Page 44 of Sky’s Edge

My spoon arrested over my bowl as my gaze shot to him.

“It feels different, now that she’s not here,” he shared.

Oh Gods.

“I…had no idea,” I whispered.

He shrugged. “We buried her in the snow at a cove she and I used to like to hike to. So you know, I’ll be going there while we’re here. You can accompany me, but I’d understand it if you weren’t comfortable doing that yet.”

“She’s buried here?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t take her home?”

His brows drew together. “She already was home.”

The digi-frame and the pics in it.

How lovely Zyra and Mangold were.

Hurley, and those other two dogs.

Were they happy here?

If so, how could that be?

He grabbed his coffee mug, took a sip, put it down and queried, “Is there something you’d like to ask?” This query telling me he was learning how to read me.

And that was not good.

You do not want to know a thing about him, I reminded myself.

But that niggly part in the back of my brain whispered, But this is his mom, who’s gone. Think of how you’d feel if your mom died young. He’s here for the first time since he buried her. You should ask.

“Catla?” he prompted.

“Do you mind telling me how she died?” I inquired cautiously.

Emotion moved over his expression, the first I’d ever seen blatant on his face, and I watched it go, mesmerized. Even if it was sorrow, it was still amazing.

“Manny and Zyr were away for holiday. She knew better, but she went out, alone, when no one else was on the island, to check the lynx. She also walked instead of taking a SnowSprint, and she didn’t take her Palm, both of which was something else you should never do here. She slipped, broke her ankle, tried to get back, but died on the way from hypothermia.”

And now the rest of the subtext of his tale of the beautiful fae was revealed.

His mother died of cold too.

“By Lilith, I’m so sorry, Tanyn,” I said.

“The good news, in these temperatures, it probably went fast.”

That was not good news, but I could see it would comfort him.

I finally spooned into my oatmeal, asking, “The lynx?”

He lifted his chin to acknowledge the change of subject.

“We have a clutter of damaged lynx on the island. They wouldn’t make it in the wild elsewhere, and although they’d live longer lives, they’d still do it confined in pens if they weren’t here, which for them would not be the best life they can live. Before fur was banned, they’d nearly been hunted to extinction. They’re solitary animals, but we have males and females, and they come together to mate. Once their litters are weaned, and the kits can fend for themselves, they’re moved back to the continent, rather than growing to adulthood and seeing their lame parents as prey. There are no other predators on the island, but there is prey, so they can live as they would normally live, even if they’re lame.”