Flora's Fury: How a Girl of Spirit and a Red Dog Confound Their Friends, Astound Their Enemies, and Learn the Impo by Ysabeau S. Wilce

about Poppy and Flora Primera?”
    “Hotspur was being held in another part of the City. Flora was already gone. Your mother hoped that once she and Sorrel were free, they’d figure out how to rescue Hotspur, they’d find Flora. But before any of that could happen, she realized she was pregnant with you. The Birdies were on their track. She didn’t want them to catch you, too. So we came up with a plan: We’d keep the Birdies at bay until you were born and could be whisked away, far from Birdie discovery Then, she’d allow herself to be captured. The Birdies would be satisfied and would never know there were any other Haðraaðas left. You’d be safe from them. As soon as you were born, she gave you to someone who brought you to me. Then she and Sorrel gave up.”
    “But you weren’t even pregnant. Why would anyone believe I was your baby?”
    “It was winter; coats were more voluminous back then. I was in the middle of a campaign—I told the press I hadn’t wanted to distract from the campaign, so I had kept the pregnancy under wraps. They swallowed the story whole. The only hitch was Valefor. He would know, of course, that you were not a full Fyrdraaca. I wasn’t sure if he would accept you, so I abrogated him.”
    Poor Valefor, the denizen of Crackpot Hall, banished through no fault of his own. When he found out I was the cause, he was going to be pretty fiking pissed at me, and I couldn’t say that I blamed him one bit.
    “But why didn’t you tell me this before?”
    “It’s a hard thing to pretend to be someone you are not. I thought it would be safer for you both if you didn’t have to fake it.”
    “Poppy deserved to know, too.”
    “I know. I know.” She sighed heavily “But Hotspur was in such bad shape when he got back, I didn’t want to burden him further. I thought I should wait for a good time, but that good time never came.” She paused and then asked warily, “Did you tell him?”
    She saw the answer on my face. “Oh, pigface. Was he pissed?”
    “He wasn’t very happy.”
    “I’m sorry, Flora. I should have told you before. I should have told you both.”
    In my imagining of this scene, I was always full of righteous fury Sometimes Buck was defiant and accusing—
I took you in and saved your life and now you give me shite?
Sometimes she was high-hatted—
I am the head of this family and know what is best; do you dare to question me?
In my daydreams, none of these attitudes dimmed my righteous fury, only sparked it. Now I found that my righteous fury was not standing very furiously in the face of Buck’s explanation. In fact, it was dying down into a giant sick-making guilt. What did I have to be angry about? Buck had saved my life.
    She continued, “But I hope you don’t believe that this means I do not love you as much as if you came from my own body I could not love you any more if you had. You are the child of my heart, Flora. I know it’s been hard on you, and I have been so severe, but that’s why; I didn’t want you to bring attention to yourself. I didn’t want you to do anything that would make the Birdies suspicious. I’m sorry”
    Now I was crying, and feeling like a complete pigheaded jackass. To my horror, I realized that Buck was crying, too. This sight knifed me to my very core. I had never seen Buck cry over anything before—not Poppy at his worst, not when Idden ran away, not when Bronzer, her favorite stallion, had to be put down when the infection in his knee wouldn’t heal. She wiped her nose on her sleeve.
    “I’m sorry, Flora. I’m truly sorry.”
    “It’s all right, Mamma,” I answered, sniffily. Should I tell her I knew that Tiny Doom was still alive? She must not know; if she did, she would tell me now. But I didn’t tell her. A nasty little demon inside of me said,
Don’t do it. She didn’t trust you. Return her favor
.
    “I don’t want to hide from the Birdies forever,” I said instead.
    “You won’t, I promise you. You won’t