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My dad reached over and covered my hand with his. “This is the party where I announce that you are my daughter. This isn’t about your fake betrothal to Marigold or anything else about him. Just you.”
I pulled my hand out of his. “Then why wasn’t I invited?”
“Because people will be unkind to you.”
“So glad that you’re announcing our relationship to that sort of people. How can you have friends like that?”
“They are not friends, merely gargoyles who exist in society along with me. You have shifted successfully enough to be considered out of danger, and therefore, my certain heir.”
“Do I get to inherit anything other than money? How about a nice island or two? I could use a tower, at least seventy floors up, where I can sit and mope without any distractions,” I joked. We were not on friendly terms, not now, not ever. He’d pushed me off his roof, and he’d probably already known that Percy was lying to me, just used it to make me more upset so I’d shift faster and be less likely to die, which I couldn’t trust was true, like I couldn’t trust anything.
“I have a tower in New York. It’s mostly a hospital, but it does have my name on it.”
“Bellham?” I turned to stare at him. Was he serious? He looked serious. “The hospital here, is that yours too?”
He hesitated, then nodded. “It must be. I own several, but the one in New York is the only one that I can recommend for a truly distraction-free sulk.” He stood up, straightened his tie and then started towards the house.
After a few seconds of not thinking about it, I stood up and followed him, watching my feet more than where I was going until I almost bumped into him.
“You’re done pouting?”
“It’s sulking, and no, but I can sulk with a bunch of people who hate me for no reason as well as I can on the top of your house. If you’re going to announce me as your heir, I’d rather be there to tell everyone that I refuse.”
He blinked at me. “You refuse?”
“Obviously. It’s bad enough to accept a college handout. No way I’m taking other crap that doesn’t belong to me, to assuage your sense of guilt, or be used as a tool to control me, or whatever is going on there with your motive.”
He smiled slightly. “I see. In that case, I should have invited you much sooner.”
I grabbed his sleeve as he started to leave. “About my mom. She’s really badly scarred. If you can’t handle seeing her as she is without judgment, you should have something else to do tonight. I’m not in the best emotional space right now, so if you don’t want bugs embedded in your face, you probably shouldn’t push me.”
He patted my hand. “I have treated many badly wounded people who were in much worse shape. It will not bother me, and I would neutralize all your bugs before they had a chance to injure me, so feel free to engage in such action at any time. I will consider it excellent practice.” He smiled politely and gestured me ahead of him.
I didn’t really believe him, but I let him go, nodded, and then went over the flat bit of roof and through the door that led into an attic room. It looked like the place where you keep your insane wives. Enter my mom.
We went down three flights of small stairs until we came out on the second floor, where you could hear distant voices.
“Would you like to dress for it? You could wear something of your mother’s,” he said.
“My mom has clothes here?” Surreal.
He led me without a word to a room that he had to unlock before he left me to go on my own into the perfectly dust-free space. The wallpaper was peacock blue, a muted floral that was the only feminine thing about the space.
I turned to see my dad, but he was gone, apparently having sudden essential things to take care of. I wasn’t going to actually wear anything that made me look like I belonged there, but I had to look around at my mom’s old life. The closet was basically the size of my living room, okay, two of my living rooms, and it had clothing in all shades of blue, no doubt to bring out her dazzling eyes.
I couldn’t resist playing dress up in my mom’s old clothes, no matter how weird it was. At least this time there would be no push-up corsetry, and after two months of tea parties, I probably wouldn’t shame my dad too badly as far as manners were concerned, if I was worried about shaming him, which I wasn’t.
I pulled on a dress that looked similar in formality to the kind the other women had been wearing. It was misty blue, down to the knee, with feathery sleeves that moved even when I didn’t. I stood in front of the mirror, staring at my reflection until the mirror shifted and I was looking at my mother. She reached up and tugged on her ear, and for a moment I felt that gentle tugging on my ear, and knew where she kept her earrings and that I should wear them.
It was weird to go right to the box with her jewelry, and then go through them until I found the sapphire drops that went perfectly with the dress. A slender gold chain necklace and bracelet would be good. I put them on and then left, feeling like my mom was with me. Even though she was safe at home, part of her was still here, haunting my dad.
When I walked down the stairs past the enormous portrait of my parents, everyone turned to stare at me, everyone except Percy of No Mercy who kept chatting animatedly with the girl, the stunning one from outside, who was staring at me instead of batting her eyelashes at him. The look on her face matched that of several others in the room here to celebrate my existence, but who looked like they’d rather slip me some painful poison.
I didn’t care. The only person I wanted to see me wouldn’t stop talking to that girl. What was his problem? Why wouldn’t he look at me?
I descended the stairs and was lost in a crowd. I couldn’t see Percival, which was fine because I wasn’t here for him, but for myself, or something, anything other than him.
I wandered around, eating weird food that was too salty or rich to enjoy, and drinking elixirs that were incredibly expensive and rejuvenating. Most people didn’t talk to me, just stopped talking about me when they noticed me getting close.
