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Renard gives Konrad a quavering smile then focuses back on Jakub. “Oldrick, your grandfather, took your father to Ireland to meet the O’Farrell’s when he was fifteen. That is where Malik and Niall, Thirteen’s father, became…acquaintances. Malik didn’t have the emotional capacity to have friends, but Niall was closest to a friend he ever got...” His voice trails off as he smacks his lips together.
“Water,” I say. “He needs water.”
Jakub nods, picking up the glass situated on the bedside table, bringing it to his lips. “Here,” he says, helping him to take a sip. It’s a simple action to ease suffering, and he doesn’t even appear to realise how significant that act ofkindnessis.
“Thank you,” Renard replies, patting Jakub with a shaking hand.
Jakub flinches at the touch, drawing his hand away as though burnt. Confusion, anger, fear, surprise, horror, it all slashes across his face. If I didn’t know any better, there’sempathytoo.
“Continue,” he snaps, shutting down.
“One evening Malik and Niall visited a travelling circus that was in the area. I was asked to accompany them. It was at the circus that Niall met and became instantly obsessed with Aoife, Thirteen’s mother. Your mother, Nessa, was with her,” Renard says to me. He draws in a few breaths, his collarbone stark against his paper-thin skin. “At the time Malik had no idea that Nessa was a Dálaigh, his family's bitter enemy. If he had, I’ve no doubt he would’ve tried to kill her then and there. Even at fifteen he was a brutal young man.”
“Dálaigh?” I ask, my skin prickling with portent. “My mother’s family name wasBrandon.”
Renard shakes his head. “No, you’re a Dálaigh. Your family was once one of the most influential in Ireland. There are only a few of you left, however. Yourself, your cousin Arden and a few others who’ve long since gone into hiding.”
“What? I don’t believe you.” I stumble backwards, my arse hitting the chest of drawers behind me, but despite my accusation something about this feelsright. My mother never gave me much information about her family, now I understand why.
“It’s true,” Leon says, looking over his shoulder at me. “Your mother was a Dálaigh. You’re a Dálaigh. Nessa said as much in the letter she wrote to us.”
“Right, the letter,” I mumble. Thirteen had told me about the letter my mother had written to The Masks but I haven’t had much of a chance to talk to her about it, and Leon hasn’t been very forthcoming either.
“She hid you from your family so that ours wouldn’t find you,” he continues.
“But he did.Youdid,” I breathe out.
“Yes,” Leon nods.
“So Malik killed my mother because of a feud between our families?”
“Partly,” Renard confirms.
“Partly?” Jakub questions, frowning.
“Y—yes.” Renard starts coughing, doubling over as he struggles for breath. It takes him longer to recover this time, his mottled skin turning greyer. His body is already corpse-like, sucked free of colour and vitality, but he loses the last pink tint of his cheeks with every hacking cough that leaves his chest. “That day at the circus when your parents were teenagers, the group visited a woman who read tea leaves. Everyone bar Malik took part, but the old woman saw fit to tell him something that would haunt him for years.”
“What did she say?” Konrad asks, flicking his gaze to me, then to his brothers.
“She said that the Brov legacy will cease to exist when a woman with ghost eyes comes back from the dead and claims his sons for her own.”
“What the fuck? Cease to exist?” Konrad says, his gaze darkening as he glances over at me. “As in dead?”
“Enough!” Jakub shouts, a dark laugh bursting from his lips as he bends over the dying man and grips his face roughly. “What did Arden promise you, huh? What fucking deal did you make with him in exchange for spinning this fucking story? It was you, wasn’t it? You leaked private information about our family to that fucking cunt, didn’t you? That letter fromNessa, using Thirteen to deliver it. All of it to fuck with our heads.”
“No, Jakub. This has nothing to do with Arden,” Renard says quietly, calm in the face of Jakub’s anger. “I was there, remember. I heard what the old woman said.” He coughs, his chest rattling now like a death knell. Jakub releases Renard, stepping back.
“So why not share this with us sooner?” Konrad asks.
“Because I believed the woman with the ghost eyes had died too, just like Malik had.”
“My mother,” I whisper.
Renard nods, his whole body shaking with the effort. “Yes.”
He motions for me to come closer, barely able to lift his hand off the bed now. I shake my head, not willing to go anywhere near him or the men who are bound to me in ways I wish they weren’t.
“At the time, Malik didn’t understand what the old woman had meant,” Renard continues. “By the time he found out what ghost eyes meant, we’d already returned to Ardelby Castle. He hunted your mother down for years believing she was the one who would end the Brov family line because she had different coloured eyes. When he finally found her, instead of sending his men to kill her, he took Leon. It was personal to him. You know the rest of the story. ”
