I’ve been unhappy about the grant decision, of course, but I haven’t let itin. I’ve refused to think about what it means to work with Elethior—for me,beneath the implications of it on my degree, on my future career. It’s easier to keep it distant. To be upset about it from a dozen other angles rather than think about how being in close proximity to Elethior will affect me on a personal level.
But I watch over my mom’s shoulder as she clicks around the university site, and reality knocks the wind straight out of me.
I try to think of something to say. Something so the three of them can head out on the two-and-a-half-hour drive to our hometown. Then I can curl up in my room and spend the next few weeks cleansing myself of the brunch, and Mom, and Ghorza, and the Touraels. I can find a way to pack all this down into that space in my stomach where I’ve learned to store things until they become an unavoidable, painful knot that only releases when I do something stupid.
Mom scrolls through a few pages until she gets to a photo of Elethior, Dr. Davyeras, and me. The caption gives the details of the grant along with the vague descriptions of each of our projects.
Her face transforms into a gleaming smile, her initial swell of pride now a full-blown hurricane.
“Sweetheart. You were awarded a grant with a Tourael? You’ll beworkingwith him? Oh, Sebastian, this is—”
“Nothing. It’s nothing.” My fists beat on my thighs.
“Tourael?” Ghorza questions. Understanding dawns. “They ran the camp you boys went to? The one where—”
Just as quickly, her understanding folds back into blame directed at me.
But she doesn’t continue her sentence. Doesn’t say,The one where Sebastian convinced Orok to drop out, thereby ruining his chances of being an arcane soldier like Urzoth intended.
I feel the memory of it anyway. Feel it scrape along my spine and fizzle at the base of my neck. It’s been six years but there’s no protection from it, no dullness of time, no armor from any of the ineffective ways I try to shield myself. It’s always right there. Waiting.
“Camp Merethyl,” Mom says to Ghorza, beaming still, unaware of the way my breathing escalates. “Yes. The director of the camp is retiring, and we heard rumors that Mason’s under consideration to replace him—Ghorza, I told you about that?”
I recoil at my dad’s name.
Ghorza makes an affirmative noise.
“Well,” Mom continues, “it’s quite a big deal. Most of the Camp Merethyl directors have been Touraels. It’s an honor he’d be considered. And now, it seems Sebastian’s working with a member of their family.” Mom studies the pictures—does she notice my lack of a smile in any of them? “Oh, Sebastian, this is wonderful!”
Orok watches me, and it agitates me even more. I don’t want to need him. But I did back then, and I do now, and he was wrong. I don’t embody any of Urzoth Shieldsworn’s teachings about strength.
I scratch at my forearms, the sting of pain enough to ground me briefly.
“Mom,” I say, but she won’t hear me. She never does. “Elethior isn’t—”
Her eyes mist. “Your father is going to be so proud.”
And there it is.
Orok wasn’t the only one whose legacy I destroyed. And you don’t have to follow the teachings of Urzoth Shieldsworn to believein a black-and-white duality between what makes someone strong and what makes them weak.
Colonel Mason Walsh has three children who went to Camp Merethyl every summer of high school, graduated from it, then were promptly recruited to join the Arcane Forces.
Then there’s me. Who dropped out right before graduation. That plus my mild criminal record are the black marks on my father’s résumé as he tiptoes toward the goal of heading up the foremost magical paramilitary training camp in the country.
Is that all you’ve got?
Pathetic.
My stomach caves.
I move around Mom to attack the kitchen, but it’s spotless now, so I grab a towel and robotically dry the countertops.
She pats my arm. “This is what you two need: common ground, and you can—”
“Don’t tell him.” I pin my gaze on her. I want to glare. Maybe I am, maybe I only look pleading. “You are not to tell him about this grant. About Elethior. None of it.”
Those blue eyes are full of hurt she has no right to feel. “Things have been strained between you for too long. This is a chance to start again. It’s redemption, Sebastian.”
