Chapter 20 Dear Old Pa
Rolan froze. It didn’t feel real: his father standing there, leaning on his cane and grinning at him. A part of him wanted to hug the man. A part of him wanted to run away as fast as his legs would go.
“So,” said Rabb Strider. “You’re the Arcanist’s boy now, are you?”
“I’m not his boy,” Rolan said. “I’m his apprentice.”
“Psh. You think you’re going to fight Cryptics? He’ll cut you up and feed you to them as bait.”
Rolan glanced around. They were alone in the misty rain. “He won’t. He’s not like that. Everyone is wrong about him, Pa. He’s good and brave, and he protects the city.”
Rabb scoffed. “He feeds off the city, boy. If we don’t pay his toll, he’ll set the Cryptics on us. He drinks their dark magic and they obey him. Everyone knows it.”
Rolan frowned at this twisting of the truth. But he couldn’t tell him the real way the Arcanist worked, not without betraying Luc’s trust.
“Why didn’t you come for me?” Rolan asked. “Hoff was going to put me in the duke’s prison. I waited for you. Two nights I waited.”
His father’s smile faded. He plucked a wad of mint leaves from Evaine’s little herb garden and stuck them in his teeth, slowly chewing. Finally he drawled, “I heard.”
Rolan sucked in a breath. So his father had known. “But you didn’t come.”
“I thought you needed to learn a lesson. A good father makes sure his son learns hard lessons. Such as, if you get caught trying to steal a lamp—”
“You’ve destroyed lamps before!” Rolan cried.
“Yes. But I didn’t get caught.” His father rapped his cane, making Rolan jump. He could still feel the sting of that hateful stick on his legs, his back. He took a step backward, just in case.
“What’ve I told you a thousand times, boy?” said his pa. “A true son of Rabb Strider doesn’t get caught.”
Rolan looked down at the scraps in his bucket. The warm, full feeling in his belly was starting to turn sour. “I would’ve been locked up for ten years or more.”
“It was all a trap anyway,” his father said. “Hoff wants me. You know that.”
“I know, but—”
“Would you have had me stick my head in his noose?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Stop stammering, boy, you sound like an idiot.” His father shook his head, then spat out the chewed-up mint leaves. They made an ugly dark splotch on Evaine’s clean, swept cobblestones. “You can’t even see how you’re being used by that Arcanist. He’ll chew you up and spit you out. He’s a monster.”
“No,” Rolan whispered. He wanted to shout it, but his voice was curled up somewhere in his stomach.
His father reached out. He put a hand on Rolan’s shoulder, making him flinch. “Come home, son. You belong with the crew. With me.”
Rolan lifted his chin. “You never wanted me to be part of your crew before.”
His father shrugged. “Can you blame me for wanting to spare my boy, my only boy, from the dangers of a life of crime? But maybe you’re right. Maybe you are ready to take on more responsibility.”
“I’ve gotten really good with knives,” Rolan said reluctantly. “You should see—”
“Yes, yes, I’m sure that’ll all come in handy.
” His father patted his shoulder, then, to Rolan’s shock, pulled him in for a hug.
He smelled of smoke and sweat and faintly of the sewers where he had his den.
It was not a pleasant smell, but to Rolan, it was home.
“Listen, boy. I’ve got a job for you. Something no one else can do. I need you at my side.”
Despite his anger at his pa, Rolan felt a prickle of interest. But he hid it behind a cynical scowl, not wanting to be reeled in that easily. “A job? Really?”
“Really!” Rabb smiled. “C’mon, son. We’ll go down to my place and I’ll tell you all about it.”
“What kind of job?”
“One that will require stealth and cunning. One that will prove to every member of my crew that you are meant to be my successor one day. That you got your pa’s wiliness in you.”
Rolan swallowed. He didn’t feel very wily at that moment. Only confused.
“Forget this Arcanist,” Rabb said soothingly. “Forget meeting a grisly end in the forest, your belly ripped open by some monster. Come home and be my apprentice.”
When he pulled away, Rolan’s chest was a tangle of confusion. Pride and shame. Excitement and dread. He didn’t know what to feel. He only knew that he’d been waiting his whole life to hear these words from his father. And now that he’d heard them… they felt emptier than he’d always imagined.
“I… can’t,” he said. “I gave my word to Luc.”
Only he hadn’t, not really. They were here, after all, because Luc was giving him a way out. He could go with his father right now and Luc would not come looking for him. He would know that Rolan had made his choice, and he might even be glad he’d left. He certainly hadn’t begged Rolan to stay.
But he had taught him how to read.
Rolan met his father’s eyes. “You didn’t come for me.”
Rabb’s face twisted, his easygoing grin turning sour. He seized Rolan’s arm roughly, making him drop the bucket. Scraps of food splattered Rolan’s shirt and shoes.
“I’m trying to save your life, you stupid boy! You think you’ll last as an Arcanist? You got caught a dozen times by that oaf Hoff, doing idiot pranks. But you think you can last against a blasted, full-grown Cryptic?”
