He hesitated only once—when he got to the news of her father. But Aya had looked past him, a vacant expression clouding her face as she simply said, “I already know.”
There’d been a finality in her words, a clear sign to back off. So he did.
He knew it would take time for her to share her own recounting of the last two months. He would not be the one to push her, not after all she had endured. Perhaps that’s why he was surprised that when Aya finally did speak, it wasn’t to respond to what he’d told her, but to share information of her own.
“I am the only other person who can open the veil.”
Will stilled, his makeshift washcloth still pressed against her sharp cheekbone. She’d lost the fullness of her face in captivity. It emphasized the bruised skin beneath her eyes, just as it had all those months ago in Trahir.
How many more times would he wipe the blood fromher skin? How many more times would he stare into her exhausted eyes, thrown into sharp relief by the gauntness of her face?
“Who told you that?” he asked.
Aya blinked, something akin to guilt settling in the depths of her irises. “Your mother.”
Will’s brow furrowed in confusion. “What? When?” He did not have a perfect memory, especially when it came to the interactions with Lorna. He tried to bury them deep enough to mute the bitter sting of abandonment. But the day he brought Aya to her was crystal clear, sharpened by the desperation that drove him to seek Lorna’s help in the first place.
They spoke with her about the veil, but Lorna said nothing of Aya being the only other person capable of opening it.
Aya’s eyes darted across his face, her lips moving soundlessly as she tried to find her words. She frowned, and Will dropped the washcloth to cup her cheek instead.
“Aya,” he soothed, his thumb skimming across the arc of her cheek. Gods, he could feel the bonerightthere. “What is it?”
Her throat bobbed, her voice coming out cracked and confused. “The Vaguer brought her to Kakos with them,” she said, her frown deepening as if she were trying to sort truth from lie. “You…you didn’t see her on the wall in Sitya?”
Will cocked his head, another question rising to his lips, but it died in his throat as something horrible dawned on him.
If that was Evie who fell over the wall, then who did she take with her?
“The woman who went over the ledge,” he breathed, his heart slamming against his rib cage. “It was my mother.”
Aya’s chin quivered. “I-I thought you saw her,” she whispered. “I am so sorry.”
Will swallowed hard, his gaze dropping to the ground ashe tried to make sense of what she’d told him.
Lorna was dead. His mother wasdead.
Why?
He wondered if he’d accidentally asked the question aloud. He wasn’t sure with the way his thoughts collided in his mind, each yelling to be heard. But Aya was pulling his hand away from her face and cupping it between her own as she said, “I think she knew the entire time what I had planned to do to Evie and the veil.” Her lips pressed into a thin line as she tried to compose herself, her eyes lined with tears she refused to let fall, as if his grief was more important than hers.
Am I grieving?
He didn’t know. He felt nothing when he thought of how he had no certainty his father had survived the attack on Dunmeaden. Butthis…
This snagged in his chest in a war of emotions he could not identify despite a lifetime of feeling everyone else’s and his own.
“When I saw you…I froze,” Aya confessed, her grip tightening on his hand. “I’m sure Evie realized then that I had tricked them all. Lorna bought me time to run. She jumped over the wall, and she brought Evie with her.”
Lorna was dead. Lorna had died, and the demigod…
“They think Evie survived,” Will muttered. “I heard them talking about it downstairs.”
Aya ducked her head, staring hard at their clasped hands. “I had a feeling she would not be killed so easily.”
Lorna must have known the same. She was dead, and she had died knowing she would not kill a demigod, but instead give the woman he loved another choice.
She saw Aya’s path, and she gave her life to give her another route.
