Setsuna sighed, appearing tired, though not unrepentant. “Sit down, Patrick.”
“Setsuna—”
“You want answers, and I’ll give them to you, but sit down first.”
She was already moving toward the leather couch, though Jono remained standing. He met Patrick’s eyes before tilting his head at the furniture. Patrick grimaced, taking a large swallow of whiskey before going to sit on the couch, leaving an entire cushion between himself and Setsuna.
She folded her hands together over her lap, sharply cut hair brushing her shoulders as she turned her head to look at him. “Who we worship is private. It is for every family, for every group of magic users that comes together to offer up their prayers.”
“I know,” he bit out.
“Then know that I would have let your mother’s family know you were alive if they had worshipped anyone else but Persephone.”
Patrick wasn’t sure he believed her—wasn’t sure he could. Jono cleared his throat, and Patrick’s attention snapped to him.
“She’s telling the truth,” Jono said quietly.
Patrick swallowed, realizing that while he was shielded in her home, Setsuna was not. She had to know Jono would be able to smell the difference between a lie and a truth, and had kept her personal shields down accordingly. Patrick stared at her, not knowing what to say in the face of her revelation. To know that his life could have been lived in another way if only a handful of choices had been different. That his future maybe wouldn’t bethis.
He didn’t know, right then, what he would have preferred.
Maybe the Fates had it right after all, or maybe they were wrong. He would never know.
“I got attached to your mother’s murder case after you were brought to me. I was the one who gave Eloise her second interview regarding the sacrificial murder,” Setsuna said after a moment of silence had passed.
“She hates you,” Patrick said.
“Yes. But I interviewed her to see if it was safe to send you back. She was devastated. They all were. If I could have given them a reprieve from their grief back then, I would have. But when I was in her home, I saw her altar to Persephone, and all I could think about was you in that safe house here in DC and the soul debt you owed at such a young age.”
Setsuna’s mouth twisted slightly, but she never looked away. Patrick only had dim memories of that time after being brought to her—shock and trauma having eaten away at those moments he’d lived through all those years ago. He hadn’t been welcomed to her home until after the legalities over his name change and ward status were finished.
“You asked what I wanted back then. I told you I wanted to go home,” Patrick said slowly.
“And I told you it wasn’t safe. I didn’t lie back then, Patrick.” Setsuna sighed, flexing her fingers together. “You were eight and traumatized, and I had no right to send you back to a family who worshipped the goddess who owned your soul. The pressure on you to view Persephone as benevolent, as a savior of sorts, when she held your life and soul in her hand, yourfuture, wasn’t fair. I refused to put you through that.”
Patrick stared at Setsuna, barely able to feel the glass in his hand as he listened to her speak. He knew, rationally, where she was coming from. That yes, he’d been young and just survived a near-death experience at the time. Her decisions on his behalf didn’t make it better.
“You didn’t give me a choice.”
“I told you from the moment you became my ward that you could worship any god or no god, and you chose never to worship anyone. Covens exist to keep the memory of a god alive. Ask yourself if you would you have been allowed that freedom if I had sent you back to Eloise.”
Patrick didn’t say anything.
“I kept you with me because you would have been made to pray to the goddess you were unintentionally bound to. How would that have been fair to you? Where is the choice in familial requirements?” Setsuna asked gently.
Patrick flinched, knowing deep down she was right, but that didn’t make it better. “You and Ashanti made sure I was good at keeping secrets. I could’ve kept this one.”
“You were a child. You had enough weighing on you back then.”
“You still should’vetoldme. Before I went to the Citadel and the Mage Corps, or even fucking after. I deserved to know.”
Setsuna slid across the couch to sit closer to him. “When you came to me, I had no plans for children in my life. I always disappointed my parents in that way, but I never disappointed myself. Not until you became my ward. I knew I could never be your mother, and I didn’t want to try because that would’ve been a lie. But I at least wanted to be someone who put your best interests above as many others as I could. Looking back, I can see the failures and the successes.”
Setsuna finally reached for him, curling her fingers over his wrist above the cuff of his leather jacket. Patrick thought about jerking away, but he was the one who’d come here tonight, looking for answers. So he stayed where he was, stiff beneath her touch, and somehow knew that this was growth, bitter as it was.
“I tried to keep you safe the only way I knew how,” Setsuna said. “I wanted you to live to see adulthood foryou, not for what you thought you owed others. You were so hurt as a child, Patrick. I tried to give you space by letting you learn amongst your peers, and I was always here for you when you came home. But you were so standoffish, and I didn’t want to push because I was too afraid that trying to break through to you would harm you even more. You’d had enough of other people forcing their wants and desires upon you. I didn’t want to add to it.”
“I…”
