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Later that night, after my maid had cleaned me up, Humphrey came back into the cave, sat down beside me, and said, “Girls cannot be born into our covenant, wife. They’re weak by human nature. They must be taken care of at their birth.”
“You’re not God, Humphrey. You cannot deem who bears what when pregnant.”
“No,” he replied simply. “But I can take care of it.”
I shook my head, my heart in tatters, and my life turning bleak, dark, finished. “There will be no Silver Swans born into this family or any of the first nine. They will be demolished.”
“Silver Swans?” I asked, clipped and annoyed.
“The Silver Swan is, in old times, what they would call a tarnished being. Every girl born into the first nine is a tarnished being. It’s no place for a her.”
“Humphrey Haynes!” I exasperated, trying to calm my frantic beating heart. I leaned toward him, inching closer until my lips were a mere whisper away from his cheek. “Did you have our daughter killed?”
He brought his cold, dead eyes up to mine and grinned a devilish grin that churned my stomach. “I did. And every girl after her will also be taken care of. Girls have no place in our lineage.”
I inched backward, my heart sinking in my chest and my eyes watering with grief. “I—I…,” I whispered, speechless in the heartless way Humphrey spoke about our child. My heart snapped in two. “I have to leave.” I ran out of the room and into the forest, the leaves and branches shielding me from the full moon. Kneeling down, I let my tears overflow and my grief overpower me. Crying, yearning for my daughter that I will never know.
I suck in a breath, slamming the book closed. He killed her? And all other Silver Swans? Why? Why am I still alive, and how am I still alive? Are there any more like me?
There’s a knock on the door that pulls me out of my frantic thoughts.
“Come in.” My door opens, and my dad stands in the threshold, his hands pushed into the pockets of his slacks.
“Thinking of running away again?” he asks, his head tilting.
“Are you going to be honest with me?” I retort.
He steps into the room and closes the door behind himself. Dad still looks the same, young, fit, with a sprinkle of gray hair on the sides of his head. “Madison, I can’t answer all the questions you’re going to ask.”
I inch up onto my knees. “What does that mean exactly? You, Dad, I trusted you.”
“Madi,” he whispers, shaking his head. “This world… it’s complicated.”
“I’m the Silver Swan?”
His eyebrows tug together in worry. “Yes.” He takes a seat on my bed and looks toward The Book. “Have you read much more?”
I follow his eye line and nod. “A little bit. They kill the girls? So why am I still alive?”
He looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “Because I was supposed to keep you safe, Madison. Your mother and I, we love you very much.”
“Mom’s death,” I whisper, “was it what I was told?”
Dad looks at me. “No. It’s more complicated than what you know.”
“What?” I screech, shooting off the bed. “Explain.”
“Madison!” Dad’s voice booms with an authoritative tone. “I will tell you what I think you need to know right now. Any other questions will have to wait. Do you understand?” His eyes narrow as he pushes up off my bed. He brushes my cheek. “I love you, Madison, but this is not something you can pry into. I need you to just leave it to me and the Kings.” He leans down so his eyes are square with mine. “Do you understand what I’m saying?” I understand what he’s saying, but there’s no way I’m going to sit on my hands and be left guessing. Not like last time. But I nod, because that’s not something Dad needs to know or worry about—right now.
“Yes. I understand.” I swallow past the lump in my throat. He nods, a small smile spreading across his face. “Now get some rest so you’re ready for school in the morning.” He walks back toward my door and yanks it open. “Oh, and Madison?” he adds, looking at me over his shoulder. “Elena doesn’t know anything. She thinks you ran off for a couple months to be rebellious. I’d like to keep it that way.”
“Sure,” I whisper. “Night, Dad.” He leaves, shutting the door behind him. I walk into my closet and pull out some pajamas before slipping into my bathroom, flicking the lock on Nate’s side. Stepping into the hot cascading water, I scrub the last two months off my skin.
“SO WHAT DID YOUR DAD say?” Tatum asks, sucking the juice of her orange off her fingertips. Being back in the atrium isn’t as weird as I thought it would be. It’s like Ally didn’t exist, though. Like everyone just forgot that she had gone, or died, or whatever they thought. What did they know? I understand we’d been gone for a couple of months, but you would think a death in such a small school would impact it a lot longer than that.
