I took Penny’s hands and led him after me as I backed down the hall. He squinted in confusion when I passed his door and kept going until we could go no farther.
“You know, your bed’s a little small for two, Pen.” I pushed open the door to my father’s room—ourroom now—and gestured him in. “But this bed’s big enough for both of us.”
A smile lit his face. It was so free and unburdened that I couldn’t help but return one in kind. He pulled his hands free and disappeared into his room for a moment, then reemerged with the pillows and blankets from his bed.
“I’ll get the dusty sheets if you’ll start a fire,” he said as he passed, stretching up to peck my cheek.
I watched for a moment as he chucked the old pillows on the floor and stripped the bed like a whirlwind.
After a quick detour back to the living area for an armful of wood and a box of matches, I built a fire and fed in kindling and logs until it warmed the room. By the time I was done, Penny was perched expectantly on the edge of the bed. He flipped down the blankets on the opposite side when I approached, then gave the open space a welcoming pat.
I didn’t take the unspoken invitation, choosing instead to borrow one of his favorite maneuvers and climb into his lap, chest to chest with my knees on either side of his hips. His breath caught in his throat.
His fingers skated up my back beneath my shirt, and I wound my hands in his hair, pulling him in for a bout of searing kisses that left him panting.
But self-doubt and dark memories lingered in the back of mind, and they only grew louder until those thoughts were looping in shrinking circles, binding me up. Panic crept in, and my own breathing picked up speed.
I was tired of being afraid. For too long I’d been a coward, closed up in my house in Forstford or hiding behind someone bigger and older than me for years before that. It wasn’t until Penny that I realized I could be brave even when it scared me, but I’d still put off facing the part of me that threatened what I’d built with him. He deserved to know. He’d earned my honesty and trust by giving me his. Whatever the consequences, I couldn’t keep secrets from him anymore.
I leaned back as Penny’s fingers grazed the waistband of my trousers. He chased my lips and looked surprised whenI caught his hand and pressed it to the center of his chest to hold him at bay.
“Kit?” His brow crinkled, and his free hand slid down to rest on my thigh.
“I need to tell you…” I shook my head and pulled away to stand.
As much as I wanted the comfort he offered, it would be too easy to accept it and postpone this for another day. On my feet and with a bit of distance between us, I fought to put my thoughts in order.
“There are things…” I raked my hands through my hair to work out the agitation sparking through my muscles. “Things I’ve never told anyone. My father knew, and so did Harlan, but I never… Vi didn’t know, and I never told Levitt, either. Because it was monstrous, even by our standards.”
Clearly I hadn’t gone far enough, because Penny’s fingers snagged the hem of my shirt, and he pulled me in. When I resisted his attempt to lure me back into his lap, he settled his hands on my hips firmly enough to keep me from retreating.
“You can tell me anything,” he said softly.
I cinched my arms around my waist like I could hold in the pain lurking below the surface. I wondered if Penny would come to regret opening this door, but I chose to take him at his word.
“While the Bone Men were crafting their Vessel, my father was crafting me,” I said, hating the tremor in my voice. “Trying to mold me into another version of him. I resisted, but it was a new torment at every turn. I was never enough like him to satisfy his ego, so he found ways to dismantle the parts of me he didn’t like. Sent me to dig up bodies as punishment for acting my age and doing childish things that he found embarrassing. Force-fed me the goat Ihand-raised because I’d ruined her with my affection. Murdered the man who taught me my trade because I loved him more than I loved my father.”
My vision blurred behind a film of tears. Penny’s fingers pressed into my hips, almost painful, but I let it refocus me, pull me out of the clinging memories that threatened to swallow me whole.
“It didn’t matter how hard I fought against him,” I said. “He made me into something I never wanted to be. Made me do things?—”
“Darling,” Penny murmured and started to stand, but a firm shake of my head stalled him.
“You’re not my first recruit,” I confessed. “Not technically. Just the first recruit I brought in to actually undertake the Oaths. There were twelve over three years…” I swallowed against the knot forming in my throat. “I’ll never forget their faces.
“After I went to the mission and Nora patched me up, I couldn’t hide the stitches in my hand from my father. He was livid and raged at me for days, disparaged me for risking the safety of Ashpoint by seeking help. As far as he was concerned, I’d have been better off bleeding to death in the graveyard.”
The words rushed out of me like a flood, like the dam was finally broken. The release of pressure was both agony and relief.
“He didn’t trust me to go out on my own after that to look for graves, but he found a new use for me. When he told me what it was, I took Levitt and tried to run back to Nora and the mission and the safety she’d promised. But my father caught me, and my failure made him angrier.”
Penny's gaze was intensely focused, and his brow pinched like it hurt him, too. It made me want to stop, toassure him everything was all right, but I couldn't find the conviction to fuel those words.
Instead, I hung back and lowered my head while digging my fingers into my sides until the bruising pain overwhelmed my fear.
“My father used to send me out with Harlan to…” I squeezed my eyes shut, but that just gave the memories room to play out on the insides of my eyelids. “He said we needed more bodies, and there weren’t enough graves, so…”
I didn’t want to admit what I’d been party to before I managed to escape. The lives lost because of me. I may not have killed anyone with my own hands, but I facilitated their deaths.
