“I’m not sure. Have you thought about the other lines?”
Not as much as I probably should have.
“Unbalanced and sorrowful could be Hell,” Oliver offered, glancingout the tall arched windows. It was dark out, but we didn’t need to see to know what Hell looked like. “I’d be pretty sad if I was supposed to be a cold, sparkling torture device and turned into a muddy, decaying excuse for Hell.”
“I’m more curious about the last two sentences,” Aspen said, his voice lighter than his eyes.
“What world has been concealed from you, Lucille?”
Aspen patted Hadrian’s bony rump and squeezed beside him on the settee, much to Hadrian’s growling displeasure.
“Elora?”
Aspen pursed his lips, unconvinced.
“The Divide’s pretty vibrant,” Oliver added to my weak suggestion, sitting in a chair across from Aspen and throwing his feet onto the low wooden table between them.
“My mom did try to hide it from me.” Emphasis ontried. “But in the beginning, I only knew of Elora through stealing her books.”
“Awaiting a shudder?” Aspen mused.
“Metaphor?” I shrugged.
I had no idea.
Oliver snorted.
He seemed a lot more at ease now that Aspen knew and had offered the suggestion that I wasn’t going to be a sacrifice.
And maybe Aspen was right—killing my mom seemed like a large sacrifice.
Which left the last lines, and they didn’t seem too concerning.
“And your thoughts on when the ice whispers?” he asked, looking almost concerned by what I’d come up with.
“My father?”
Oliver bobbed his head back and forth.
“Ice… Ice king… okay. Whisper and fissures… a stretch.”
I sighed. “No, I haven’t thought about the other lines much.”
Aspen’s lips twitched with a small smile. “I can tell.”
The humor on his face warmed me and reassured some part of me that still worried about him.
“Well, seeing as I’m not bound to some sacrificial slab about to be bled and murdered by my real father, I’mgoing to bed.”
Aspen and Oliver both frowned.
Even Hadrian lifted his head from his paws.
“Too soon?”
“Yes,” Aspen said over Oliver’s, “Undecided.”
I rolled my eyes and opened the door.
