22
Father sits in the armchair.
Drink in hand, he watches the sun rising through the sheer curtains, glaring against the windows, and even glinting the amber liquid in the tumbler he nurses.
But he doesn’t take a sip.
Like he’s stuck in a daze.
He’s been in that daze with me since Oliver laid me down on the bed, and Father dismissed both him and Mr Younge, then dragged the chair to the edge of the bed, and sat down with a drink.
He hasn’t moved since.
Neither have I.
The tranquillity of the brew keeps me relaxed. But doesn’t make me sleep. So in this quiet between us, I just stare at my greatest traitor.
I turn over, onto my side.
The feathery quilt swishes under me, the pillows rustling, and it lures Father’s gaze to me.
He stares into my eyes.
He says nothing.
For the longest while, the silence continues between us.
The pinkish hue of dawn presses against the bedchamber windows, and warms the room.
The imps return, tend to the fireplace, then leave again.
And it’s only when the sun has risen, and the colours of dawn settle, that Father finally lifts the glass to his lips.
He downs the scotch in one thirsty gulp. Or anxious.
He gives a soft sigh, and he sets down the glass on the floor. Then, bringing his hands together, like in prayer, he leans forward.
His elbows press into his knees.
I hug the pillow under my head.
“I will be candid with you.” He lifts his bottle-green eyes to me—and they are raw, bloodshot with the silent tears he’s been shedding on and off for hours. “I never wanted you to learn the truth about the transfer.”
My brow furrows, snags on that word.
Transfer.
Not theft. Not violation.
Simply a transfer gone wrong.
But the brew keeps me placated.
Or the exhaustion numbs me.
The exhaustion of everything. Of being a deadblood and fighting through the days at Bluestone, the prejudices aimed at me, the push towards Dray Sinclair by my own family, the dismissals of my pain, the escape, the wretchedness of life out there, the work, the jobs, the motels, the shitty apartments, the motherhood I never asked for, the krum blood under the sky, the phone booths, the call I made, my betrayal of Serena and Sal, the cut that Dray slashed through my flesh, and now, this—
To learn that the weight I have carried with me for the past few years, the weight of learning that I am nothing more than a krum, was so much worse than that.
That this man who sits on the armchair in my room, whose face is taut with shame and despair, is responsible for my disability, that he took what was mine and gave it to my brother.
All of it has just… beaten me down.
It’s pure exhaustion that keeps me curled up on the bed, hugging my pillow like a child holds onto a safety blanket.
Father loosens a heavy breath and starts, “The transfer… It…”
But his words fail.
They flounder between us.
I’m unmoving. I stare. And wait.
But not really. I don’t really wait—because what can he say to make me understand, to make me ok with this? Any of it.
He tries again, “Your mother… She…”
And again, his mouth clamps on words he can’t quite conjure, and his lips suck inwards.
It’s like he doesn’t know where to land, where to start and where to end.
Static hums around me in the air.
Nothing feels real.
Not my blank, numb mind. Not the cuts on my body that I can’t feel anymore. Not the walls around me, the chandeliers above, the man on the armchair—a father who has failed me since birth.
I’m too detached.
Too detached for his excuses.
But that doesn’t stop him from trying.
He runs his hands down his thighs and pushes upwards to sit up a bit straighter.
He says, soft, “I was hard on you. Perhaps more than I should have been.” His nod is faint, and it’s to himself, his own thoughts, his own words. “But there was reason behind it. I feared this.”
He gestures to me.
To my catatonic state.
“I feared your pain if you learned the truth… I feared your reaction. And the reaction of others, if they realised what you are. You are more… complicated than a deadblood, which can be unsettling for others.”
“Is it bad?” I ask, and the bluntness strikes him silent. “What you did to me—would the others think badly of you?”
His mouth flattens into a grim line.
“No, Olivia. Any other coven house would have done the same. Sometimes…”
His lips sink inwards again, and he bites down on them, turning his cheek to me.
Then, he continues, “Sometimes the gods test us and our loyalties to them—how well we will serve them. Oliver was not only born weak of power. He was born sickly. Very,” he adds, and the look he hits me with is severe. “If we hadn’t performed the ritual, your brother would not be with us today.”
I am unmoved.
I am still too numb.
Too detached.
Father’s shame drops his gaze to the rug. “It was never meant to be all of your power. But the pull of the transfer, it was too much, and the ritualist lost control. You were drained.”
My stare is stagnant, just like my insides.
