Free Blood of the Fey (Morgana Trilogy) by Alessa Ellefson

How come your parents never did it? I mean, they’re Pendragons! Their families have been going here for generations!”
    I shrug. “I don’t remember a test. Does everyone take it?”
    Jack nods. “Though the ability to manipulate elementals is usually passed down to the children, it does happen that someone’s born without the talent. In which case, they’re not allowed to know about this world.”
    Owen nods emphatically. “Which is why some think you—”
    Bri kicks his foot from underneath him, and he falls down. “Just like some people are born with it in families that never had a knight for an ancestor,” she says.
    “So did your parents go here?” I ask.
    The twins and Jack nod. And so did my parents—or at least my mother…A thought strikes me, and I jump to my feet.
    “What’s the matter?” Bri asks, suddenly concerned.
    “If my mother went here,” I say, “then my father must have too!”
    “That’s what I was saying,” Owen says with a pout. “All the Pendragons—”
    “No, I mean my
real
father.”
    Silence greets my words, and I start to fidget, uncomfortable with the sudden admission. Face as red as his hair, Gianakos approaches us. Close on his heels is the rest of the class.
    “Was your father a layman too?” he asks, so quietly I have to lean forward to hear him.
    “Elias’s mom ran off with a layman,” Owen whispers in my ear. “’S why he’s a little, you know, slow.”
    “I don’t know,” I answer. I never knew him, I add silently with a pang.
    “It’s unlikely.” Keva speaks up for the first time since Lore class. “Have you seen Lady Pendragon? She wouldn’t dare get caught with anyone who wasn’t of the Blood.”
    Elias’s face falls. “I see. I thought, maybe…”
    “But perhaps he’s right,” Daniel says, wrapping his arm around Elias’s neck. “Maybe that’s why she kept her own daughter locked away—because her shame was in her daughter’s own lack of talent and would show the rest of the world how she’d hooked up with the wrong kind of people.” He pats Elias’s head. “And you should avoid those people too, if you want to make up for your own mother’s errors.”
    I know he means it as an insult, and in other times, I’d have been stung, but right now I’m too busy thinking about my father, the one I know nothing of, and wondering whether he ever was a knight here too.
    “Man, I don’t think I have the patience to deal with stupid plants right now,” Owen says, kicking a stone into a small water basin as we make our way to our next class.
    “You shouldn’t dismiss them because they’re not as flashy as EM,” Jack says.
    “That’s not why,” Owen retorts. “They’re just…useless.”
    “That’s not true!” Jack and I exclaim at the same time.
    Grinning, we both look at each other until I look away in embarrassment.
    “Well, whaddaya know,” Bri says, punching Jack’s shoulder playfully. “You’ve finally got someone you can nerd out over herbs with.”
    For the first time that day, I’m actually excited—not only because I’m going to work on what I love best, but also because, nearly twenty years ago, my father may have been taking these exact same classes too. And maybe, just maybe, Bri is right, and things might not be so bad down here after all.
    Botanics is held inside a long, simple greenhouse that opens onto the inner courtyard. Boxes of plants are set in rows along one side of the room, while a set of worktables adorn the other, over which potted plants hang. I can already smell the heady scent of lilacs, and the delicate fragrance of roses.
    “Good morning, children,” a soft voice says. A girl pops up from behind a shrub of thyme, waving a tiny sickle in one hand. “You should put on an apron and some gloves for today’s lesson.” She moves toward the far end of the greenhouse.
    Grabbing a set work clothes for each of us, Bri and I follow the rest of the class to the back.
    “At least we get to