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“I know.” She sits on the bar stool across from me.
“We were loud.”
“That’s one way to describe it. I was about to come in when I heard him leave.”
“I’m sorry, Belle. The two of us have a bit of history.”
“I guess so. Do you want to talk about it?” She’s running her hands through her hair, which is standing in all directions.
“Not really.”
Her blue eyes blink at me.
“It’s not even his fault, but...”
“But you’ve made it his fault.”
“Yeah, it’s just growing up... to me it was like he was rubbing the fact he had a mother in my and Nico’s faces.”
“Richeal? I’ve heard her name mentioned more than once.”
“Yeah. Nico’s birth mother. He was four when she died. I was a baby, or almost a baby. Alder insisted they still place me with their pod even though she was gone. It was fine until . . . Well, I was a teenager and I went digging in Alder’s back closet. It was locked, but I wasn’t about to let that stop me.” Rocks hit me in my stomach. “I should have. I wish I had.”
“What did you find?” Her lips are parted in a small gasp.
“Lots of books, but it was a notebook that changed everything.”
“A notebook?”
“In a lockbox. As you’ve already seen, we don’t keep much paper around. Anyway, I stared at the lockbox for a long time. I even locked it back up and came back to it the next day. I can still remember the clothes I had on, and even the musty smell of Alder’s closet, from his toolbox.”
Belle is leaning on the counter. I taste the sauce and adjust the seasoning. It doesn’t need much, but I need the time.
“When I opened it the next day, it was full of notes about Richeal’s death. Where she was, how the three of them were killed in thesoloaccident. Notes about thesolo, and in the back were detailed descriptions of where each of the Drakos pod were the week before the accident.”
“You think they have something to do with it?”
“Back then I didn’t know what to think. Yeah, Castor and his untouchable image bothered the shrimp shells out of me. But I didn’t think they were the kind to murder. I didn’t think they were back then. Honestly, I’m not sure they are now. But I’ve spent a decade or two wondering about it. Doing my own digging.” This is where I wonder if I should stop. The rest isn’t really mine to tell. But then Nico won’t tell her. “After I found the notebook, I went back to it many times. Nico found me coming out of Alder’s closet and wanted to know what I was doing. And I told him. It was like something snapped inside of him. He refused to believe it, at least when he’s awake. But shortly after that is when the night terrors started. Slowly at first, one here or there. We’d find him walking around the apartment. Then after the battle...”
“Of Hestertåtten?”
“Exactly. We did some things. Things I won’t repeat. Nico more than me. We got those soldiers out, and everyone congratulates us on being heroes, that it didn’t cost us a single life. But that’s not true.”
“Nico.”
“Yes, he’s never been the same since. But it’s not the battle. He was there the day that Richeal and her mates were killed. He was in thesolo. He should have died too. But he has memories, only they’re not complete. I wish they were. Or that he’d let the doctors do the memory scans they want to do. But he won’t because—”
“He’s Nico. I understand. You really think Ophelia and her mates had something to do with your mother’s death?”
I shake my head. I don’t think of Richeal as my mother. She’s a ghost to me. There were times I thought of Ophelia as my mother, but that all shattered when I found that damn box.
“What did Alder say when you told him?”
I look away from her.
“No. You didn’t tell him? He must have seen the change in both of you.”
“Once the nightmares started for Nico, he made me swear not to tell Alder. Not tell anyone, and I haven’t, not until you.”
