Memories brushed against him, as flimsy as gauze. A Servant paying close attention. A familiar voice. She’d been here in the Withers, all along.
“You wanted me?” Nate asked, his buzzing thoughts settling there. It was such a stupid, childish thing to ask. But he couldn’t breathe until she told him the truth. He had to know.
“Of course I did.” She touched his hair and cheek, patting him like he’d disappear if she stopped. “You’re my son.”
“I’m a GEM,” he said, stubborn hurt twisting the words.
“You were always our son.”
Nate bit his lip hard and gave in to her tugging hold. Her arms were stronger than he expected. He was nearly a man, but with her arms around him—with his mother’s arms around him—he felt like a little kid.
The questions he’d never been able to ask were sludge in his throat. He had to get them out. “Why did you make me broken?” he asked between hiccoughed breaths.
“Because I was impatient and selfish, and we lost the fertility drawing year after year. I was always around babies in the lab. Tiny little GEMs. And I wanted a child. I wanted you so much, Nate.”
Nate recalled something Bernice had told him. “My father thought I was a mistake?”
He could barely remember him—only that he had been terribly quiet and had never held him.
Ivy’s nostrils flared as she sucked in a tight breath. “He didn’t agree with what I did.”
“Because you couldn’t keep me.” A flash of resentment ran through him. “Didn’t you care about that?”
“I didn’t think about what it would mean for you or for us. I didn’t think—” Her voice cut off, and she stiffened, squeezing Nate’s arms protectively.
Nate lifted his head, heart pounding.
Reed stood in the doorway to the living room, staring at them. Pixel pressed against his side, and Brick and Sparks crowded behind him.
“Hey.” Nate’s throat tightened. “It’s okay. This is Vivian. She’s one of the Servants here. She’s. . .she’s my mother.”
It didn’t sound real. The word tasted strange.
Pixel’s eyes went wide.
“Please call me Ivy. I prefer it.”
Nate swallowed. “Ivy, this is. . .this is my family.”
Reed stalked toward Nate and Ivy, careful as a cat. Brick picked Pixel up and watched them with a hunted look. But Sparks’s frown softened to something sweet. She met Nate’s gaze, and it grew to an encouraging little smile.
“Hello,” Ivy said. She held her ground when Reed came close, wound tight as a spring.
Nate could only stare. He’d taken after his father, with his dark, thick hair. Ivy was different and familiar all at once. Dingy brown hair like Bernice’s fell in wisps from her braid. Her gray eyes mirrored Nate’s, framed by fine lines that gave her pale skin the texture of soft paper. Her teeth were brilliantly white and straight, nothing like the weathered teeth of everyone else her age in the Withers.
Reed waved the girls off, and they ducked back into the living room, tugging Pixel along with them. He stood tall, as if he planned on acting as a wall between Ivy and Nate if he had to. “Is she with Agatha?” he asked, ragged.
Ivy’s breath hissed, and her grip on Nate’s arms tightened. “Agatha? You’ve seen her? Has she gotten near you?”
“Wait. This is Reed. He’s. . .” A blush spread across Nate’s face. The last thing he’d ever expected to do was introduce a boy to his mother. Not that they were together that way. But that didn’t stop a traitorous flutter around his heart. “We’re. . .”
Reed’s eyes widened. He cleared his throat. “Nate’s with me. With my gang. I mean. . .”
Sparks made a strangled sound from the other room.
“Yes,” Ivy said, as if she wasn’t listening. “But Agatha. She’s incredibly dangerous. You’ve met her? Did she follow you here?”
“She tried to take me and—” Nate cut himself off, unsure if he should tell her that Pixel was a GEM. “I don’t think she followed us.”
