“Daddy!” I lunge past her and latch onto him, taking in a full hearty embrace from the man I love with everything in me. I pull back and land my hands over his sturdy shoulders. He’s donned the requisite tux and his mask is flipped up over his forehead Tad Landon style, and that alone is about all Tad and my father will ever have in common—outside of my mother, of course, and I promise you that Tad doesn’t have half the affection my mother felt for my father. “Where’s Sage? Is shehere?”
He cuts a quiet glance to my mother. “I’m afraid the powers that be decided it would be too much foryou.”
“It wouldn’t. It would have been a pleasure—a treasure.” I wince at the thought of my daughter. “How is her…disposition? Does she seem okay toyou?”
He grimaces because he knows exactly what the hell I’m talking about. “She’s mentoring under yourmother.”
“I’ve a position I’m grooming her for in the League,” my mother snaps, and I don’t dare ask which league. It had better not be the AssholesLeague.
“Skyla!” shebarks.
“Well, it better not be!” I bark rightback.
My father shakes his head. “Don’t you worry. I have that baby girl of yours wrapped in my love. She’ll be a model citizen before you knowit.”
“And my other baby girl?Angel?” I shake my head, unsure if he’s even mether.
“Yes”—his voice grows alarmingly quiet—“I know who you speak of, Skyla.” But that’s all he says about that, and my heart shatters at what that mightmean.
“Daddy!” Mia screams as she trots on over in sky-high heels. Her little black dress looks more like a one-piece bathing suit than it does an evening gown appropriate for the Bastard’s Ball as it were. “Oh my God, I miss you!” She wraps her arms around him and swings him in a circle. “God, so many things have happened to me this year!” She holds out her left hand, only to display a scrappy piece of wire entwined around her ring finger. “Does this ring make me lookengaged?”
“What?” both my father and I cry out at the sametime.
Mia bares her fangs my way. “Oh, shut up,you. I’ve about had it with all your judgments about my love life.” She smacks my father a kiss on the cheek before darting into the woods. “Gotta run! I’m late for a date with mybetrothed!”
“Wait!” I cry after her. “You can’t get married! I forbid it!” What the hell is she thinking? “And that ring doesn’t make you look engaged,Mia!” I scream after her. “It makes you look like you displaced the twist tie for the wheat bread!” And don’t even get me started on the fact the twist tie for the wheat bread is exactly what Drake saw fit to bejewel Brielle’s finger with once upon a poverty-strickentime.
My father groans at the void she left in her wake. “Promise me you’ll look after her extra hard during these teenage years. How I wish I could be there forher.”
“I wish you could be here for her as well—to snap the neck of whoever saw fit to gift her that miniaturetourniquet.”
“Come, come”—my mother gathers my father into her arms and pulls him into the crowd—“we’ll seek you out later, my love. The time of the Bastard won’t lastforever!”
“Geez.” I take a step back and practically land in Marshall’s arms. “I hate that Mia has lost her virginityandher mind. At least Emerson gets areprieve.”
“Skyla.” He closes his eyes a moment. “You do realize it’s never as it seems with that woman.” A round of lightning flickers above. “Your Grace,” he says just past myshoulder.
I turn around and spot a white flame of hair running this way, Kate Winston—and I catch her in an embrace as tears buck from the both of us. Here it is, our final earthlyfarewell.
“Thank you for coming back,” I whisper into her ear. “I’m sorry I took you off the planet to beginwith.”
“It was fate.” She pulls back and takes me in as if she’s memorizing my features, and she might be. I’m memorizing hers. “Here’s a letter. It tells you everything you want to know about you-know-who.” She hands me a thin blue envelope just as Pierce comes up behind her. Wow, Kate is so creeped out by Emma she won’t even use hername.
“It’s that time again.” Pierce slaps me five before pulling me into an embrace. “Thank you. My brother and Serena told me they should be back at your window latertonight.”
“You might want to tell them I moved.” I bite down on a smile. “It was nice having you back. I hope you enjoyed yourstay.”
“Hell yes, I did. But heaven is best, and it happens to be where I belong.” He shoots me with his finger. “No Kragger jokes. You hearme?”
Kate and I share a littlelaugh.
“I suppose you’re proof we are all redeemable,” Isay.
“That we are, Skyla.” He pulls me into another hug. “Try to rememberthat.”
I share another quick embrace with Kate and watch as they disappear into the woods. “It’s show time.” I wave the envelope atMarshall.
“Do tell.” He leans in as my fingers work quickly to open it, and we’re greeted with the happy, loopy swirls of Kate Winston’shandwriting.
