My mother pulled me forward, steering me off toward the dining room. “I’ve tried my best to make your room feel like home to you.”
My throat felt tight even as I cleared it and my vision blurred, despite blinking the tears back. I hadn’t let myself feel it, truly feel what it would mean to vanish from Sanctuary forever. Dahlia’s family had fallen apart after Darius. Would mine do the same? Would she be forced to endure watching another family come apart at the seams?
“—I even had the decorators match that ratty old wallpaper you always loved back in your old room.”
My mother was still speaking, still going on about her process of readying my room, and I hadn’t been listening at all. I forced a small smile and nodded for her benefit.
I would tell them. I would tell all of them. Just not today. Not yet.
For now, I allowed my mother to lead me into the dining room, where she sat me forcibly down at the head of the table and rushed off to fetch the meal she’d prepared. Maurice, Warren, and Dahlia filled in the seats around me, and we waited in an uncomfortable silence for my mother to return. Warren opened his mouth on two separate occasions, as if he wished to say something but thought better of it.
It was strange. They were my family. I loved them more than anything else, but I couldn’t think of a single thing to say to them. The way we’d lived the past few years, apart from each other and leading different lives, had created a separation. There was a chasm that had opened between us, and each passing day that I’d lived in House Viper—in the lap of luxury, training for antiquated Trials—had made it wider and wider. We had nothing in common but blood and memories. And try as I might, I couldn’t fathom a way to bridge that gap.
“It’s only soup and sandwiches,” my mother said as she pushed through the door, a full tray of steaming food in her hands. Warren jumped up to help her, looking relieved to have something to do rather than attempt to make conversation with the stranger his sister had become. “But I figured I’d make your favorite tonight.”
“My favorite?”
“That lovely Bria girl told me how much you enjoy the fowl they serve at House Viper.” She set the bowls of steaming soup in front of each of us.
My smile faltered. “She did?”
“Oh, yes. She has been visiting quite often lately. Ever since she and Maurice—”
Warren cleared his throat, and my mother ceased speaking, though she glanced from one older brother to the next. Her lips parted in understanding, and she bowed her head as she handed me my sandwich.
“I see,” she said.
I turned my gaze to Maurice, who was already busy chewing on his own sandwich. “Maurice?”
His eyes rose slowly to meet mine, but he continued chewing as if nothing of any consequence was happening around him.
“What is mom talking about?”
His gaze went from me to our mother and back again.
“The acolyte,” he grunted finally, waving his hand in gesture as if I wasn’t aware of who we were discussing. “She and I are friends.”
“Friends,” I repeated, disbelieving.
Maurice only nodded and returned to his food. I glanced over at Warren, who watched our older brother carefully. He would be no help. I returned to our mother.
“Yes,” she said, slowly. “She’s very sweet. And she seems to care for you a great deal, Adrian.”
“Not as much as Maurice though, yes?” I queried drily. The resulting silence was punctuated only by me biting hard into my own sandwich and ripping away the fresh bread with my teeth.
Maurice shrugged and made a show of loudly clanging his spoon against the insides of his soup bowl.
“Anyway, I talked to one of House Viper’s servants, and she told me where they acquired their fowl, so I went and ordered one myself,” my mother continued, proudly, sidestepping the issue of Bria and Maurice altogether. “It’s been in the icebox for a week now. She told me it would stay good that way. I’ve been waiting until you could be available for dinner, but it was starting to go bad, so I had to cook it. Luckily, you chose today to return home.”
She sat down next to me, smiling as she reached over and gave my forearm a squeeze.
“She was saving it for a victory celebration for you, once you complete all ten Trials,” Warren told me, also clearly grateful to be away from the prior subject. “But I suppose there’s no point in waiting now, eh?”
“Why not?” I blurted, my anxiety ratcheting up a notch.
“Because…you’re here now.” Warren replied slowly, his frown betraying his confusion, “and done with the Trials.”
“Done? Who said I was done?”
