Page 43 of Legacy Ascended

I look down at my hands.

“Someone should remember him.”

“We do.”

I look back at her. “That's not good enough.”

“I know.”

“Frances making everyone memorize their names doesn't make this better.”

“It wasn't supposed to.”

That stops me for a second.

“Then why?”

“Because people died,” Elise says. “The least we could do was know who they were.”

“It doesn't make it okay.”

“No.”

“And finding out somebody did terrible things to the Fourth House doesn't erase what your people did to me.”

“No.”

“I need you to know that.”

Elise holds my eyes.

“I do.”

"I haven’t heard from Frances, has he been in contact?" I ask.

"He messages me. Twice since I got here." Elise doesn't hesitate over it. "Not to you. You didn't say he could."

"What does he say?"

"Mostly he asks whether you've eaten and whether the shoulder is closing." Her mouth moves, not quite a smile. "He's ninety percent a frightened old man and ten percent a head of household."

"Benny?"

"Fine. He came off the gate."

"Was he taken off it?"

"He asked. Frances said yes." She shrugs. "He's on the water pipes at the top of the valley, which is cold and boring and nobody talks to you for six hours, and I think that's the point. Tomas follows him around. Benny lets him hold the wrench."

Something loosens under my ribs that I hadn't known was tight.

"And Klaus."

"Frances said it in the yard the morning after you left, with the whole valley standing there, the way he promised you." Elise's voice doesn't change. "That Benny and I were under his protection, that no one would raise a hand or a word against us, and that anyone who did would answer to him personally. Klaus stood at the back with his arms folded and didn't say anything."

"And since?"

"Nobody's said anything to my mother in the shop." She looks at the case. "Klaus hasn't spoken to me since the burial. He carried his brother himself. I don't think he's stopped blaming you, and I don't expect him to."