Hazel pouted, but mischief still sparked behind her slate-blue eyes. “You know… If you don’t tell me, I can always get Cliff to spill the details. I’ve already got him to let me taste whiskey.”
“Hazel!”
“It was only a tiny sip!”
She seemed so utterly proud of herself, I didn’t have the heart to reproach her further.
I was still piecing together how I might recount a monster hunt that wouldn’t traumatize my little sister when a soft scuff caught my ear.
Footsteps. The smell of coffee hit me next. Over the past months, that scent would have indicated Jon or Cliff, but I had learned their gaits well enough to understand this was neither of them. The footsteps paused in the hallway. Hesitated. Then resumed.
A chair scraped away from the table, and I peeked over my shoulder, unsurprised to see Father tentatively setting down a mug of black coffee.
“I can’t believe how early you two are up. It’s criminal,” he said, offering a crooked smile between us. “May I join you?”
While Hazel squeaked happily and flew up to nuzzle his cheek in greeting, I still struggled to find my voice at the mere sight of him. I cleared my throat and nodded, gesturing at the seat before him.
“Where’s Mother?” Hazel asked, landing next to me again.
“Still sleeping,” Father said. “Let her rest. You know how much she needs it.”
Hazel nodded, and quiet fell over the table. Father regarded me for several long moments as though still trying to make up for years of being unable to see me. Then his eyes drifted to the snow in the distance. A forlorn smile tugged at his lips.
“Do you miss being an ice affinity?” I asked, my voice again feeling weak—so unsure what to say to him. But my curiosity was genuine. My insides twisted at the thought of what it would feel like to be cut off from such a crucial part of myself. As much as I wanted—needed—this, the number of sacrifices had never seemed piled so high until now.
Father grappled for an answer. “I’ve gotten used to its absence.” He said it with the same heaviness of a person who was still grieving a long-lost loved one. He cleared his throat, tone lightening. “The mild glamour I’m able to wield over humans is like a faint memory of what I used to have.”
“He used it to tell the motel owner to let us stay for free!” Hazel declared. “He did that a lot, actually.”
Father’s smile turned sheepish—almost wincing at Hazel’s words. “It’s not much magic at all, really, but yes, it has been immeasurably useful. Particularly of late.”
My answering smile was weaker. I’d first seen him use that ability to tell one of Eros’ guards to get down on the floor of the truck before ending his life. The father I’d lost had wounded foxes and snakes outside Elysia at worst. Who was this man, who knew how to kill so effectively, so brutally?
Father’s expression warmed toward me, though he clearly chose his words carefully. “I can still remember clear as day when I taught you how to control snow flurries. I could hardly believe how quickly you took to it. You reined one in so strong that it swept you right off your feet. Days after discovering your affinity, too.”
Despite everything, a laugh threatened to escape. The memory—allthe memories—of how he had trained me came rushing back in. “I’m lucky the snow softened my landing. I barely had a handle on my flight back then. You taught me well.”
I unsheathed my dagger and held it up for his inspection. His eyes widened.
“I’ll never forget how furious Mother was about this gift,” I tacked on, raising my eyebrows at him.
He chuckled around a sip of coffee. “‘Honestly, Tristan, who gives a child of ten summers a blade?’She must have known you were destined to find trouble at some time or other, since she allowed you to keep it.”
“It’s certainly saved me more than once.” Sobering, I studied the jeweled hilt. Bitter over his secrets or not, I couldn’t deny that Father had given me the tools to becomethis. A hunter. A warrior. I stiffly added, “I liked your letters.”
Judging by the crispness of the newest envelope, he had written it mere days ago. It contained a promise that he would see me again soon. A rare promise that he had kept this time.
“Did you read them with one of your hunter friends?” Father shrugged when I gave him a guarded look. “You made no effortto hide that you were sharing a room with that Nowak fellow last night.”
“Jon,” I corrected.
There was so much I could have told him, then. That Jon had been my anchor last night as I went through the letters. That he had held me and soothed me when my vision grew blurry and a headache pounded from my steady crying as I soaked in year after year of my father’s familiar handwriting—loving words he had written while I had mourned him all that time.
“You two seem…close,” he said evenly.
Hazel snickered. I shot her a reproachful glare as I roughly shoved my dagger back into its leather sheath.
“We’re in love,” I said without any attempt to ease him into the idea. “I want to spend my life with him.”
