Always.
“It’s …” The word comes out choked. “It’s nothing for you to worry about. I promise.”
“Are you in trouble?” He pulls something from his pocket and holds it out. “Do you need my—”
My heart shatters, tears welling at the sight of the token in his hand. “No, you keep that for yourself.” A smile skims my lips as I reach forward and fold his fingers over the piece of gold. “I’m fine, Zane. Cross my heart.”
His eyes go all stern and stubborn, jaw set, hand still outstretched. “Don’t lie to me. I’m not a kid, you know!”
Oh, Zane …
Gun shuts the cupboard door and spins, carrying a tin tub, and I squeeze Zane’s hand, urging him to put his token away with a pleading look.
Finally, he does—stepping back, allowing Gun to get to work smearing an ointment on my knuckles under his intense scrutiny.
“No, I will not just hand you the clothes, you daft oaf!” A female’s voice, shrill and stern, accompanies a chorus of thundering steps.
Cap stills, stare stabbed at the doorway. “Dammit. Should’ve gone myself.” He sighs, popping the lid back on the tub as the woman continues her piercing scald from somewhere down the hall.
“A female turns up bruised and bloody and, I’m sorry, the last person she’s going to want to talk to is my rough and tumble brother!”
“I assure you, Della, we have everything under contr—”
“Codswallop.” The woman bursts through the door in a flutter of blue silk sodden from hem to knee—an explosion of fiery energy that fills the room.
The woman from the portrait.
Though she’s older now, she still holds the same lithe beauty.
She takes one look at me and halts, dropping a soft package to the floor at her feet, every ounce of determination slipping from her elegant face.
I still beneath the power of her slack-faced stare, blood icing in my veins. Perhaps the necklace isn’t properly fixed? Perhaps she’s seeing through the cracks to the real me shining through?
Her gaze drops, landing on my bare thigh, on the cut that’s yet to be bandaged.
Hand flying to her mouth, she releases an anguished sob.
“Della?” There’s a sharp edge of concern in Gun’s tone as he steps toward his sister, and then she’s on her knees, hands cupping her crumbling face, rattling off words in a different language—one word rolling into another. Gun kneels before her, holding her by the wrists.
Shaking his head.
She babbles, sobs, points … Zane’s eyes widen as he watches his mother break apart on the floor.
Cap looks at me over his shoulder, then shakes his head, hard and fierce. “Sheil de nah pa. Gahs ke, Viola!Sheil de nah pa …”
Della snarls, shoves him back, and pushes to a stand. She snatches a lantern and dashes to the cupboard, pulling containers off the shelves she starts to dig through.
Enry studies me from the door—reallystudies me—as though he’s seeing me for the first time.
I frown. “Is everything okay?”
Silence.
Della emerges from the cupboard with a book clutched against her chest, hands trembling as she walks to me, kneels at my feet, and splits it open, pointing at the first page.
The painting.
Della’s there—a perfect depiction of her much younger self, cradling a small child no older than one with big, lilac eyes and a mop of curly hair the color of straw, her chubby face struck with a smile that lights her up. She’s wearing a blue tunic trimmed in gold, her otherwise bare legs capped in little bootees with a lace frill.
