notes of Layton’s time with us, dated (and torn from his private writings, which I am not proud of). Please also find enclosed your father’s own testimony about how no further pregnancies occurred during their marriage, even though they tried to provide you with a brother or sister; he believes he is infertile.

That is all, I think.

Tomorrow, I will wake you for breakfast, and we will have fruit and fresh bread, and we will tend the gardens like always. I will show you which herbs are going to make the anti-inflammatory paste that we will simmer in the afternoon, and when the day is over, I will read to you and you will sleep soundly once more. Nothing will change, Idris. Nothing that has happened before you read this letter was out of pity or duty. We did it all because we love you. And we will continue to love you, and walk with you, and teach you, until the day we are too old to do those things anymore.

I have known who you are since you were four years old. It has not altered my opinion of you or your mother in any way.

I know you will be reading this in the future and you will have questions. I will answer them. If we dined together before you read this, we will dine together again the day after. I will not hide from this, nor from you.

I am not going to leave you, Idris. You are my nephew, my family. I love you, regardless of who your blood father may or may not be.

Whatever magic you create, it will be yours, and I will be proud of it.

All of my love,

Master the Second (your uncle, Haylan Eremont)

Idris sobbed into his hands. He stamped his single, real foot hard, repeatedly, into the floor until he was sure he was going to break the tile, and then he sat, with his head in the crooks of his elbows, for what felt like days.

Uncle Haylan always knew.

He knew, when he came into The Underwood that day, that if Idris had tried to heal himself, he was going to fail. He knew when he petitioned King Gael for aid. He knew when Idris had asked him, timidly, what a necromancer even was, and why the arias had punished him for not doing what he was told.

And yet…

He had stayed.

“Sir Idris, are you -?”

Lila did not finish her sentence, though. Idris lifted his head, pressed the balls of his hands into his eyes.

“I am a bastard, Lila,” he whispered.

“What do you mean? What happened?”

“Obrin Eremont is not my father,” he said, and when it came out it hurt, even though he always intrinsically knew, even though it was true.

He started crying again. Lila dragged the big armchair across the floor and sat beside him, and she put her hand on his back and rubbed his shoulders comfortingly.

“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered, over and over. “It doesn’t matter, Idris.”

It did not matter, not really. But he wished so desperately that the box had not sat there, untouched, for years. He wished that Uncle Haylan had sat him down, said it all out loud. The shame he had grown up with, the bitter disappointment, need not have stooped his shoulders, softened his voice. He might have been different had his uncle been able to explain.

“Please don’t tell anyone,” he said to Lila.

“I won’t say a word.”

“We’re done.” He sat up, dried his eyes. “I have everything I need.”

“You’re certain?” she said, and he nodded.

“I know where to find our answers. It is not here.” He scooped the papers back into the broken box, placed the journal inside, too. “We need to be in Outer Arbedes.”

They said goodbye to Polly at the door of Temple Hill, apologised for the mess they had left. In the back of the carriage, with the chest of documents at his feet, Idris cried until his eyes were sore.