“A pillow. You forgot a pillow.” My lucidity surprises me. Then again, I’d rather concentrate on a real bed than on Maman’s death bed.
He nods. I back away this time so our bodies don’t collide. He reaches for a pillow and chucks it on top of his load.
“Slate, why did you”—my throat clenches—“vandalize my family’s crypt?”
Keeping his gaze fastened to the narrow hallway, he heaves the basket up. “I was angry with your dad.”
“For bringing you back to Brume?”
He slides me a look before he utters a dry, “No,” and steps out of the teal-tiled room.
I close the cupboard and turn off the lights. He’s already halfway up the stairs.
“Slate, what did he do to you?”
He pauses on the landing, his broad frame scraping the kitchen doorway. His back is to me, shoulder blades pinching together underneath his tailored coat. “I’d rather he tells you, Cadence. But if he doesn’t, come find me.” He glances over his shoulder. “I’ll probably be nursing my oblivion-bound soul at the tavern. Unless something else is open?”
“Probably not tonight.”
He nods. “Are you going back out?”
“I don’t plan to.” I sense he wants company, but mine?
As we emerge into the foyer, his boots’ thick soles squelch against the white marble, and the Bloodstone catches the light from the heavy crystal chandelier, scattering scarlet tinsels over the glass protecting Gauguin’s sketch, a sketch my father bought my mother for their first anniversary.
I’m still studying it when the front door bangs shut behind Slate, making the frame vibrate.
I cross my arms and clutch my elbows. “Papa?”
“In the living room.”
I go to him.
He’s sitting beside the window, watching the misty lake glazed in moonlight. “It froze over once.”
I approach him and look out.
“Your maman insisted we buy ice-skates even though neither of us had ever skated before. I spent more time sprawled on my backside than I did upright. Amandine was a natural, though. She managed pirouettes after an hour.” His eyes shimmer, and I think he’s seeing her, vibrant and full of life. Alive. And it makes me think of her tomb, but not in anger. Slate’s apology abated some of that. So did the whole idea of magic. I need to call the custodian and ask him to put the lid back over her grave. I don’t want Papa to see the dried husk of silk and bones she’s become. “She was so graceful.”
“I wish I remembered her.”
“I wish you did too.”
A tear curves down his cheek, and that tear terrifies me because I’ve never seen my father cry. He’s my rock. Rocks don’t weep.
“Papa, why does Slate hate us so much?”
He rubs his fingers across his cheek before looking up at me. “He doesn’t hateus. He just hates me.”
“Why?”
Darkness blunts the shimmer in his gaze. “He thinks I left him in foster care because I didn’t care.”
“Foster care?” I don’t know much about the system but imagine children don’t always end up in happy homes. “He didn’t grow up with any relatives?”
“He has none.”
Right.His bloodline ends with him. For some reason, the fact that Slate was an orphan hadn’t clicked when Papa mentioned it was game over if Slate perished.
