Hado, who still looked like a little black cat, picked his way across the wooden floor to sit in the very center of the gazebo and stare unblinkingly at Mat.
“Explain yourself,” I said. “We’re listening.”
He tipped his head, and it wasn’t like a bird searching the sky. It was like a marksman sighting the bullseye.
“I don’t remember you having such shabby manners,” he sniffed.
And there it was. The condescending tone the years had all but scrubbed from my memory. The full memory of him flooded my mind. Him in his fine suits of the day, behind the expensive oak desk, his sneer as he decided who would get money to survive, and who would walk out of his office with no future ahead of them.
I remembered his strut, the pleasure that oozed out of him as he lorded over life after life. As if killing, even if it was once removed, twice removed, was what fed him. He just obscured his weapons of choice with terms like “credit” and “equity” and “market value”.
“Time changes a man,” I said. “Some men.”
“Yes.” He frowned. “So it can. Tell me,” here his gaze ticked back to Lu, “how are you still alive?”
“Are you a man?” Abbi asked. “A real man?”
Annoyance tightened his eyes. “Of course I’m a man. Just like you’re a little girl. A real little girl, right?”
“O-ka-y,” she said, drawing the word out into three syllables. “Old manandmean.” She hopped down off of the bench. “Hado, let’s go play.”
“Stay close,” I admonished, like I was her father and she was actually a little girl.
She made a face at me and zipped off through one of the gazebo openings. I needn’t have worried about her.
For one thing, she was a moon deity. For another, Hado followed her. And for the last, she jogged only a short way out into the grass. Then she spun in lazy circles, her arms stuck out straight, fingers splayed to catch the breeze.
“Is she…” he asked, the question heavy with implication. I could interpret the question many ways: Is she ours? Is she mortal? Is she aware of what Lu and I really were?
“You start.” Lu, cool and collected, rested one booted foot on her knee and draped her arm across the back of the bench, her pale, thin fingers on the smooth wood. Her other hand was low, touching top of Lorde’s furry head.
Lorde stared at Mat, her ruff still bristled, but she was no longer growling.
“Start?” He frowned. “Oh, you mean why I…um…look this way?”
“Sure,” she said.
“It’s a long story, really, and I don’t claim to have been in the right of…well, anything I did. Most people don’t believe me. That I’m…” he gestured to his face and body, “…as old as I am. A hundred years.” He lifted his cup toward thin lips and grimaced before setting it on the bench. “You believe me, though, right?”
“It doesn’t matter if we believe or not,” I said. “It’s your story.” I didn’t want to accept he was who he said he was. Did he look like Mad Mat? Yes. Did he talk like him and act like him? Yes.
But there had been that moment, that split second, when I thought he had been changed by something more, something darker.
Something powerful.
It had been the briefest glimpse, and felt like god power. But he could be a wizard casting an illusion spell. Or a monster that mimicked, or hell, maybe he was Mad Mat’s grandson.
Who he was mattered. Mattered a lot.
But why he had zeroed in on us, why he hadsuddenlycrossed paths with us here in this little town, now, was the real mystery.
He considered me for a moment, then plucked at the coffee lid with his fingernail, making little plastic popping noises. “I suppose. It is my story. But I am…can’t I just say I’m grateful to share it with someone who might understand?” Here he gave me a wry smile and shrugged one shoulder. “Because I am. Grateful.”
My gut tightened. There was a calculation in his gaze, as if he were holding a match and measuring how long the flame could chew the wick before the bomb exploded.
“I was a vain man in my youth.” His cardboard gaze flicked to Lu and stalled there. “You remember, don’t you, Lula? My righteousness? How I held myself above others as if I were superior? As if I were a king?”
When she didn’t respond, he continued. “I regret those days. Things could have been…very different. For me. For you. We would have made a wonderful team.”
