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“Dominic, huh? So you’re friends now?”
“Obviously not.” I wasn’t sure what made me use his first name. Maybe I just preferred it to Dunn, or maybe he’d become a little more real to me when he spoke of his mother’s death and his father’s betrayal. Right or wrong, I saw a bit of myself in him. I’d wanted to punch my father in the face for a while too.
“Even if Dunn’s not lying about that, I don’t trust him,” said Cait. “He’s angry and willing to hurt people over it.”
I frowned. I couldn’t really blame him.
“Talk to Keane,” said Cait. “Get the truth. He’s avoiding me, but I’m sure he’ll put up with you. You’re his favorite.”
I shook my head, raindrops flicking off my hair. “It’s not just you he’s avoiding. He hasn’t spoken a word to anyone all day.”
Cait looked out to sea, toward the last bit of sunlight glowing through the rain-streaked clouds, her brown eyes gleaming behind the drops that fell between us.
“You want to go back to Lachlan,” I said. “I know.”
She shrugged. “Of course. But I’m at the mercy of what the rest of you want, and I should still help you after what you did for me.”
“You don’t owe me anything. You already helped me get to Graham, even if it didn’t go exactly as planned.”
She tried to stifle a smile, but it broke through. “Itreallydidn’t go as planned.”
I laughed, my pain somehow transforming into inexplicable amusement over Graham’s total rejection of me. “He”—I grasped my side, my laughter spilling out—“he hates me so much.”
“He kind of does.” Cait laughed with me, putting a hand on my shoulder as if she meant to comfort me but didn’t know how. “But you’ll be fine without him. You’re too strong not to be.”
I took a deep breath, my chest warm with the relief of honest laughter. I knew I’d be okay without him—I could keep breathing, anyway. But I’d seen how my father changed aftermy mother died. Sure, he’d survived, but look who he’d become. And I’d always been a little too much like my father.
“I’m going to talk to him.” I looked down at the deck, my mind back on another track.
“To Keane?” Cait asked.
“Eventually,” I mumbled, then headed for the hatch. I’d get to Keane later, but I wanted to hear Dominic’s side of the story first.
I climbed the ladder to the dim hall below, making my way to the tiny cabin Dominic had been staying in. I knocked before I entered, stepping inside when I heard a resigned “come in.”
In the room, a single lantern hung from the ceiling, swinging as the boat rocked, casting shifting shadows over Dominic’s face. He glared up at me from where he sat on a worn and flattened mattress.
I inched closer and shut the door behind me, afraid I’d say the wrong thing, but more afraid of not saying anything at all. “Are you okay?”
He sighed and looked at the wall beside him. “Why does it matter to you?”
I sank to the wooden cabin floor with crossed legs, facing him. “I’m sorry you lost your mother.”
He scoffed. “I didn’t just lose her. That man”—he pointed upward—“killed her. You won’t believe me, but it’s true.”
I held back my judgment for the moment, eager to get to the truth. “How old were you?”
“Three,” he said.
“That young?” I asked. “I’m sorry.”
Dominic nodded. “I remember when Lady Stroud died.”
I put my hands on my knees and sat up straighter, surprised that he’d bring up my own mother’s death, but at a loss as to how to respond.
“My family—my grandparents and adoptive parents—went to the funeral,” he continued, “but I stayed home with my governess. I was twelve.”
“So was I,” I said, a little surprised we were the same age. That meant he’d only taken his ranking test and become an Enforcer within the past year. He looked very young, but he’d acted like he owned all of Cambria when he cornered me in the streets there. His confidence was likely born of nepotism more than anything else. “Were you related to the people who adopted you?”
