“No. I... Maybe my mother was a bit of a snob?” Saying it feels wrong. Disloyal. But my mother’s identity as Farah Field required her to mix and mingle with an elite tier of society. Those were the kinds of people who would hire a personal security firm. I travelled with her and her clients for a long time, since it took years before we finally gave up on me ever following in her footsteps. Field Security clients don’t eat at places like the Lazy Moose, and so I never really got a chance to do it either.
“How long ago did she die?”
My gaze shoots up at his question. “What?”
But Jasper’s looking down at the table and he shrugs. “My dad died when I was twelve. I know what it’s like.”
But he doesn’t. He can’t. Because he gets to reminisce with people about the good old days. I can never tell anyone the whole story.
“Two years ago,” I say.
“That’s hard. Was she sick?”
See? Here’s where I have to lie, because how do I tell him that she was killed fighting Indigo? That when the light box failed, it set fire to the building they were in and the collateral damage meant my mother was branded a public menace after her own death? That the people who had been only too happy to bask in the safety the Legendary Flame offered while she was alive had refused to remember the good she had done in favour of the harm the final fight with Indigo had caused?
“Plane crash,” I say, because that’s the lie Ezekiel and I concocted. It took a lot of work to fake the traces of her private plane failing and forging everything needed to make it clear that Farah Field was dead.
Jasper whistles. “That’s rough.”
He doesn’t even know the half of it.
“I think it was harder on Ezekiel. He and my mother weren’t even married for ten years. That’s not nearly long enough.”
“What about your dad?”
That part is easier. “No clue. He died when I was a baby and Mother never talked about him much. All I got from him was a last name.”
“So it was only you and your mom while you were growing up?”
I laugh because it sounds so cozy the way he says it when my childhood was more like a decades-long superhero tryout that ultimately came up empty. Mother always said her own powers had been notoriously unpredictable until she was well into her late teens. So public school was out of the question. We couldn’t have me getting angry at the teacher and electrocuting her or blowing up all the computers in the building because I was thinking too hard about long division. So I was homeschooled, and I could speak four different languages by the time I was ten, thanks to our schedule of constant travel. In the end it amountedto nothing, though, since by the time I was eighteen, my powers had never advanced beyond making sure the flashlight always worked in case of a power outage.
“Something like that,” I say.
“You must miss her,” he says.
“It’s complicated.” I can’t quite look at him. The longer he talks, the more I feel like I’m lying when I’m just not telling him everything.
“My dad was my hero. When I was a kid?—”
I don’t hear the rest of it. He doesn’t know it, but the word sets me off. Jasper can’t understand anything about having a parent who is a hero. It’s not great. They don’t take you to baseball games or teach you how to tie your shoes. They put the good of humankind ahead of everything else and email you gift cards on your birthday because they’re halfway around the world chasing assassins most people have never even heard of.
“Can we not?” My skin tingles in irritation.
Jasper’s sentimental smile freezes, as does his reminiscing. “What?”
“We’re not going to bond over our dead parents,” I say. “I can’t right now. Every brain cell I have is swirled up in the time loop. I want to figure out how we get out of this damn thing, and then I’m getting on with my life. And you can go back to...” I wave a hand absently. “Scamming little old ladies out of their life savings, and holding up banks, or whatever it is you do.”
He stops smiling and his gaze drops to the table. “It’s not like that.”
“I’m sure it isn’t,” I say. So much for empathy. I did my best, but there’s a Walter Wolfe–shaped hurdle between us—and possibly a Legendary Flame–shaped one too—and I’m never going to get over it.
He exhales a long sigh and mutters something, but he pulls off his hat at the same time, so the words are muffled behind wool and I don’t catch them.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He runs his hands through his hair, but the gesture is rough and agitated.
“No, go on,” I push, sensing the fight before it happens. “What did you say?”
