I don’t dignify her ridiculous thoughts with a response, and Grace chooses to focus on the part about her gift. “Sorry, but it doesn’t work like that. You can ask me anything about the supernatural world, and I’ll have an answer, but I’m not omniscient. I don’t have the vision.”
“She’s like a dictionary and Google combined,” Seiji adds. When I keep staring blankly, he pauses to explain whatGoogleis.
Even when the Kingdom of Death was still in the human realm, I didn’t grow up surrounded by human technology. Papa always said that riding our horses and talking to people face-to-face was better than sitting inside a steel entrapment and answering plastic bricks.
He didn’t believe in‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’His version was, ‘If you fail to killme, I’m going to killyou.’
“So you can’t help us find our father dearest?”
The tears Grace had been holding back now fall freely down her cheeks.
I turn to Angel, horrified that I’ve made another member of his family cry, only to find him smiling like a fool. When he sees my confusion, he whispers it’s because I said “our father”.
“I still don’t understand why you’re crying,Honeybunch. Papa adopted you and made me. That makes us sisters. You’re stuck with me now. I could use a mentally stable sibling in my life.”
Grace starts sobbing again, but this time a broad smile spreads across her face, which only confuses me more.
I’m dumbfounded by how fast Grace goes from bright and sunny to a weeping mess. Her range of emotions and how fast she switches between them is giving me whiplash.Is it a human thing?
Grace finally pulls herself together and says she’s happy to help me look for Papa, though her powers won’t help much in the search.
“But we are sure he is okay? That he is, you know…alive?”
Hazel throws her hands up in exasperation. “Why do you keep assuming everyone is dead?”
“Because almost everyone I knew in the last decadeisdead. And let’s not forget, Vishatoldme everyone was dead.”
“She lied, you golden glittery soul eater.”
“Yeah, I know that now, you shark in a human meat suit.”
“I don’t like you,” Hazel mutters, deadpan.
“Oh, but Iloveeeyou,” I say it loaded with sarcasm, but I have to admit I do feel protective of her on some level.
Papa always preached the importance of family, and Hazel is Angel’s family, so she falls into my small list of people I consider my own.
1. Papa
2. My little Monkey
3. Harvey, the eternal dumbass
4. Angel
5. Grace, Hazel, and Seiji
I thought the difficult part of this conversation was over until I remembered Angel mentionedthreekingdoms.
Angel scratches the back of his head nervously when he feels my questioning stare. I want this conversation and this day to be over, so I ask him to just spit it out.
“I took overConquerandWarwhen I was seventeen.”
My head jerks back, and I look at Angel like he’s suddenly grown three heads.
“Why would Uncle Henry give you War? That’s Harvey’s bloodright.”
It’s already hard to believe he was crowned Conquer at just seventeen, but that still doesn’t explain why he was given War.
