I set down my needle and sweater, thinking over her words. That wasn’t a terrible idea, except for the fact that my father’s brain was a tangled mess of nightmares and jumbled thoughts. He was lucid only a few moments an hour. Right now, he was sleeping in his room, pixies guarding him. I was doing my best to go into his dreams, fill them with happy, good memories. But it didn’t seem to be doing enough.
“Bellamy, the powers you have are vast,” Leoni said. “Kairoth said it himself. You can do things with the mind far beyond what a regular star elemental could. He said Khalasa could go into people’s minds, dig through their memories, put new memories in place by using her star power. So maybe you can do the same.”
I shook my head.“I’m not going to put new memories in my father’s brain. I want him to be him. Not some false version.”
“No.” Leoni shook her head, a red curl tumbling loose from her bun. “That’s not what I mean. Maybe you can go into your father’s memories and find the one of him reading Khalasa’s notes. Maybe you can find out what he read.”
I straightened. That actually wasn’t a horrible idea. I knew how to do that. The only problem was that my father’s mind wassuch a mess, it wasn’t so straightforward as others’. His thoughts and memories weren’t in the places they were supposed to be.
I looked down at the sweater, the body now done, only one arm missing. I bit the inside of my cheek. I could finish this a little later.
After I went into my father’s mind. Tried to find that memory. Though it might all be pointless.
Either way, Leoni was right. I had to try.
Chapter Sixty-Two
BELLAMY
Webs covered my father’s mind. That was what it felt like wading through it. Every time I entered a new area, I hit barriers that I had to slowly push my way through. I’d go into what I thought was a memory, but it was just blank space, or it was some false memory Khalasa planted, my brothers being tortured, my mother dying.
Or it was real memories, painful memories. My brothers being turned to swans played over and over in his mind on a loop that he couldn’t turn off. I’d pushed that memory away, tried to replace it with a happier one, but it kept coming back to the forefront of his mind.
So many horrible memories after such a long life, and Khalasa had made them all the prevalent ones, the ones he couldn’t turn off. No wonder he’d gone crazy.
My poor, poor father. My heart broke all over again for him, for what he’d gone through.
Right now, he was dreaming of his wife, the curse of the Wilds taking her. He saw the curse turn her into the catlikecreature she became while he could do nothing about it. I entered this memory, coming to a stand next to my father and changing the setting to a field my father used to bring me and my brothers to in the Wilds.
My father blinked next to me, his whimpering stopping as he lifted his face toward the twilight sky.
“So beautiful,” he whispered.
I took his hand and gripped it tight as my brothers and I frolicked through the field. My brothers were chasing me as I giggled and shrieked. One of them would catch me and tickle me, then let me go again while my father just watched.
“The family you always dreamed of,” I said. “You got it, you know.”
“It took a long time,” he said absently.
He was here, but I knew his mind was pushing those nightmares forward. That we teetered in a precarious in-between. He wanted to stay in this memory, wanted to bask in it, but the nightmares were strong, crowding in on us.
I kept them at bay. I needed to do this gently. Taking him to her castle, to that room, to that day he found out about her betrayal, it wouldn’t be easy. Not when he was already so fragile.
“Father, I don’t blame you for anything,” I said.
He turned as if he was just noticing me there. “It doesn’t matter.” He shook his head, black hair falling over his forehead. “I blame myself plenty.”
“You shouldn’t.” I lay a hand on his arm. “You’re a hero. You did the best you could to try and save everyone.”
“I doomed them instead.”
“They were already doomed. The gods were out of control. They were going to destroy humanity. It’s awful, what happened. But it’s not your fault.”
In the distance, Ryder caught me and lifted me over his shoulder as I kicked and batted at him while laughing.
“Father, we need your help,” I said.
He looked at me. “With what?”
