“You called him brother,” Dyna murmured.
The unexpected statement made his pulse quicken. She was speaking to him. On her own. Unprompted.
Taking a breath, Cassiel rubbed the back of his neck, ignoring his blush. He hadn’t known she’d heard him. “We have faced a lot together since we began this journey. I care more for Zev than those I share blood with.”
Though, whatever kinship they once had was likely gone now. He was good at that. Ruining relationships.
“Including Lord Jophiel?” Dyna asked.
The question made something in his chest tighten.
Sighing, Cassiel rested an arm on his propped-up knee. He couldn’t answer her yet. He still hadn’t fully processed the possibility if his uncle had told the truth about the witch bangles. Perhaps he was afraid to find out that he was wrong and the immense guilt it would leave him with.
But he was also afraid to be right.
When Cassiel confronted him, he had been too angry and wracked with several other emotions to even hear what Lord Jophiel had to say. So sickened by all the deception, it was easier to believe his uncle had stuck another knife in his back, too.
“I don’t know…” Cassiel replied faintly.
Another beat passed before Dyna asked, “Would you like to speak to him?”
He would need to muster up his wits for that first. “I will when all of this is over.”
“I meant to say, would you like to speak to him now?”
Cassiel blinked at her, confused by her meaning.
Dyna reached into her leather satchel and pulled out a scalloped silver plate that glinted with an iridescent pearl finish. Lord Jophiel’s water mirror. “I found it … after.”
After he left.
So, this was how she had confirmed his uncle’s release. The mirror must have been left behind unnoticed somehow. Though Cassiel was sure he had checked the rooms when he had erased all traces of himself. Clearly, he failed.
He had to turn his head away so she wouldn’t see the look on his face. Tentatively, Cassiel asked. “Have you … spoken with him?”
“I have.”
It took a few minutes to get a hold of himself to speak. “How was he?”
“Do you want the truth?”
There was something in her voice that made Cassiel look at her.
Dyna remained watching her cousin, but the expression on her face made his stomach drop. “He looked thin. Weary. He is resting in Hilos with Asiel there to care for him.”
Cassiel lowered his gaze to the ground. A lump formed in his throat, drying the words in on his tongue.I am despicable, aren’t I?
It was a raw question he couldn’t bring himself to ask aloud. Even if Dyna had heard him, she would have told him the truth.
He was a sorry excuse for a person.
Dyna plucked a blade of grass and rolled it between her fingers. “Despite what he endured, Lord Jophiel does not hold you at fault. His first words to me were, ‘Is he well?’”
Cassiel pressed on his burning eyelids. That sounded exactly like his uncle. He never felt more worthless and undeserving than in that moment.
It reminded him of the day he had arrived in Hermon as a boy.
Snow capped the mountains, so enormous they made him feel insignificant. Cassiel stood in the courtyard coated in ice as he took in the soaring castle before him. The frosty wind whipped painfully against his tender wings.
