Not with my own father, certainly. But if things had been different—ifIhad been different, if I’d been born first instead of thirteenth—would our relationship have been different as well?
I’d never know.
The deathshead had demanded I kill him, erasing any chance we might have had for reconciliation, however slim.
And now it was demanding I kill another father.
Tears welled as I thought of Euphemia being given the news thather father was gone. I could imagine the way her blue eyes would widen in disbelief, in denial. They’d widen and then they’d shatter.
“I can’t,” I whispered into the too-quiet bathroom. “I can’t do that to her.”
The words were easy to say, but the next steps were treacherous.
If I wasn’t going to kill the king, I needed to save him, and my best effort, the geranium oil, had nearly ended him.
Calamité’s voice singsonged in my head:You know how to findus.
Slowly, methodically, I peeled the sodden gloves from my hands and dropped them into the muck.
The Divided Ones’ pipes still hung around my neck, the metal charm always a few degrees cooler than my skin. Even as I’d toiled over the hearth, distilling all that oil, it had felt chilled against me, a constant reminder that the gods who’d given it were only a breath away.
I marveled at how easy it would be to call them.
Merrick had never given me anything so helpful. Merrick had only ever foisted books and cakes at me, blessed me with a gift that felt more like a curse, and saddled me with a job I did not want.
If I did this, if I used the Divided Ones’ offer, I would be severing something deep with Merrick. I wasn’t a fool. I knew he’d be enraged. I knew it might not end well at all. But nothing in my life ever had, and this act, this one act of defiance, ensured that one little girl got to keep her father and her childhood and her innocence. It felt like a fair trade.
I put the charm to my lips and, bracing myself, blew.
The blast was just as loud and horrible as it had been in the temple. I winced as the notes echoed in the marble room, and waited for the palace guards to break in, running to see why the end of the world had begun in the king’s chambers.
But somehow, they didn’t, and I was left wondering if only I could hear it.
I waited, flinching at every sound: a drop of water, the king’s labored breathing, and then, the splitting of the air as a host of gods entered our world.
“What a mess you’ve made in here, little mortal,” Calamité chastised me, looking around the room with a curl of disgust wrinkling his side of their nose. “And you’re just sitting in it?”
“I need your help,” I began without preamble, keeping my voice calm and my cadence measured. This wasn’t the time to let emotions reign. I needed to say my piece and let the chips fall where they may. “I don’t believe the deathshead is right in telling me to kill the king.”
Félicité’s eyebrow arched. Calamité’s side of their lips grinned.
“I want to save him,” I went on, my words feeling strong and right and true. “But I need your help, your…blessing.”
Both the gods’ eyes flickered with interest.
“The Dreaded End’s daughter comes to us for a blessing,” they intoned in a unified voice, hundreds of gods strong.
“I need to know how to treat the Shivers,” I said. “I thought what I was doing would work, but it didn’t, and now…now I don’t know what to do. I feel very lost.”
“We’re not in the habit of giving even a single blessing to most mortals, and you ask us for many,” Calamité mused.
“Just one,” I protested.
“You want to save the kingandyou want to end the Shivers.”
“I have to end the Shiverstosave the king,” I argued.
The gods shook their massive head.
