“What does that mean?” he asked.
“It means ‘my soul match’,” she whispered.
He smiled, then he coughed again, his chest shuddering.
“Oh, Ash.” Her calm shattered, and tears started in her eyes.
“I’m alright.” His voice grated. “I’ve just got a cold.”
He was a terrible liar. His lungs rattled, and Magdala’s own chest pinched as though she were slowly dry-drowning with him.
“I think after this, I would like to quit and find a new position at Elegy,” she said.
“Something more elevated?” Asherton asked. “Something morepermanent?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Until death.”
“The position is open, if you want it,” he said.
“There now, you have something to keep breathing for.”
“Ah, witch. I see your scheme.”
She forced a smile, but she just felt small and scared, and she wanted her Da to come in and make it all better.
Asherton drifted in and out of a restless sleep, his skin so hot it burned through the thick wool of her skirt. Dozens of desperate plans lit and dimmed in Magdala’s mind, like pixie bugs flashing and then fizzing out. A part of her wished she’d never fallen in love with Asherton, because if she wasn’t so terrified of losing him, she might be able to think straight. But doubt battered her.
She’d brought him to the very den of the enemy. And yet, this was home. This was her da’s house. Where else could she possibly have gone?
Her father’s rejection was a knife in her back. She was his only daughter, and she’d supported him for years. How could he treat her like this when she came to him for help?
Something shatters when a child sees their father as a man, not a god or an angelic protector. When the idol cracks. Magdala had revered Seamus, but the guise slid away and she found the lion was actually just an angry cat hissing in an alley.
The door creaked open and Zephyr entered with a tray. “Is he asleep?” he asked.
Magdala nodded.
“Is there a physician in town?”
“A royalist,” she replied.
He set the tray on the nightstand and sat softly on the edge of the bed. Gently, he touched Asherton’s brow with the back of his hand. He raised his eyes to Magdala’s.
“I tried,” she choked. “I swear, I tried. It was all against us from the start.”
Zephyr took a cloth and wetted it in a basin of water on the nightstand, then dabbed Asherton’s forehead. “Do you think we’re safe here?” he asked.
“I was just wondering the same thing,” Magdala replied. “I don’t think my father will betray us. I’m all he has.” But was she? He had the royalist zealots, too. Which did he love more?
“No.” Zephyr paused, gazing at Asherton. “A man won’t lightly give up the only thing he cares for in the world.”
Magdala understood his meaning, and she touched his hand. He winced and pulled it back.
“I was not an anxious man until I had a child,” he said. “For seventeen years, I have worried day and night over him, and all my fears are coming true.”
Magdala shook her head. “Nothing else will happen to him. We will get him back to Elegy and everything will be well again.”
“I wish I had never complained about any silly thing he did,” Zephyr continued, more to himself than to Magdala. “Sometimes, I saw him as an inconvenience or an interruption, but so are all worthwhile things in the world.” He wetted the cloth again and washed Asherton’s hands, his arms, his cheeks. “Truthfully, I was a very miserable man until Ash entered my life, and as strange and muddling as itwas being thrust without warning into fatherhood, it was also as though the clouds parted and the sun shone on my face again. Everything is better with children. Sunny days are warmer and cold nights cozier and all holidays are much improved. No, Ash brought me new life when he came to my island, and now …” The words died and he turned away, busying himself with squeezing out the rag and wetting it anew.
