He didn’t nod. Didn’t shake his head either. Just held my gaze like he was daring me to look away first.
“I… How many?” I frowned, trying to sift through years of my memories all at once, looking for anything amiss.
“Elior…”
“How many?” I repeated, my voice sharp.
“Nine, including your mother.”
My chest throbbed, and my brows creased. “So, Father is in trouble for hiding the deaths?”
He hesitated.
My hand dropped from his face.
“Jace,” I urged.
“He’s in trouble for that, yeah. But…” he closed his eyes in a grimace, “the bigger issue is that investigators suspect foul play. Either by your father directly or orchestrated by him.”
The words felt wrong. Slippery. Like they didn’t quite belong together.
I blinked at him.
“…What does that mean? ‘Foul play?’”
For a moment, something unreadable crossed his face—something almost like pain. He took my hand in his, and brought it up to his face, leaning his cheek into my palm.
“They believe your father killed them.”
The world tilted.
“No,” I said, because that was the only word I had. “I mean, you know Mother died from giving birth to me. I’m not sure about the others, but Father…” Fatherwhat?Fatherwouldn’t?Isn’t that what I had thought before he whipped me?
Jace’s fingers wrapped around my hand again, pulling it from his face to hold it between both of his.
My ears rang. “I don’t know about the others—I-I don’t remember anyone dying, but Mother… he wouldn’t. Why would they think that?”
“Because,” he cut in, then stopped himself. His grip tightened just a little, his voice dropping lower, rougher, threaded with something dark, “because they had the remains examined. Some of them were in late stages of decay, but most were skeletal, meaning those ones have been dead longer.”
I stared at him, my thoughts moving like they were trapped in syrup.
He winced at whatever he found on my face. “I don’t want to tell you, cherub. Please. You shouldn’t hear the details. You’re too soft for this. I can’t—”
“I need to know,” I whispered. “I can’t believe he would do something like that. I won’t. Unless you tell me what they found.”
“Fuck,” he muttered. “A single bullet wound, entering from the back of her skull.”
I stared at Jace, waiting for the rest of the sentence to come along and make it make sense.
It didn’t.
“A… bullet?” I repeated, testing the word like it might dissolve if I said it wrong. “Like from a gun?”
His jaw tightened. He nodded once. “Yeah,” he answered.
My mind refused to follow. It just… stalled. Slid sideways.
“No,” I said, my voice oddly calm. “No, they must have mixed her up with someone else.”