But the thought tugs at me, and I ask, “Doesn’t that make me a krum?”
Father’s frown is improper. His mouth tugs down at the corner—and I decide, right now, that I get my pouting from him.
But the look is gone in a blink.
And he looks at me with urgency in his watery eyes. “No, you are not a krum. You were drained, yes, but you are a Craven, and you very much were born a witch.”
I think that makes a krum.
But then, Father says, “A witch is not a krum with power. A krum is not a witch without power. We are fundamentally different. Our blood is different—”
“Mine isn’t.”
Father’s lashes shut on the hurt.
He shakes his head, just slightly.
“I did not give up on you.” He opens his eyes, and tears glisten them. His voice wavers with urgency, like he needs me to hear this, to know it. “There was a girl. A newborn halfbreed.”
“Who?”
“I do not know her name. I know the name of her mother. Mila.”
“Nonna’s servant?”
The krum girl.
Father’s mouth twists, and he nods once. “She came from the city. A city your uncle Aldo visited regularly on his breaks from the academy. It was so long ago. Mila would have been younger than he was. Considerably younger. But that did not stop him from abandoning her once he got her pregnant.”
The distaste overwhelms the hurt in Father. His dislike of Aldo darkens his eyes and hardens his face.
He scoffs, bitter. “Nor did it mean Aldo would help the girl terminate the pregnancy he was very much responsible for. So Mila travelled to your Nonna’s door, and she asked for help. The timing… The timing was godly, it seemed.”
The question is in my frowned face.
Still I ask, “How?”
“Mila made a deal.” Father’s hands rub together, a nervous tell. “In exchange for a piece of your nonna’s will, an upfront payment, and lifetime help with her child, Mila offers us the newborn for a second ritual.”
My face slackens, lips parting with growing horror piercing through the numbness—
But Father answers that quickly, “Not the life of the newborn. We wanted her magic. The idea was to transfer Aldo’s magic from the halfbreed babe into you.
It was family magic, a print from your Mother’s side, so it made sense that it would be a print that would suit you.
And… you were so ill,” he says, and his voice breaks, like he might weep, and he turns his cheek to me.
“The first ritual took too much from you.
And we could not stop it. Oliver was poorly, then he was not. But you became even sicker.
“The second ritual failed. The newborn did not survive it. And you… you showed no magic. Nothing in your blood. Not poorly anymore, but no power.”
I take a moment to process it all—and Father is quiet, allowing me to absorb it.
And I think of the way Mila looks at me sometimes, lingers a stare.
I think of Mother’s hatred of her.
And it all seems so much uglier now that I know my family killed Mila’s baby.
I ask, soft, “Did Mila blame Mother?”
Father lifts a questioning look to me.
I explain, “Mother doesn’t like her very much.”
“Mila was grieving, as expected. The newborn was not supposed to die, she was only intended to be drained of the magic in her. Mila stayed—and she, I suppose, believed there might be a fragment of her child in you. She is krum, she does not understand the ritual. But your mother was equally as volatile. To your mother, we almost lost you in the first ritual and could have lost you in the second.” His jaw clenches, stirred anger from older days. “Then Mila stole you.”
I blink. “What?”
“Mila snuck into your room, crept by the nursemaid as she slept, and took you right out of your crib. There was a search party that morning, and your mother discovered Mila in the greenhouse—breastfeeding you.”
My lashes flutter.
A sickly feeling coils in my stomach.
Father’s face turns bitter. “Again, the next day, Mila was caught by Mr Younge trying to take you and a well-packed bag down the backroads in the direction of the village.”
I hug the pillow a bit tighter.
“The decision was made to give Mila a special brew.” The apathy in him is all over his face. How little he cares about Mila and her suffering. “A particularly effective amnesiac.”
For some ridiculous, insane reason, I think back to Bluestone—to the brew that Dray and I worked on together. Serum of Forgetfulness. It targets a memory. Just one. A layer in the mind.
But one used on Mila would have been much stronger and more delicate than that.
“The memory of her child is gone, but the attachment she has to you never quite seemed to fade the way it should have done.” Father sinks back into his chair and, for a beat, runs his hands down his face.
The weariness sags him. “Your mother hoarded you for so long after that,” he says, dropping his hands to his lap.
“She would not leave you alone—not even with me. I suppose she wasn’t entirely irrational to think I would try another ritual, no matter how often I reassured her.
” He tuts, and it’s sharp. “For so long, your mother wouldn’t even allow your nannies to take you out of the house without her.