He scratched his beard. “I’m not going to bring up our past,” he said, “but I do want to say this on behalf of Card. He didn’t want to go to you. Tried everything else he could.”
My heart was running fast, and I knew—Iknew—what he was going to say before he did.
“He came to me.” Dad put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a coin.
A very familiar coin. Except this one wasn’t copper but was, instead, the burning silver of stars. Marked in the center was a scroll. It was Lachesis’ coin.
I swallowed anger and frustration and just the general need to throttle a sleeping dryad. “He gave it to you?”
“He wanted me to find the information he needed about his sister.”
“And you told him it would cost Fate’s coin? Hell’s tits, Dad! You took the coin from him?”
Okay, from his expression, I hadn’t said that as calmly as I’d thought.
“I didn’t tell him it would cost a damn thing! But he knows I have connections, and those connections are more willing to talk when you have something valuable to give them. He gave me the coin. He told me to spend it if it would help him find Thistal. And I looked, I asked, but no one has information about her. No connection I have.”
He was shouting. But then, so was I.
“If you asked around, then why do you still have the coin?”
“Because I didn’t offer the coin! It belongs to Fate, and even I’m not stupid enough to use it without her blessing.”
“Then why didn’t you give it back to him?”
“I didn’t want him to spend it with someone else who would keep it. He went to the swamp siren and gave her a coin, can you believe that?”
“Yes,” I said, “which was stupid. But we got that coin back.”
He sat up straighter and nodded. “Good. That’s good, Erica. I didn’t think... I have no idea what she made you pay for that, but I hope Card did the paying.”
“He did.”
Dad grunted. “Is he still alive?”
“He is.”
“He’s there?”
I could lie, but there was no reason for it. “Yes. We need that coin.”
“I know. I’m in Missouri, but I didn’t... I wasn’t sure if you’d allow me near the place.”
The history of our lives together, all the laughter, all the pain, sat between us like a stone wall that neither of us could climb, nor chip apart.
“The Crossroads hates you.” I said it calmly, but it hit him harder than all the previous yelling.
His cheeks above the beard slapped red, and the lines at his forehead and edges of his eyes deepened.
“I don’t blame it.” Those words were so quiet, I thought maybe I was losing the audio connection to him. “But there’s something more you need to know, Erica.” He held up his hand. “It isn’t about us. It’s about Card.”
I closed my mouth and crossed my arms over my chest. “All right.”
“Do you know who sent him after these coins? Who wanted him to find the envelope in the diner?”
I waited.
“I do. I asked enough people. They couldn’t tell me what I wanted to know about Thistal, but they told me other things. Lots of other things.”
