“You…you saved me,” I croaked. My throat still felt clogged and my speech came out rather slurred, so I cleared my throat several times. My body was limp and my mind churned around thoughts slowly and with great difficulty. “The siren blood…”
“You’re lucky I knew what you were talking about,” Lochlan said. “I cleaned it off you the best I could without breathing it.”
He offered a drink, which I feebly pushed away.
“The papers?” I weakly reached for where I’d put them under my shirt but found them gone. “I had papers. I need them.”
“Drink first,” he insisted.
I took a few sips and a little more of the brain fog lifted. “Where are the papers I had?”
Lochlan opened a side table drawer, lifted them out, then thumbed through the stack. “Looking for your family?”
I glanced at the door to make sure it was locked then nodded. “I’m looking for my mother. Her name is Brielle Holloway and she was sold there many years ago,” I whispered. “I grabbed that stack of papers hoping she’s somewhere in there. They were burning the office.”
Lochlan looked at me for a long time. “Jillian,” he said very softly. “The odds of them keeping those records or of you finding her after all this time…”
“Please. It’s my only chance.”
Lochlan sighed and opened the folder, eyes skating across each paper before placing it to the side.
“I’ll help,” I said, reaching for the next.
Lochlan handed one to me. “You might be too groggy,” he warned me. “But you can try.”
The ink was faded and the papers cracked when handled with anything other than the utmost care. I studied each word for seconds at a time, but he was right. My thoughts were all too muddled and confusing to make any sense. Defeated, I returned it to Lochlan and sank back into the bed’s depths. This mattress and these pillows were too soft for me. I’d never be able to stay awake this way.
“Is this your bed?” I mumbled, looking at the heaps of pillows piled around me.
“Yes, and I know you said you didn’t want it, but you need it more than I do. I couldn’t have you sleeping in that old hammock or on the hard floor.” He kept his head down as he busied himself making another drink. “You need to recover.”
“No, I have to find my mother,” I told him.
“And I’ll help you,” he promised. “You just rest.”
For more than an hour, Lochlan meticulously went through each paper, hunting for that sliver of a chance that my mother’s information was still somewhere in those files. I dozed off a few times and each time, I awoke, Lochlan was still there, meticulously tracing his finger over line after line.
He really was very handsome, in a roguish, ruffian-like sort of way. His hair was straight and hung down like curtains but failed to hide the dark shadows around his eyes. I tilted my head and squinted.
“Do you have a black eye?”
Lochlan self-consciously pulled his hair down so it shielded his face even more. “It’s not bad,” he said.
White-hot anger leapt in my stomach. “Was it Roderick again?” I remembered only too well how Roderick had lost control and slapped Lochlan before—his own son.
“I told you, it isn’t bad. It’s not a big deal. He was just upset that the Nightsworn were there.”
“Itisa big deal,” I whispered.
“Roderick dislikes the Nightsworn more than most. I’m sure he was just worried they’d know our faces now.”
“I don’t care what his reasons are. It was wrong.” If my family had treated me that way, I wouldn’t be so desperate to find them. Roderick had a son who, regardless of what he claimed, was desperately trying to earn his father’s approval and instead got injured constantly. If only there was something I could do for Lochlan. He’d done so much for me already.
I shivered and Lochlan immediately rose to pull out yet another blanket from the trunk at the foot of the bed. It was one he had knitted himself. Dishcloth-sized squares of different colors were bound together to make an enormous patchwork-style quilt. Each patch had a different pattern, or parts of a pattern. I ran my hands over the irregular bumps and half-formed designs. Mable was right. This sort of knitting had character. I didn’t need perfection.
“Where are Roderick and Peter?” I asked.
Lochlan tucked the quilt in around me. “Probably off counting their gold. They’ve been selling the pixie blood we brought back.”