Rolan jerked, trying to free himself. “I am not stupid!”
His pa’s lip curled and he raised his cane. Rolan cried out and turned his face away, dread and fear twisting in him like vipers.
“Rolan?” Anaya’s muffled voice floated out from the house.
His pa froze, his cane hovering over Rolan’s head. Anaya hadn’t seen them. The door was shut, but Rolan saw the handle turning.
With a curse, Rabb dropped Rolan’s arm. “I will get you back, boy. You’re mine, and I will get you back, one way or another.”
He vanished down the street before Rolan could reply. He stood there, breathing hard, as Anaya walked up.
She wrinkled her nose at the sight of his food-splattered shirt. “You’re a mess. What happened?”
“Huh? Nothing. It’s just me out here.”
Anaya gave him an odd look, then glanced down the street. “I thought I heard you talking to someone.”
“Just myself. I’m an excellent conversationalist, you know. Sometimes I get jealous of you all, getting to talk to me.” He grinned, hoping she wouldn’t hear his heart beating in his chest like a maniacal drum.
Anaya narrowed her eyes. “You’ve changed.”
“Calm down,” groaned Rolan. “So I learned how to read. Big deal.”
“It’s more than that. You talk different. You move different. You’re not the same Rolan you were a few months ago.” She smiled. “Rolan Strider, I think you’re ruined.”
Rolan sighed. He deserved that.
Anaya bent over and began picking up the scattered food scraps. Rolan helped, righting the bucket and shoveling handfuls of onion skins back inside.
“I think Evaine’s warming up to your Arcanist,” said Anaya. “She told me about his family, you know.”
Rolan paused. “His family?”
Anaya glanced up, a flash of alarm in her honey-dark eyes. “Oh… he hasn’t told you?”
“Told me what?”
She bit the inside of her cheek, her gaze sliding away. “I don’t think I—”
“Told me what, Anaya?”
Something in his voice must have swayed her. She sighed and dumped a handful of apple peels into the bucket, then gazed at him.
“Luc had a wife and a kid. A son. They died in a fire when the boy was our age.”
An image flashed in Rolan’s mind. A pair of boots by the door, perfectly his size.
He looked down at his feet. At those boots.
And felt sick.
“He never said,” he murmured.
“It was before he became the Arcanist,” said Anaya softly. “I think maybe that was why he became the Arcanist. Maybe Cryptics had something to do with their deaths. That’s the rumor, anyway.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry. I should have kept my mouth shut. He should have been the one to tell you.”
“A wife and kid?”
“Yeah. Pretty tragic, huh?”
Rolan nodded, his mind turning over this new information, trying to piece it together with the Arcanist he knew.
Anaya stood up and he stood with her, each of them with a hand on the scraps bucket. “Were you really talking to yourself out here, Rolan?”
“Huh? Yeah, of course.”
Anaya frowned. “Hm. I guess you haven’t totally changed, then.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re still a liar.” She toed something on the ground. It was the wad of chewed mint. “He always smelled like mint, when he came sniffing around after you.”
Rolan flushed. “He’s my pa.”
“He left you to rot in prison. He’s a criminal.”
“So were you, when I met you.”
“He’s different and you know it. He beat you, Rolan. You tried to hide it, but I knew. So did Evaine. You always had bruises hidden under your clothes. Why do you keep defending him? The way he treated you… he’s a monster!”
His cheeks burned. He couldn’t meet her eyes. “He’s my pa.”
She shook her head, tugging on the bucket. “I should tell Evaine.”
Rolan groaned, tugging the bucket back, but she wouldn’t relinquish her grip on the handle. “Don’t. She’ll meddle. She always meddles!”
“She wants to help you, Rolan! And you know, I think the Arcanist does too! I thought he was awful at first, another monster like your pa, but now? I think he’s good for you.
Dangerous and scary, yes. And I don’t want you fighting any Cryptics, either.
But Luc and Evaine… they want to help you.
” She tugged the bucket. “Why can’t you just let them? ”
“Because I’m FINE!” Rolan shouted, and yanked the bucket hard.
It flew out of their grasps and spilled across the cobblestones, again. Splattering food everywhere. Again.
Anaya sighed. “Why do we always end up fighting?”
“I don’t know.” Miserable, Rolan kicked a leek. “I don’t want to fight. Please, don’t tell Evaine. She’ll tell Luc, and I don’t want him to…”
He swallowed his words, but Anaya looked at him like she could hear them anyway.
I don’t want him to see where I come from. I don’t want him to know what Pa did to me.
When he thought of his father, his mind was a snarl of shame, and confusion at his shame. After all, hadn’t he spent his whole life wanting to impress his pa, to join his crew? He’d been proud to be the notorious Rabb Strider’s son.
When had that changed?
When had his pride turned to embarrassment?
In that moment, Rolan made his decision.