I’m so jumbled inside I don’t even know what to do with that. That once would have made me cry because it’s a name he called me as a kid, and Ilovedit. “I’m still little, and a menace. Guess I never outgrew it,” I reply, although my voice is completely void of emotion.
It’s weird interacting with him like this.
He dips his chin in a nod, the face of Ern returning, like he knows to move past that. “This truly is almost done. The hardest part is coming, but itwillpass.”
My mind scatters in the vastness that’s my misery, searching for somethingtrulysolid to hold onto. Surprisingly, it’s when Soren’s sister enters my mind that I feel some semblance of control.
Soren needs me to be strong so I can deliver my word. I’ll take care of his heart if I am to take care of anything.
Even if I’m not ready for this.
Leavingthe sanctuary that Cypress carved out isnotlike I first imagined it would be. My nerves scream like freed banshees who have been gagged—every movement from somebody else sends me on edge.
I brush one hand against rough walls when we pass through and around people, my other hand resting on the hilt of my dagger. I don’t know where Soren is, or his men, or even my father’s men. Just that Ern guides me, and Donna trails behind. Those clad in armor wear cloaks buttoned down to their waist insomeconcealment, but I’ve lost them in the crowd.
Distant shouts and clanging of metal keeps the underground streets alive, firelight our only illumination whether from braziers or through windows of homes and shops.
“Hood,” Donna instructs from behind. As casually as possible, I raise mine over my head. Dad’s brown hair remains visible, and I’m actually grateful that if he does have to wear the face of another, he looks like Ern because it’s easy to keep track of him. Ern’s face looks back at me, motioning to walk alongside him.
“The auras are different,” he says. “Keep closer.”
“So you can see things?”
“It’s easier when the milky eye is out,” he replies, tapping at the temple housing the eye that was recently a milky orb. “But yes, I can see if anyone has Misery’s miasma clinging to them. Or anyone from Ash. I haven’t seen ithereyet, but there’s a distortion I don’t like.”
I keep glancing up at the sharp lines of his profile. “So can we talk at all?” I carelessly ask.
What if it’s one of the last times I can speak to him?
“Quietly.”
The single word is a cautious permission, and I seize that opportunity. “I never met your men.” I eye what appears to be a homeless man sleeping in a bundle of soiled furs, a filthy film on his skin, although now I can’t help but wonder if he’s just a skin shifter spying on the world around them. “I didn’t even know you had any.”
“I didn’t want you growing up too close in my shadow,” he explains, his tone guarded as he continues to focus ahead of him.
“I wanted to, you know,” I say, nostalgia nipping at my heart when we step out onto a much wider street that horses clack their hooves on, carriages attached to them. “I knew you were a, you know, important person, and that everyone revered your type. It was fun keeping it a secret, but I also was bursting at the seams to tell everyone.”
My gang of friends no doubt suspectedsomething, but we were all in it for our own interest, one way or another. It was never safe to confide in them, and I knew that. Kathleen was honestly the first person I opened up to, and even then, she never knew my secrets untilrecently.
“Your mother was against it,” he answers, partially looking over his shoulder at me, and I wish he looked like himself when he said that. “I was, too.”
My gaze drops down to the cobblestone. I don’t want to speak about Mom to him, not when he looks like Ern.
“Is there a reason you haven’t hugged me once?” I pluck the question from a random thought passing by.
His silence makes me regret asking, dreading that he might only have something unsavory to answer me with. “Yes,” he finally replies. “I can’t say more.”
My throat tightens, but I nod, clinging to the hope that, for once, it’s not all negative. That someone’s motive isn’t soured, or selfish.
“So you were seriously, you know, themanat the tavern this whole time?” I ask, still not fully certain about giving away details like that when I have no idea who could be listening. MentioningErnmight be a poor decision.
“It was so much harder than you can imagine to see you broken, and not tell you the truth.” He glances down at me, his voice carrying an edge of heartache, the kind that’s nearly impossible to mimic. “Nothinghas broken me like that, Jane. Nothing.”
Questions. Focus on those while you can.“How did you live knowing you knew mom’s killers?”
“I could have fought them. Chased after them. Probably would have killed them. But then I’d risk making you an orphan and completely unprotected. Your mother would have ensured my torture in the afterlife if I abandoned you for rage.”
A shattered childhood resurfaces, and it’s pretty damn hard to ask my father questions when they’re all burdened with traumatic memories.
