“Yes.” The answer came out quicker than I meant it to, but it didn’t change the facts.
Keegan’s father kept looking at me for another second, like he was checking whether I’d take my words back.
He gave me a small nod and stepped forward.
“That’s unfortunate.”
Twobble threw his hands up. “I’m sorry—are we just skipping over the part where things get explained?”
Skonk pointed straight at Rendel. “Yes. Like, why do you want the shadow stone?”
Rendel glanced at both of the goblins before his eyes came back to me.
“You really don’t know where it is.” It wasn’t a question. It was an observation.
“I just said I don’t have it,” I replied.
“But you know of it.” He tried a different angle.
I hesitated while something thoughtful crossed his face.
“You know where it is, don’t you?” A wicked smile spread across his lips that was nothing like Keegan’s. “That’s as good as having it. Just might complicate it.”
“Things are already complicated,” I said.
He gave a small nod, conceding the point, as the forest creaked softly behind him.
A branch shifted somewhere in the trees, and it was the quiet sort of sound that made the hairs on the back of my neck lift.
Rendel’s gaze flicked toward the noise and back to me.
My mind raced through everything I knew.
The Priestess.
Shadowick.
The strange pull the stone had carried when it surfaced before.
Now Keegan’s father, very much alive, is standing in front of me, asking for it like it was the most natural thing in the world.
And Gideon is the one who has it.
“You still haven’t explained something,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“Why do you think I’d give it to you even if I had it?”
A faint smile touched the corner of his mouth.
“Because you want your mother back.”
The words landed quietly, but they hit harder than anything else he’d said.
Twobble sucked in a breath, and Skonk went completely still.
I felt a tidal motion again in my stomach, like something heavy had been dropped into deep water.
