But she shot upright. “Oh. I guess I have to go get the Tuncians ready, too.”
Lu gave a half smile. “Head Nayeli.”
Nayeli sobered. “ActingHead.”
“Acting Head.” Lu turned, legs dangling off the window seat. “Have you spoken with Vex?”
“He’s still traveling. I’ll tell him about our plans, though.”
Lu nodded, her focus drifting to the floor in the heaviness that lay between now and the war being a memory.
The door shut behind Nayeli, and Lu lifted her gaze to her mother, realizing they hadn’t been alone together since... when had they last had a moment to themselves?
On the other side of Fatemah’s desk, Kari stared at the wall, her eyes glassy. “I suspected it was him,” she said suddenly, and Lu frowned.
“Who?”
“Ibarra.”
Coldness swept over Lu’s body.
“I suspected he was the one in charge the final night of the revolution,” Kari clarified, no emotion in her voice but for the smoothness of her tone. “The defensors in that battalion scattered. Only a few were caught, and they didn’t divulge names. But I should have acted on my suspicions.”
“The Argridians surrendered the next day,” Lu whispered. “You couldn’t have done anything. We finally had peace.”
“You did not.” Kari snapped her eyes up, and Lu jerked back from the anger she saw. “You suffered, you still suffer, and that was my fault for leaving you in that cottage. My fault for standing in front of Ibarra and accepting his surrender when I evensuspectedhe was the one who—” She raised a hand to her lips. “Who hurt you. My child.I let himlive—and you had to be the one. The one to kill him.”
Kari raised her hand to cover her eyes. Lu couldn’t move, frozen on the window seat, her lungs swollen. She had never expected Kari to take the blame.Tomshould have taken it.
“You weren’t part of it,” Lu said. “What happened that night. I never blamed you.”
The implication was clear. Kari dropped her hand. “Your father wasn’t the only one who destroyed your childhood.”
Lu looked away. Hearing him called herfathersent a jagged bolt of anger through her gut.
“I’ve tried to tell myself that he was the one who suggested we use you as a spy,” Kari whispered. A tear slipped down her cheek. “I’ve tried to put all the blame on him, as though I was helpless those years. I wasn’t, though. Do not idolize me, Adeluna. I’m as much at fault as he is. I let you become a spy. I let you join this war. I put you in harm’s way. And I’m so—” She cleared her throat. “I’m so sorry.”
Lu felt tears well, matching her mother’s. Kari stood only a few paces away, but she felt out of reach, fading farther and farther beyond an ocean of regret and pain.
“All the people I saw die,” Lu started, “the families I watched split apart—I never thought it would be ours. I never thought we would lose each other in this war. But Tom is gone no matter how this ends, and I’ve lost you too, haven’t I? We can’t come out of this intact. How can we move forward as a family without him, after everything that has happened—”
Kari surged around the table and drew Lu into a hug. She held her there, hand on the back of Lu’s head, her lips on Lu’s ear. That embrace was the very place Lu thought of when she imagined warmth and security, and she grippedher mother’s shoulders, holding on through the hot wash of tears.
“We will endure his betrayal together,” Kari told her. “Together.Do not retreat into yourself, and I promise to do the same. This war will not take me from you. I swear, sweetheart; you have me. You will always have me.”
27
BEN CHASED GUNNARthough the halls of the tenement. Like a moron.
Gunnar disagreed with Ben and Lu’s plan to surrender to Elazar? He hadwantedBen to confront Elazar. But he wanted Ben to confront Elazar in battle, sword to his throat, not weaponless and in false surrender.
Ben was tired of Gunnar’s personal beliefs acting as an impassable wall of what Ben should or shouldn’t do.
“Stop!” he shouted. The word vented his frustration, steam shooting up his throat.
Gunnar whipped into a nearby room. It was even smaller than the office. A moth-eaten blanket covered a narrow cot in the corner; an empty plate on a table held moldy crumbs and a thick layer of dust. No one was there, and it looked abandoned—all the better.
Ben shot in after him and slammed the door. “What inthe Pious God’s hell is wrong with you?” he demanded. His anger felt purer in Argridian, more freeing than constantly having to speak Grace Lorayan.
