The kid had opened up to me. Just a little.
I had to repay him in the same coin. He had to see me act in good faith.
Even if it cost me something.
Then I said, “Murphy. Karrin Murphy. She died in the battle.”
Just said it. Out loud.
That she was dead.
The mist rose and poured over my hands, colder and wetter than the evening air.
“Oh,” he said. “I remember her. You two were…?”
“Yeah.”
“How?” he asked quietly.
“Shot,” I said. “Neck.”
“Oh,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
I shrugged. “She was a fighter. She went out fighting. As dying goes, it was quick.”
It was likely the mist that made the distant lights blur in my vision. Sure.
“I miss her,” I added. My voice was rough.
Fitz was quiet for a long moment.
But I had showed him what to do. I’d set the example.
“I had an older sister,” he said, his voice somehow smaller, younger. “Before you met me. Caught between two gangs. She got hit in the stomach and bled out in an alley.” He blinked his eyes several times and couldn’t quite stop a tear from falling. “I miss her, too.”
I looked aside at him. Blinked a lot.
He was looking up at me, his expression serious. “I mean, if you ever need to talk about it,” he said. “I feel you.”
I hadn’t talked about it much.
Not even in my quarters in the evenings.
She’d been gone for more than six months.
Maybe it was time to do the healthy thing.
Maybe it was time to start letting go.
Maybe it was the best thing for me.
“Maybe another night,” I said quietly. “Go get some rest. See you at breakfast.”
Chapter
Thirty-One
Two more of the Brotherhood of St. Brigid were cursed over the next week. Messengers arrived at the castle to ask for my help around nine o’clock, each time right when I was about to do my evening ritual. I got my curse-breaking technique down fairly well. The spell to remove it was actually quite similar to the one I’d put together to try on Lara. I could have made it simpler and easier on me if I’d used more props, but the church tends to frown on people spray-painting sigils and runes on their nice chapel floors. Maybe I could get some kind of mat made from some substance that was magically resilient enough to handle multiple infusions of energy.
