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“Is it?”
“You said the key is in the Storm. Did you go in?”
“No,” Pa says. “Your mother did. Alone.”
“She didn’t find it?”
“She never came out.”
“Why?” I ask.Why did you let her go alone? Why didn’t you go after her?
“I’ve been trying to understand that for the last twelve years.”
“Is there anything else I should know?”
“Vesper—please. Don’t go.”
Pa sensed what was in me before I voiced it. I clench my burnt fist. “Pa... thank you for protecting me all this time. I know it wasn’t easy. I’m sorry I never made you proud. And I’m sorry that I have to disobey you one last time.”
“You’re just like her,” Pa whispers with horror in his eyes. “I couldn’t save her.”
“I’m not like her.” I’m not nearly so strong or brave. I’m not a leader. “But maybe that means I’ll come back.”
Pa holds my gaze, then the words spill from his lips. “All I know is that it is a counterbalance. The Great King bestows upon each Regiaone thing—power. Power to order and rule. Strength to fight those who would threaten the city. But there’s something missing, something that makes the Regia weak. It’s that missing piece.”
“A counterbalance? What does that mean?” Dalca asks, stepping up beside me. I wonder how much he heard.
Pa looks at him. “I’m not sure.”
“Is it an object? What would it look like?”
“I wish I could tell you more.”
“Is there nothing else?”
Pa exhales. “There’s an old folktale that gives this warning: ‘No matter where you enter the Storm, the Storm is the same. Whatever you take into it will be taken from you. Ready yourself, but no one can meet the Storm prepared to do so. Go as far as you can, as deep as you can, into its heart. I would wish you luck, but luck won’t help. You will not return.’”
My heartbeat fills the silence.
“I gave your mother that warning. It didn’t help her.”
I meet his eyes, the eyes we share.
“Then we’re done.” Dalca nods at Pa.
“Please,” Pa says, voice breaking. “If you must go, go. But don’t take my daughter.”
My vision blurs. I’ve never heard Pa beg.
Dalca’s voice is quiet. “I would never ask that of her.”
I leave before I cry.
But as Dalca steps out beside me, I speak. “It’s my choice. It’s my city. And I’m going.”
He twists the cord around his wrist. “You don’t—”
The words stick in his mouth. He’s terrified of the Storm. Too terrified to say the noble thing.
