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This man isn't here to protect us.
He's here to make sure we arrive.
"Come on, stormbird. Let's go home."
He takes the front passenger seat, half-turned so the back seat is never out of his sight. As the car pulls away, I look at his hand resting on his knee, the knuckles still red. He opens his slate with the other hand, reads something I can't see, then closes it again. He does it a second time, the light going across his face before he puts it away and turns back to the road.
I don't know what he's looking at. I don't know what happened behind that door. He hasn't said a word since the museum steps, and something about the quiet feels settled rather than empty.
Whatever comes next has already begun.
24
ASH
We stop at our house long enough for me to get myself back under control, then drive across the city in the dark. The guard drives while I take the passenger seat, with Jade behind me.
“Is this where you grew up?”
I look at him over my shoulder. “Yeah. Every miserable fucking year of it.”
Jade turns to the window as the house keeps unfolding ahead of us. Gray stone rises four stories high, wings stretching away beneath dark glass. Lawns roll towards the river, lime trees lining the drive with lamps already glowing beneath them.
“Light,” he mutters. “I’ve never seen a house this big.”
“Most people haven’t. There’s no good reason for one.”
He keeps looking. “How many people actually live here?”
“Just Dad now. Apparently one man needs four floors to be unbearable in.”
The corner of Jade’s mouth moves, but mine doesn’t.
Home.
The word has never fit.
By the time we cross the entrance hall, the place is already under my skin. Every corner is familiar, every room holding something I would rather have left buried. I fucking hate this house.
Placing a hand between Jade’s shoulder blades, I steer him left, away from the staircase and into the corridor lined with portraits.
He slows. “Who are all these?”
“Clements who spent a lot of money making sure nobody forgot their faces. Keep walking.”
We round the end of the corridor towards the terrace, and Dad is already waiting outside.
Of course he is.
He always gets there first, even for a meeting I never wanted.
The doors open onto the covered terrace, the whole valley spreading beyond it with forest running down toward the water. Ryven is already there with one shoulder against the stone, Seren beside him. Both look like they’ve been waiting rather than summoned, and Dad doesn’t acknowledge either of them.
A table waits beneath the stone roof, a white cloth covering it, tea things arranged between the chairs, while two men in suits stand near the edge of the paving with their hands behind their backs.
“Good. You found each other.” Dad gestures toward the table as if this were a perfectly normal family evening. “Sit down. And Ryven, do try to look slightly less delighted to be here.”
My cousin pulls out a chair. “I’ll work on it.”
