‘Sometimes. Less so as time went on.’
‘That’s good.’
‘I didn’t say she was kind.’
‘I suppose I can’t expect that.’
‘You can’t expect anything.’
‘True. This is all unexpected.’
She sips, eyes him over the rim. ‘So you don’t want to tell me why you left?’
He shakes his head. ‘We’re not on the same side in this. Not yet, anyhow.’
She sloshes the glass. ‘Fine. I’m too tired to argue. Saving you was hard work. Give me this then. If you won’t tell me why you left, tell me why you never came back.’ She leans forwards, tapson the table. ‘Tell me why, when Mum was dying, you didn’t come back.’
Her father’s face is hollow. Sadness shadowing his eyes.
‘I would have, if I could.’
She snorts. ‘And yet, predictably, you didn’t.’
He turns the glass against the table-top and drains it. ‘I didn’t.’
‘You let her die.’
‘I couldn’t have saved her.’ There was something raw in his voice, shivering the back of his throat.
She watches his leg dance under the table. ‘You could have tried.’
He catches her gaze. Eyes dark and steady. ‘Iwastrying. I was trying to save everything.’
She looks away, turns to the lamp where moths dance against the flame.
‘Of course. Trying, in the hidden places, doing whatever hidden things you wouldn’t trust me with.Won’ttrust me with.’
He laughs a little at that. It irritates the hell out of her.
‘Can I trust you, Crowkisser?’
She brushes her hair from her eyes, turns back to him. ‘I saved your life.’
Nothing for a moment. The crackle of the lamp wick. Moth wings and the night air. ‘Did you now?’
And the tone of him. The disappointment in it.
She chokes down the rage she feels. She can’t lose her temper. It’s what he expects.
Instead, she refills her glass and imagines leaving him down in the dark.
‘It doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t save Mum. Her god wouldn’t save her. Everyone that could have made a difference turned tail and ran. It was just me and her, in the end.’
He opens his mouth, but she waves a hand. ‘Spare me. So, it wasn’t missing me brought you back. Wasn’t the death of your wife. Of mymother. Did you even know where I was? What was happening? Or were you too busy trying to save the world?’
The scorn thick in her voice.
‘I was— I had to …’ he stammers.
