Marius took the envelope slowly, searching her face. Why was she so nervous?
“Please, can you give him that letter? As soon as you can. It’s very important he read it at once.” She was already backing out of the room.
“Uh … yes, I’ll see he gets it right away.”
He peered at her. With a quick farewell, she was gone, leaving a gentle floral scent behind her.
What on earth?
Marius looked down at the envelope in his hand. It was a sunny yellow, and scrawled on the back in a shaky hand were the words to Eirik.
They used his father’s first name. There were very few people left alive who still used his father’s first name without his title. Could this be connected to the traitor?
He had to know. He climbed one of the spiral staircases to his father’s desk and carefully used a letter opener to extract the leaf of paper from the envelope.
It was a short letter:
Eirik,
I’ll try to make this brief and clear, because it hurts me to have to hurt you. But I can’t bear the guilt anymore.
As you know, it’s not much longer now until I go to the gods. Since I can’t go in battle, I want to go with a clean conscience. You’ve taken good care of me for the past couple of years, and I appreciated your money, but I can’t take any more.
People need to know what really happened at the runepriest monastery that day. I will tell anyone who will listen. Gods forgive me for not saying anything sooner. Gods forgive us both.
I’m sorry.
-Tara
Marius’s mouth was dry as he set the letter down. The runepriest monastery—the place his mother had died, along with hundreds of Odin’s faithful. His father had been the only survivor … or so he’d always claimed.
Apparently, there was one other. Tara.
He had to find her. He had to know what was going on.
Edie closed her eyes and took a deep breath of fresh air, letting the late afternoon sun warm her face. With her legs crossed at the ankle and an ice cream cone in one hand, she sat on a bench overlooking the Shipshaven docks.
The world was falling apart around her, but damn, she sure was finding a lot of time for ice cream.
Sitting inside and wasting away with grief was enticing, but she needed fresh air. It hadn’t even been a full 24 hours since Astrid had died, but she was trying to put it out of her mind. Thinking about the entire experience sent her into a spiral, and there was no time for that. For now, she had to push it down as best she could.
It was also nice to hang around outside, something she wouldn’t dare do in the city, though she still had to be cautious. The locals seemed to mostly be supernaturals or attuned, and minded their own business—but even this small town could be crawling with Gloaming spies, or Aurora, for that matter.
Sitting here, watching the sunset and licking an ice cream cone, Edie echoed a thousand of her own childhood experiences. She hated herself for it, but this made her miss her dad terribly. At least when he had been a normal dead dad, no necromancer shit, she’d had memories. Now even those were tainted.
Maybe it was selfish, especially after seeing Satara lose Astrid, but she mourned the loss of those memories. What would Dad think of what had happened yesterday? Would he have cared as much as she did?
The wind coming off the ocean drowned out the sound of footsteps on the grass behind her, but she could feel a familiar presence approaching. Cal appeared to her left, hands in his pockets, and stood watching the sun for a few moments.
Edie cocked her head, looking him up and down. “It’s freezing. You should probably put your coat on before you freak someone out.”
“You’re the one eating ice cream, sister.”
She shrugged. “I’m just saying, there are kids walking around in parkas right now.”
“Eh … no one’s lookin’.”
He sat beside her.
In the past couple of months, she and Cal had spent so much time together that silence between them felt comfortable. But not now. This was different. This was the first time they’d been alone together since their fight, and she could tell from the way he’d been acting that he was still hurt. Even if he wouldn’t admit it in a million years.
Edie finished her ice cream quickly, then tossed the cone to a nearby pack of seagulls, who started ripping it apart. Best not to have it melting all over her knuckles while she tried to apologize.
“So…” she began.
Cal sighed in response and drew a pack of Newports from his back pocket, lighting one up.
“Thanks … for coming to rescue me. After….”
He side-eyed her and said nothing. He wasn’t giving her a damn thing to work with, but maybe she deserved that.
A strong wind blew through, blowing hair into Edie’s eyes and mouth and making her teeth chatter. She brushed it away, then tucked her hands between her knees. “Listen. I’m really sorry I treated you badly, and gave you the runaround. I should have asked you about stuff instead of yelling at you. I pretty much knew that the second you left.”
Cal stayed quiet.
“I should’ve known, after … everything, that I could trust you. It’s just, she was so convincing. Like she really was telling me those things for my own good.” She looked down. “I was dumb.”
Silence.
“You’re not selfish, I am. I told myself I’d appreciate you, but I’ve been … pushing people away.” She paused. “Letting their support go to waste. Maybe— maybe I’m afraid of letting you down, like if I don’t try, I can’t fail. Or maybe I don’t think I deserve it, so I ignore it, and try to leave it alone, and hope people will get tired of me and stop caring.”
He still hadn’t said a word, and tears filled Edie’s eyes. She wasn’t saying anything right, was she? Was it possible that he’d only stuck around to rescue her and was going to leave again? The thought made her whole body ache as a wave of sadness crashed through it.
She clenched her fists. “I know you’ve already done more for me than my dad ever did. I’m— I’m sorry I thought you were lying. I promise I won’t do it again….” Just don’t go, she added internally. Another deep wave of misery hit her, and she was barely able to hold her tears in.
