My head fell back, and I let out a groan.
“It’s just a small leak,” he laughed. “Just be grateful it held up this long. It’s not like you bought this place in pristine condition.”
“I know, just another thing for me to do that can’t be done yet.” I rubbed the back of my neck, tapping the bucket with my slipper.
“Patience is a virtue.” His tone was full of humor. “But not often paired well with tenacity.”
“I am patient!” I rolled my eyes. “It just never feels like I am able to rest until everything is perfect.”
“Then you may wander a lifetime unsatisfied.” He patted my shoulder, squeezing reassuringly. “I’ll fix it in early spring. Should be able to replace the entirety of it if we get a week of nice weather.”
“You should show me how.” I squinted at the stain.
“It’s not safe; just let me do it.”
“No safer for you than for me.”
“I suppose,” he chuckled. “Someday you may not need me at all if I teach you all my tricks at once.”
“Oh stop it, don’t say it like that.” I turned into him and hugged, squeezing around his torso and resting my head on his shoulder. “We will always need you, Pops, even if we have to make up things for you to fix.”
“Well, I would sure hope you would. To keep my mind young, right?” His arms wrapped around my shoulders. “Don’t get all soft on me, Crow.”
A wave of relief washed over me. Like the weight and pressure of a hug was enough to make my coal of a mood into a diamond. He never broke our hugs until I did first. He was not a replacement for my father, but some days I wished he had been.
4
THE FIXER
Two Years Earlier
The Nest, United Kingdom
There was not a single tile that hadn’t been smeared with black blood. The bodies were piled together, some unrecognizable in their state of carnage. The only thing worse than the sight was the smell, like horsehair as a fire starter.
Dumb luck was the only reason I wasn’t among them. I hadn’t had even a drop of the wine, but it was hard to be grateful when there was a decorative sword pinning you to the wall.
When the sounds of sizzling flesh and screaming calmed, the rooms were still. It was rare I was surrounded by this many bodies for them to be completely silent. The only discernible movements were the fleeting shadows of birds outside, interrupting the morning light flooding the space. Reflections of the windows rippled in the wet blood coating the floor, the last drops freeing themselves from the corpses.
The slapping of finely made shoes against the wet floor stopped in the archway.
“Ah, right where I left you,” Silas spoke, brushing his hair neatly into place with his bloodied hands as he tucked a handful of dazzling heirlooms inside his pocket. Thousands of collective years of Vipera lives, only to end due to a tantrum.
He failed to acknowledge me with any sense of urgency. He approached a slumped body in a chair, digging through the pockets and finding a small gold folding knife and a roll of bills. His lack of a response prompted my brow to twitch, though I was unsure if that was from annoyance or the poison eating away at my nerves.
“Nowyou choose to defend her honor?” I taunted. “Were the social repercussions suddenly of low importance to you once you realized she no longer needed you?”
“There are no social repercussions if there is no one left to pass judgment,” he said calmly, staring at the collection of miscellaneous photographs on the wall, tainted with small droplets of blood across the glass.
“He’ll kill you for this.”
He followed the wall until he stood beside me. “I am his only son. He won’t,” he replied.
Then he grasped my face, tilting it to either side before settling his gaze on the burnt side. “Having trouble healing, are we?”
He flicked the knife open, pointing it right above my eye.
All I managed was a thick swallow.
