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“Then, I suppose you shouldn’t entice me as much as you do.”
Leaning back in his chair, a half-sipped drink in his hand, he looked utterly delectable with his shirt unbuttoned, showing off those silvery tattoos. “How are you feeling?”
“Great, actually.” A partial lie. While I wasn’t on the verge of death, the pain still had my stomach twisted up.
“Why are you awake at this hour?”
“I was hoping you’d tell me what happened with my father.”
His chest rose with a deep breath, and he leaned forward and filled his glass with the red fluid he’d claimed would kill a human. The way he refused to look at me told me Vaszhago was right–he hadn’t returned with him. “How much do you want to know, Farryn? And I’d advise you consider that question carefully.”
“Everything,” I said without hesitation, and caught a flicker of his brow before he tipped back the drink and shook it off. “Is he alive?”
“If you’re asking if he’s capable of returning to the mortal realm at any point, as a fully functioning human being, the answer is no.”
I tried not to let the worry consume me yet, because he didn’t actually say he wasdead-dead. Or what they, in the afterlife, considered absolute death, anyway. “You saw him?”
“Yes.” In one swill, he finished off a second drink. “Fire demons came for him. Dragged him down into the flames.”
Alarm shot to my throat, and I sat forward in my chair. A stab of pain struck my belly, but I bit back the urge to grimace and only held my hand against it, mentally willing the ache to go away. “What does that mean?”
“It means he dabbled in some bad deals. They came to claim his soul.”
“Didn’t you stop them?”
“There is no stopping a fire demon, Farryn. It’s why I’ve been exceptionally careful with you. To piss off the infernal realm could bring horrific consequences.” He lowered his gaze, setting the glass onto the desktop beside an ornate envelope opener. “I urged him to come with me. I offered him the protection of my home. But he refused.”
A sting of tears hit the rims of my eyes. Though the flicker of hope had been dim, I hadn’t anticipated the possibility of it being snuffed entirely. “Why? Why would he refuse?”
“Because he was resigned. And he didn’t want you to see him that way. Whatever memories you have of your father are much better thought upon than watching him succumb to hellfire. Trust me. He was doing it for you.”
“And now he’s gone. Gone completely.” The reality of that failed to penetrate my skull, though, and I sat staring off, my mind blank to everything. Another sting of tears hit my eyes and I blinked to stave them off, as in my periphery, Jericho reached into his desk for something.
He pulled out an odd-looking object made of twigs. “He wanted you to have this.”
“What is it?” I asked, accepting it and running my finger over the twists of wood and thin pieces of bark tying them together.
“A ward. I suspect the one that kept the fire demons away for a while.”
Staring down at the strange, little symbol, I was taken back into memories of my father hanging similar objects around our house. “Is there nothing we can do? Anything to save him? Or bring him back?”
“No.” He huffed, drumming his fingers against the desk. “Once the soul is claimed, there are few options.”
My poor father. How horrible was it that a man who had never done anything more than chase after silly symbols could have been subjected to eternal suffering? He’d never murdered, nor abused a creature in his life, aside from the time he’d almost drowned me, but of course, he’d had no control as I’d since learned that a demon had possessed him. “So, what happens to him?”
If possible, Jericho’s expression turned even graver than before. “He’s punished. Eternally. Unless the Infernal Lands can find some use of him.”
Find some use. I didn’t even want to think of what that could mean.
As I held the ward to my chest, the pain broke over me. The tiniest beam of hope I’d chased like the flitting strings of a balloon carried too far out of reach.
Arms wrapped around me, and Jericho lifted me up from the chair, carrying me to the other side of the desk, where he sat down and held me like a child. “Forgive me for not telling you earlier,” he whispered and kissed my temple.
Face buried in his neck, I surrendered myself to the misery. For years, I’d been made to believe that my father had committed suicide, but somewhere deep inside my heart, I never truly believed that. I’d seen too much as a child to think a man as knowledgeable in the afterlife as he was would succumb to something so simple as death. However small and unlikely, fate had given me a sliver of hope, a small shred of mercy when I’d learned of Nightshade, and the possibility that I might’ve seen him again.
But then it was lost, and I supposed that I never fully believed in it, anyway. Nothing was ever given back--I learned that lesson long ago with my mother.
For what seemed like an hour, Jericho held me as I sobbed into his chest until I cried myself dry. I sat up from him, slightly embarrassed of the wet shine of his skin where I’d leaked tears all over him. “I understand why you didn’t tell me at first. I’m just glad you were there. I’m glad he wasn’t alone when they came for him.” I opened my palm from around the ward, its edges bent a little from where I’d clutched it. “And I’m glad I have this. These fire demons, is it possible they’d come for me?”