Cal exhaled slowly, smoke circling his head. He was quiet for a while before surprising her by saying, “No, you were right.”
Edie blinked, letting the tears fall and wiping them away quickly. “What?”
“You were right.” He sighed. “There’s somethin’ I haven’t told you.”
“What?” She looked him over. Her train of thought had been cut off completely, and her mind felt like it was hanging in midair, weightless, directionless.
He cursed under his breath and dropped his cigarette, crushing it in the grass. When he raised a hand to rub his brow, Edie could see how tight the muscles of his jaw were. Then again, she could always kind of see the muscles of his jaw.
“Your dad did a lot of bad shit, but he was good at what he did….”
Edie’s heart sped, her tears drying. Even as they’d gotten closer, Cal had refused to go into detail about her father beyond what she already knew. After her awkward conversation with Tilda, she’d almost wondered if he had lied to her about her dad. But here he was, actually opening up!
“As far as I know, he started out working for other people. Making magical items, mostly. He was good at that, like no one I’ve ever seen.” Cal spread out a hand and mimed casting a spell. “He could, like, put his own spells into things, so people who didn’t know how to use magic could do shit like raise corpses and make your blood explode.
“It made him huge. Then, of course, he became the guy you went to see if you wanted someone dead. Then, he was killing and cursing directly. Had so much money he started dealing it, lending it, investing in stuff so people owed him favors. And he gained a lot of enemies.”
Cal sighed, putting another cigarette between his lips but not lighting it.
“That’s ar
ound the time he raised me. He was almost like a— a Don, you know? And I was his … fixer.”
So that was why he’d been in those pictures with her dad, looking like he was hanging out. He’d been a thrall, but he hadn’t just been some servant; he was an enforcer, part of the operation. Edie’d had a feeling there was more to their relationship. She had already pieced most of it together, but had been missing a crucial piece of the puzzle. Now it all made sense, though it certainly didn’t cast her dad in any better light. Cal obviously still hadn’t had a choice in the matter.
“How much did my mom know about this?” she asked.
“I couldn’t tell you. She’d have to be pretty dumb not to know he was into some shady shit, and I’m sure she saw some crap she couldn’t explain, but I never heard nothing about her finding out the whole truth.”
“The fact that he made you hurt people,” she murmured, “that can’t be what you’re talking about. I already guessed that. That doesn’t change anything.”
“Shit, kid….” The revenant sighed and rested his head in both hands, taking a while to find the right words. “Your dad was smart, knew what he was doing. He made a fuckload of money over the next decade and didn’t blow it on crap he didn’t need.”
Edie chuckled humorlessly. “Yeah, my mom did that after he died.”
“Nuh-uh.” The little blue spark in the back of his eyes bored into her as he looked up. “Not all of it.”
A pause. “What are you saying?”
“He— fuck. Y’know … he had his tax money, and then his real money, stashed away. He took some whenever he needed it.” Cal closed his eyes and cursed again. “And when he died, I … I took it with me. Okay? The money and Ghost. I’ve been scraping off the top for the past ten years.”
Edie’s heart fluttered. His nervousness and guilt told her he had taken a huge sum of money, but she refused to be optimistic. “Exactly how much are we talking, here?”
Cal looked away thoughtfully. At length, he leaned back and murmured, “Eight, nine? It’s been a while since I counted it all out.”
“Thousand?” She held her breath. Nine thousand dollars would take a huge chunk out of Mercy’s medical debts, if he let her have it.
The revenant looked at her like she was the stupidest person he’d ever spoken to. “Million, kid. Million.”
Edie’s thoughts stopped floating and started racing at a thousand miles an hour, wheeling around her brain. A million dollars felt like more than she could ever use in her whole life. Eight or nine of those was a whole different ballpark. He had to be joking.
“Come on,” she finally managed to sputter, “how much really?”
“I am not kidding,” he said flatly.
She reached down their connection, probing for answers. He was telling the truth.
Edie wasn’t sure what to do with herself. She wanted to jump up and start celebrating, but the feeling was short-lived. It wasn’t even assured that she would be getting any of it. It was Cal’s. If he was leaving again, he’d be taking it, too.
But what if…? Thoughts clambered over one another in an unending wave. She looked down at her own shaking hands.
“It’s yours,” he said, perhaps sensing her uncertainty. “You need it more than I do.”
She still shook, astonished at how little joy she felt. The money didn’t mean anything if it wasn’t given freely—and it didn’t make her any happier if he wasn’t staying. “But you earned it. Everything he did to you…. Why give it to me?”
“I don’t need your money. I can take care of myself. And you’ll need it all to get the Reach off the ground without Astrid. Besides,” he added, looking over and cocking a brow, “I assumed you’d share it with me.”
Edie’s heart lifted a little, and she searched his face. “You’re staying?”
“Kid, if I didn’t want to come back, I’d be in Vegas right now.”
Finally, she stood, bouncing on the balls of her feet and practically tackling him in a hug. Mercy would be okay. Things would be so much easier. Money couldn’t buy happiness, but it sure could buy stability and security, and that went a long way. Edie squeezed Cal as tight as she could.
