“No.”
“Then how do you—”
“Rémy, here, woke the magic.”
“For fuck’s sake, it’sSlate,” he growls.
“And now you only have two weeks to assemble the Quatrefoil,” Papa says quietly.
Slate’s grip slackens. “Good thing finding things that don’t want to be found is my forte.” Beneath the confident inflection, I sense agitation.
“Except you won’t be able to retrieve them on your own,” Papa says. “All fourdiwallerswill have to play in order to win.”
Goose bumps rise everywhere on my body. “All four? I’m going to have to”—I gulp—“helpSlate?”
“Yes.”
“Who are the other two?” Slate asks.
Papa stares out the window. “Adrien Mercier and Gaëlle Bisset.”
Of course . . . the descendants from the founding families.What exactly was I expecting? That these other guardians would be strangers?
“Oh, goodie,” I think I hear Slate say. He might’ve just emitted a caveman grunt. Wouldn’t put it past him to make sounds of an animalistic nature.
“What happens if we can’t get the pieces in fifteen days’ time, Papa? Do they go back into hiding?”
Papa shuts his eyes, and his nostrils pulse. “Unless Slate has fathered a child, it’s game over after this new moon. And not just for a while, but forever. He’s the last Roland.”
Both Slate and I frown.
“If the ring doesn’t come off before the new moon, it kills the carrier.”
Slate doesn’t make a sound. He seems to have stopped breathing.
“My original plan was to bring Rémy—I mean, Slate—home, fill him in on our shared history, fillyouin”—Papa’s lids reel up, and he stares at me—“then call a meeting with the others. One of thediwallerswas going to put on the ring . . . I wish it could’ve been me, so that if we failed, if anything happened—” His voice catches, and his eyes begin to shine like the lake. “But no thread of dormant magic runs in my blood. All I can do is teach the four of you all the lessons we learned from past mistakes.”
Another chill scatters over my skin. I must pale because Papa wheels himself closer and clasps my limp hand as though to remind me that he’s here. That everything will be okay.
“Thank goodness you can’t put it on,” I say, closing my fingers around his. “I’d rather have a parent than magic.”
“You’re almost eighteen—”
“So what?”
He glares at his useless legs. “MaCadence, you think I enjoy being in a wheelchair?”
I know it’s hard. I know he’s often in pain and resents relying on others for everything, but I just can’t—I just . . .
“Papa, I’llalwaysneed you.” Tears pop out from underneath my lids and leak down my cheeks.
His thumb comes up, and he swipes them away.
Why am I weeping over this? It’s not like losing him is an actual possibility. I mean, I’ll lose him eventually. No one lives forever, but at least it won’t be a ring that removes him from my life. Not like my mother.
God, a ring . . .
I lost her because of a cursed jewel. It still seems so . . . so—
