“In hypotheticals,” Mom adds, her face blotchy. “We haven’t opened anything official yet.”
Dad nods at what Mom said. “We got information at this stage. But he said we have plenty to go after—” He side-eyes Thio, sucks his teeth. “To go after the Touraels who own Camp Merethyl. He reviewed the camp’s bylaws, and even with the… restrictive terminology in the forms they had us sign, he said we are well within our rights to sue them for gross abuse of magic, at the very least.”
Exhaustion’s appearance is swift and violent. Maybe I am still tipsy, the alcohol bypassing drunkenness and shoving me right into pure, unfiltered fatigue.
Dad’s offering me justice.
It was all I’d wanted, any of those summers. For him to step in.
For him to save me.
I can’t speak. Can’t move. Can’t figure out how I’m supposed to react to what he’s offering.
“Give him time?” Thio asks behind me. “To think it over.”
Dad glances at Thio again. He doesn’t look as murderous as Mom did, but he’s still hesitant, like he’s about to question why I’m dating aTouraelwhen Dad now knows whatthose Touraelsdid to me. When Dad himself offered to sue Thio’s family.
“Of course,” Dad says. “Take your time. We—” His inhale is shaky. “We want to fix this going forward, Sebastian. Whatever it takes. Whatever you want.”
“Are you keeping the job?” I don’t know why that’s the question that digs its way out of me.
Dad’s smile is fragile. “No, son. I turned over the information to the Mageus Military Police and stepped down.”
Tension releases. A small knot of it, somewhere deep in my stomach.
There are still dozens of other knots. Other sources of distrust and pain that are years old.
But I sink into myself, shoulders bowing.
Mom rises. “We’re staying at a hotel in town for another night, if you want to talk. But after, we’ll be back home, and still—anytime you want to talk, please, we’ll be ready.”
I shrug. It’s all I have to give at this point.
Mom kisses my cheek. Dad pats my shoulder; I think he might want to hug me, but he doesn’t.
Our dynamic has been etched in stone for almost a decade. I’m the disappointment; he’s the enemy. I remember how it was before, how it was to smile at him and love him andtrusthim, but the memory is faded and blurred, like a dream turning to wisps the more I try to hold on to it.
The door shuts behind them.
Thio moves. I’m being pushed to sit on the couch and a bottle of water is put on the table next to me; I see Orok has one now, too. Thio’s saying something quietly to him, and Orok nods.
Then Thio’s next to me on the couch, his arm around me. “Sebastian?”
Everything my dad said rolls over me at once and pain lances through my chest, gouging from the base of my throat straight down into my gut. I whimper at the force of it.
“It’s too much,” I say, pathetic and pained, and I bend into Thio, clinging to him, grounding myself in him.
“I know, baby.” He strokes my hair. “Don’t decide anything tonight. Let’s go up to bed. We can—”
“If I’m suing your family, would you still want to be with me?”
His hand flattens against my head, holding my face into his neck.“If you’re suing my family, would you still want to be with me?” he returns quietly.
I rest my forehead on his sternum, absorbing as much of his scent as I can, each breath relaxing another muscle, another, until I’m boneless.
“Orok?” I ask, voice muffled in Thio’s chest.
“Here. Alive. Barely.” He gulps from his water bottle. “What the fuck.”