“Whew.” He squirmed. “Why the hell are you huggin’ me?”
“I’m happy you’re staying.”
“Why? I’m the bastard who stole nine million dollars from you. You oughta be strangling me.”
Edie shook her head, mumbling into his shoulder, “You needed it more than I did. I’m just … I’m happy we have it now. I’m not mad. Not at all.”
After a moment, he huffed and put his arms around her, too.
Edie relaxed, letting more tears come. The past couple of days had been so overwhelming that she was toeing the line of hysteria constantly. For someone like Cal, who didn’t do touching or affection, to hold her felt like a triumph, and she definitely needed a win. This particular rush of euphoria was a very specific feeling; one she’d been deprived of since her dad had died. Hugging Cal felt like family.
“All right, okay, that’s enough,” he finally said, pulling back and wiping the tears from her face. He sounded exasperated, but his expression was gentle. “Quit it with the crying, you’re getting yourself all upset. We can think about the money some other day.”
With a hard sniff, she pulled back and wiped her nose.
“There’s something else we gotta talk about.”
She exhaled sharply. “I’m not sure how much more I can take. Are you pregnant?”
“I will punch you,” he warned, pointing at her. Then his expression shifted until he looked almost nervous. “All those bastards you dusted at Indriði’s. You remember anything about it?”
If she was honest, Edie didn’t remember much, only that it had been so easy at the time. It had felt natural to rot their skin away and suck their life-force into her own, but hell if she remembered how she had done it.
“I dunno,” she answered. “It just kind of— I got really angry, and it kind of exploded out of me.”
Cal cringed. “Yeesh. Death magic isn’t the best thing to be spitting everywhere willy-nilly.”
“I don’t know how to control it. Indriði warned me that I was like a balloon waiting to pop, but we never found someone to help me.” That was the one thing she still blamed Astrid for, after everything. She had wanted Edie—and Satara, for that matter—to do all these great things, but hadn’t deigned to actually prepare them for any of it. “Indriði tried to make it out like Astrid was doing it maliciously, but maybe she thought we had more time.”
Cal sighed and looked out at the ocean, taking the unlit cigarette from his mouth and fiddling with it. “All right, so … I’m sure you noticed Astrid and I weren’t exactly happy with each other.”
“When we were trying to plan out how to find Indriði at the party?” She wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, I remember. I thought it was pretty odd.”
“Hmph. Well, she and I were … we didn’t see eye to eye about how you should be trained. After you found me in that alley, I left in the middle of the night, drove out there by myself. I wanted answers, y’know, about how I could get my memories back. But it kind of escalated into a fight about … everything. About your dad, about how she didn’t help me get away from him back then.
“I asked her how exactly she was planning to handle another hellerune, and an untrained one, at that. Pretty dangerous.” He huffed, shaking his head. “She said she had assumed I would do it. I told her to fuck off. Looks like we don’t have a whole lotta options now, though.”
Edie frowned, knitting her brows. She had almost suggested that to him over a week ago, before Percy had interrupted. “Can you … do that?”
“There are some things I can teach you, yeah. I don’t know everything. Magic isn’t really my thing, and it’s not like Holloway and I had long discussions about it. But I was around him for a long time—him and more mages than I can fuckin’ count. So I know some things. The mechanics or whatever. I’m good at figuring ou
t how things work.”
“Like when you talked me through saving Mercy.”
Cal nodded. “Sparky was right about that part. I think all you need is a little help learning to call it up and get it out. You can figure the rest out yourself.”
Edie looked down at her hands thoughtfully. Every cell in her body screamed that she couldn’t possibly do this. Magic was too hard, like she was trying to move a building through sheer force of will. She was the first defective hellerune. She’d be wasting her time, and, more importantly, Cal’s time.
But— Kid, if I didn’t want to come back, I’d be in Vegas right now.
She took a deep breath. Cal didn’t waste his time with anyone.
“Would you really do that for me?” she asked, looking up.
He cocked a brow. “Are you kiddin’ me? I wanna see you stand on your own two feet more than anybody. If we’re gonna stick together, you’re gonna have to hold your own in a fight, sister.”
Tears came to Edie’s eyes again, but she quickly blinked them away. This dumbass revenant had gone through so much in his short un-life, and he’d still come back and helped her. He wanted to be a part of her life, even after everything. And he still put up this front like he was the most selfish person in the universe. She didn’t know what he was trying to protect himself from, but maybe someday he’d bring those walls down for her.
For now, she shook her head at him. “You are really a piece of work, you know that?”
To her satisfaction, her words made him grin wickedly. “And don’t you forget it.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
It had only taken an evening of asking around and a bit of digging to find out where Tara lived, but Marius had barely been able to sleep that night. All he could think now, as he stood in front of the brick apartment building with the morning sun on his face, was that he hoped this was the right place.
He had considered wearing street clothes, but with all that had been happening, he wasn’t confident that it would be safe. Perhaps Ynga had realized he was on to her and the letter itself was an ambush. Best to be prepared, so he had donned a long gray overcoat to keep most of his armor concealed.
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