He stares down at me hard, as though he’s seeing my father instead of me. “Why don’t you ask him?”
I splay a hand on my waist, crimping the thick fabric. “I’m asking you.”
“I’d rather you hear it from him.”
Why is Slate suddenly being so tight-lipped?
“So. Towels? Sheets? 6-in-1 soap?”
Sensing I’d have an easier time shucking an oyster with my nails than getting Slate to open up about Papa, I whirl around and start toward the stairs that lead to our basement laundry room. “6-in-1?”
“You know, the manly sort—for hair, body, face, teeth, eyes, ears.”
I snort. “You’re a very strange boy, Slate.”
Again, he’s quiet. I check over my shoulder to make sure he didn’t take it the wrong way. Since when do I care how he takes it, though? He desecrated my mother’s grave. I shouldn’t care at all about how he takesanything. I miss a step and stumble. I fling my hands out to catch myself, but Slate is quicker. He cinches my bicep and steadies me.
My breathing quickens. “Thank you.”
I notice it was the hand with the ring that caught me. His finger is so bloated and purple, I’m surprised he can still bend it.
“Did the ring do that?”
A tiny groove appears between his black eyebrows. “Give me fast reflexes? No. I learned those to stay alive.”
Stay alive?Where did Slate live that he needed to develop survival skills? And how did he end up out of Brume? I decide to file this question for later. Or for Papa. Since he found Slate, he must know where Roland’s heir has been all these years.
“I meant, the bruise on your finger.”
“Oh.” He makes a fist that must hurt, because his smooth forehead crimps beneath the mess of corkscrew curls. “Trying to get it off did that.”
“Must be weird. Not being able to remove it.”
“You have no idea.”
I turn and stare at my feet so I don’t trip again. Next to the laundry room, there’s a medicine cabinet where we store a pharmacy’s worth of ointments, bandages, and pills. Although Papa hasn’t had an infection in some years, we’re ready for one. We’re ready for anything. I slide my finger down the line of pill packets until I find a painkiller that isn’t sold over the counter. I pick it up and hand it to Slate.
“Take one in the morning and one at night. It’ll help with the pain.”
He studies the packet, then my face, as though surprised I’m worried about how he could be feeling. I push a strand of hair behind my ear as I crouch in front of the shelf of toiletries and select a few bottles from my father’s stash before closing the medicine cabinet and walking over to our teal-tiled laundry room. I grab an empty plastic basket off a shelf, toss the bottles inside, then open a cupboard and snatch two fluffy white towels.
“Do you need a duvet and a pillow?” I ask, sorting through the neat piles of sheets and pillowcases for ones not intended for Dad’s medicalized bed.
“Yeah. If you got any extras.”
I push up on tiptoe to reach the top shelf, but my fingers don’t even skim its underside. I turn to look for the stepstool when the tip of my nose bumps into Slate’s chin. I whirl back toward the shelf, heartrate picking up speed. He extends his arm and plucks a folded duvet off the shelf with ease. My pulse strikes my neck faster when he doesn’t step back. He still needs a pillow after all, so there’s no reason for him to move.
As he lowers the feathery comforter, his gaze drops to mine. “Can I take this one?”
I slide my palms against my jeans to rid them of the sudden moisture. Without even looking at what he’s clutching, I nod. And then I swallow because his eyes are still on mine, and he’s standing so close that the fragrance of dark berries and cloves wafting off his skin overtakes the scent of talc and detergent surrounding us.
“I’m sorry about your mother’s grave, Cadence.”
I inhale sharply, his apology sweeping over my mind like a hand through steam. Suddenly, instead of his dark eyes and dark hair, I see her.
And I shudder.
Slate backs up and drops the duvet inside the laundry basket propped on the ironing board.
