Orlan’s voice is quiet as he steps back. “I’m sorry I can’t do anything about his wounds. I’m not a healer. My specialties are transportation and weaponry. But I know enough about injuries to say that those are self-sustaining. Even if I could heal him, his wounds would break apart again.”
“I understand,” I say. “Thank you for bringing him here.”
With a nod, Orlan moves away to join the hellhound on the far side of the room.
My pack gathers around the hearth after finding more fur rugs rolled up on the far side of the room, which they then lay around the fireplace to sit on. Anarchy hands me two of the furs to wrap around the keeper.
I’m torn between trying to make him warm—despite the fact that it seems nothing will do so—and needing to keep an eye on his wounds.
Even so, I do what I can, tucking the two rugs around him up to his chin while telling myself I can check his injuries from time to time.
Halle, too, settles close, although she finds her own corner of a fur to sit on.
Once again, Jonah has taken up a position farthest away from Halle, leaning against the wall on the far side, where he’s half-encased in shadows.
I expect my pack to demand information, but Halle gets in first. “What happened?” she asks. And in the next breath, she grumbles, “And why would you drag the keeper into Veritas instead of me?”
I cast a glance her way. “Because I actually believe that you will tell me the truth.Withoutneeding that room. The keeper would not.”
She unfolds her arms. “Well. That’s…” She splutters a little. “That’s nice to hear, but you could have made that clear earlier. I don’t offer my help very often, and I was a little insulted that you threw it back in my face.”
I arch my eyebrows at her. “You would have thought it was strange if I trusted you too easily.”
She gives that a moment’s thought and then shrugs. “True.”
I return my attention to the keeper and now my shoulders slump.
“I don’t know what to do,” I say.
I look up at my pack.
Anarchy prompts me. “Maybe if you tell us what happened?”
I sift through the information I gleaned while I was in Veritas and decide it’s best if I recount it in a few simple statements, even if they’re baffling. “He didn’t tether my mother’s magic. He did rip out her heart, but she was already dying. He can’t achieve his own vengeance because those responsible for his pain are already dead, although their magic lives on. His name was taken from him. He is my enemy because his purpose is to constrain a power that my mother passed on to me. And he is…”
Now I stumble over the most baffling thing of all.
“Veritas insisted that he is light, not darkness.”
Everyone around me wears creased foreheads, casting confused glances at each other.
Except for Halle.
And maybe Jonah, who has stepped back into the shadows at the side of the room.
“I believe I can fill in some gaps for you,” Halle says. “If you’re willing to answer some questions along the way?”
I don’t see how I have a choice at this point.
I came to the Underworld because the keeper brought me here. My father is out there, no doubt looking for me, and now the keeper is barely alive.
“I am willing,” I say. “Please tell me what you know.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Halle folds her hands in her lap.
“You told me that you only recently learned about your mother’s mechanical heart,” she says. “What do you know about it?”
