“I’m sorry that you somehow got caught up in the drama,” she muttered. “It’s not what it sounds like—I’m not sleeping with him. It’s complicated.”
I raised an eyebrow, surprise eating my words. Complicated indeed. I did feel a slight sense of relief, though. Finally, I said, “No need to apologize. It’s not your fault.”
Roslyn tsked, but I caught her bemused look in the mirror. “It kind of is.”
I shook my head. “Whatever. Forget about all that. What’s the deal with him anyway? He’s so odd.”
Odd. Understatement of the year.
Roslyn grimaced in acknowledgement.
“Ezreal is rather unique but incredibly gifted. But you are right. Odd doesn’t quite cover it, I’m afraid,” she added sardonically. “I’ve been a bit of a fool.”
The angst in her voice said everything I needed to know for us to move on from this. I didn’t know Roslyn well enough to judge her for such a thing, and if I did, it wasn’t my place. She was clearly in turmoil with herself, and my knowing her secret was enough damage for one day.
In a way, I was glad it happened. I liked Roslyn, and I wanted to understand her, but if this moment hadn’t occurred, the barrier between us would have held firm.
But now the guards were down.
“My mom was murdered, and I think it was because of me.”
Roslyn turned on her stool, setting her brush on her vanity. She watched me with wide, concerned eyes. She was doing a good job of navigating all of this as one of the Aurkai by not overly expressing shock and focusing instead on my choice to reveal it.
I told her everything. My entire childhood.
I inhaled deeply. “Then, a whole year passed that I have no memory of.”
It was like the absurdity of it was only just now setting in. Then again, in the context of the things that happened here at Nightfall, it didn’t seem all that crazy.
“Could we be any more screwed up?” I asked, an odd relief coming over me at just having said it out loud. I cringed internally—maybe talking about shit did make you feel better.
Roslyn smiled and shook her head. “You have no idea.”
Roslyn’s words were frail, spoken without connection, as her mind was lost deep in some memory.
She stood up abruptly.
“You can’t remember anything? Not a blurry image, a scent, or a feeling?” Roslyn asked.
I shook my head. “It’s as if I went to sleep that night and woke up the next day back in North Carolina and no time had passed.”
I traced the swirling pattern on the quilt folded at the end of her bed.
“That’s terrifying,” she said, sitting beside me and propping herself on her pillows. She tossed one to me and I caught it, nestling it in my lap.
“It’s never made any sense to me,” I said. “Someone took me, kept me fed and unharmed, then put me right back where they’d taken me from exactly one year after my mom was murdered.”
Roslyn reached over, touched her head to mine, and put her arm around me.
“It sounds like your mother was killed because she was trying to protect you from someone. I fail to see how the fault lies with you,” she said.
I leaned across the foot of her four-poster, hugging the pillow tightly against my chest. She was right—someone was responsible for her death, and I needed to know for sure who that was, even if it was me. But if it were me, someone else had been there that night, and that didn’t add up at all with me flying off the handle and killing her.
“My mother was killed too.”
Roslyn’s words shocked me. She was still, her thoughts somewhere far away.
“Why?” I whispered.
