“Let me make something very clear to you,” Kit rumbled beside my ear. He was shaking, or I was. Maybe we both were.
I held the dinner knife, and Kit held me while saying all the things I couldn't.
“You are never welcome here again. This ismyfamily now, and Iwillprotect my own.”
Quiet returned, so bloated it seemed determined to drive me out of the room. I needed to leave. To run away from the life that felt less and less like mine.
“Fine.”
Merrick’s spiteful retort rattled me so hard my teeth chattered.
“Keep your farm,” he said, “and keep your family. They were never mine to begin with. And if you want this so damn bad, stay here. Don’t come back to Ashpoint. There’s nothing left for you there.”
He left the kitchen to storm through the living area, gathering his bags and belongings in a fit of temper I didn't bother to watch. I didn't move at all from where I was pinned against Kit’s chest, tightly held and facing my mother. I knew all her moods but this one. I'd never seen this before.
The front door slammed, heralding Merrick's departure, but I still didn't budge. I wanted to cry, to scream, to apologize for leaving, for coming back, for existing.
“Pen?”
Kit’s fingers brushed my cheek.
I loved his touches, but I loathed his pity, so I broke free of him and ran.
34
Kit
The silence in the wake of Penny’s departure was heavy with half-revealed secrets and unasked questions. Sayla, who had been so smug when she asked Merrick about Violette, now wore a look of regret while she watched her mother crumble.
Amelina hadn’t looked away from the front door since Merrick’s departure. She was pale as a sheet, and her hands shook where they were fisted on the tabletop.
“What’s going on?” Her eyes finally darted first to Sayla, and then to me. “What was he talking about? Hemlock? And where is Ashpoint? I’ve never heard of it before.”
I had scarcely opened my mouth to speak before Sayla broke in.
“Kit, you should go after Penny. I can explain everything to Mother.” The look she fixed on me was apologetic, like she realized too late the damage the truth would cause. She was so like Penny, eager to get a dig in against the half-brother who had always been just as quick to wound them both.
I watched my hopes of winning Amelina over evaporate as her face crumpled.
“I don’t understand.Youknow about this, Sayla?”
Sayla flapped a hand at me. Part of me was grateful to be out of range of whatever immediate blowback might come from revealing to her mother that I’d taken her son away and initiated him into the cult that also stole her husband’s bones.
A small mercy, but I couldn’t avoid those consequences forever.
I took a moment to right my chair, then grabbed the first cloak I could get my hands on. Stepping into my damp boots, I slipped out the back door. The last thing we needed now was for Penny to foul his lungs in this weather and end up bedridden for the rest of planting.
Warren seemed eager enough to help, but he needed too much instruction yet to do more than get underfoot. And no matter how much practice I had at plowing and planting, I couldn’t do it all alone.
I shielded my eyes from the wind and rain, and it didn’t take long to spot Penny, doubled over and braced on the wall of the barn. His body heaved as he spat on the ground, revisiting what little he’d managed to eat before everything unraveled. It made my heart ache to see him like this and know I couldn’t make it better. How could I hope to soothe the betrayal of finding out his own blood had murdered their father?
I hadn’t dried off much in my time inside, so I was fully soaked before I made it to Penny and dropped the cloak around his shoulders. He was trembling so hard his teeth were chattering, and even through the rain I could tell he was crying.
He didn’t say a word as I guided him toward the barn doors, and he leaned heavily against me as I heaved one side open enough for us to squeeze inside. It wasn’t much warmer in there, but at least the walls cut the wind.
I eased Penny down onto a stack of hay bales and crouched in front of him to use the dry edge of the cloak to mop his cheeks.
“That was very brave,” I said. “I’m proud of you.”
