“You may have been young when I left, Mirren, but you’ve always had a pure heart. You’ve always loved so fiercely. I know you wouldn’t leave them unless you had to.”
Black edges my vision. “You know nothing of my heart!” I snarl at him. How dare he speak to me of a pure heart when he is the one who corrupted it? When he is the one who twisted it into the tangled thing it is today? Losing Shaw has wrecked me, but my heart was poisoned long before that. It started with the man sitting in front of me. “Mother isn’t in Similis,” I throw the words at him like knives, and he recoils exactly as if he’s been hit.
Satisfaction and shame thread through me as I watch raw grief color his face. He swallows roughly and tears shine in his eyes and though I know that I should look away, I cannot. For as much as I wanted to hurt him with my revelation, it is now an odd comfort to watch my pain play across someone else’s face. It is ugly and familiar and for a moment, my heart twinges with recognition.
“What happened?” Denver finally asks, his voice raw.
I shrug with a casualness I don’t feel. “I’ve always been told she was Outcast with you.”
“So, you and Easton…you’ve been alone this whole time?”
I nod and watch as the consequences of his life choices fall upon him, each one a physical weight.
Denver buries his face in his hands and his shoulders shake. Moments pass and we sit like this—him pretending that he isn’t sobbing and me pretending that I don’t hear them.
After a long while, he looks up at me with red rimmed eyes. “I’m so sorry, Mirren. If I knew—I thought this whole time…”
I shake my head fiercely, unable to hear his apologies. A week earlier, I was desperate for them but now there is only ringing silence. And Shaw’s words.Heal them, Mirren.“I’m here for Easton,” I interrupt curtly. “He’s sick and he needs a parental transplant. That’s why I came to find you.”
Denver stares at me and I can tell there is so much more he wants to say. Questions he wants to ask and explanations he wants to give. But I have no room for them, so I only stare back at him flatly.
His eyes fall to his hands, hands that a week before had been shattered beyond recognition. Now they are whole and strong, the fingers straight and capable once more. “Are you asking me to come back to Similis with you?” He finally asks softly.
“Easton will die if you don’t.”
“What kind of sickness?” he asks, his voice suddenly strangely distant. As if he has shifted from being an apologetic father back to the man who runs this territory.
“Does it matter?” I ask hotly. “He will die if you don’t come with me. And I’ve already been gone so long, we need to go as soon as possible. Cal said we should be able to leave by tomorrow.”
Denver watches me with sad eyes. Then he drops his gaze. “I can’t go with you to Similis.”
The words are spoken so quietly that I think I’ve misheard.
“What?” I say, dumbfounded.
Now he meets my gaze. The crinkling laughter of the man who tucked me into bed every night is nowhere to be found. Something hard glints in his eyes that sends chills down my spine.The Darkness changes all it touches.“I can’t go with you to Similis,” he says again, the words crisp.
I lick my lips and stalk forward, so that I am leaning over the opposite edge of his desk. “Can’t or won’t?” I challenge.
“Both, Mirren. I am needed here. With Cullen after the prophecy for himself, it’s now become even more imperative that I translate the rest of it. I cannot leave Nadjaa and the rest of the Dark World to his evil whims. I must stop him and restore balance.”
Now I understand why the set of his mouth and the glint of his eyes seems familiar. It is reminiscent of Cullen when he spoke of his plans.
“You’re going to let Easton die?” My voice is dangerously low. I can feel my power circling the void inside me, a typhoon of antipathy and rage.
Denver shakes his head emphatically and I realize he still thinks he is good. Even after all this time in the Dark World, he hasn’t realized that thereareno good guys. That everyone will cross whatever lines they deem fit and sacrifice whoever they need to in order to achieve their own ends.
“Of course not. You healed me. And Maxwell and Calloway. I’m sure you can heal your brother as well.”
“I don’t know if my magic will even work in Similis! Are you really willing to risk Easton’s life onifs?!”
“I have faith in you, Mirren,” he replies, and it is only by digging my fingers into the desk that I restrain from flinging myself across it. From clawing and scratching at him until his wounds reopen and then leaving him to the ‘ifs’of healing.He knows nothing about the nuances of my magical abilities and his faith is only a servant of his goals.
“You sold Shaw and I to Cullen!”
“The pain, Mirren, it was unbearable—"
“Shaw sacrificed himselffor you.He did it so that you and I could live and that we could save Easton. Are you really going to let his sacrifice be in vain?”
