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Her thumb hitched over her shoulder. “We went into the mountains.”
I looked out the window, staring at the mountain range beyond the valley. Impossible. She had to be protecting someone in town. Didn’t want me torturing some poor soul that had helped her.
I looked down to her, my eyes narrowing. “How in the hell did you escape that direction? There isn’t anything in the mountains for a hundred and fifty miles.”
Her look turned on me like I was an imbecile. “Damen, Venny took down a whole fucking castle. You think I would bring her anywhere near people?”
Fuck, she was smart.
“No. No, you wouldn’t. I never even considered that.”
“You didn’t consider that I would want to protect innocent people from her?”
I shrugged. “How did you survive? It would take at least two weeks, probably more, to reach any civilization through the mountains.”
“It took us two months.” A shiver ran through her. “Two cold, freezing months. But I grabbed tattered velvet drapes from the wreckage for blankets and we went slow on purpose.”
Unbelievable. There was no way they survived with nothing but some shredded drapes.
My eyes narrowed at her. “How?”
Her eyes rolled and she shifted on the window seat, drawing her legs toward her body as she drew her spine straighter, her neck craned to look up at my height. “I grew up in the mountains, remember? I know how to hunt. Make a fire. Forge a shelter. Venny complained almost every second, but it also seemed like a good time-out for her.”
My eyebrow cocked. “You gave my fifteen-year-old daughter a time-out in the middle of the Alps?”
Her hands flew up at her sides, annoyance clear on her face. “Why? What would you have done with her?”
Probably everything wrong, if I was honest about it. I didn’t have an answer for that so I just glared down at her.
“I couldn’t make it easy on Venny after what she did.” Her eyes closed, her cheeks lifting in a wince as a memory chased across her face. “I could smell the death in the castle as I was looking for her. So many…so many were killed.”
A shudder shook her shoulders, like she was trying to slough off the death that had seeped onto her frame and refused to leave her.
She still felt everything so damn deeply.
My head bowed for a long moment, then my gaze lifted, studying her face. “At the restaurant, what were you thinking?”
Her eyes opened, her brow furrowing as she looked up at me. “What restaurant?”
“At the restaurant on Grenada when I finally found you. Right before I sat down next to you. You were sitting at that table, reading something. You had a sudden smile on your face, you looked up, and then a brutal sadness fell into your eyes. Why?”
The exact same sadness I saw on that day flickered once more across her eyes. She heaved a breath and shook her head slightly. “I missed Venny. I still do. I made her my…everything…for four years. And that day on the island, in that second, I was missing her so damn much.” Her shoulders lifted. “I don’t have her anymore and I’m worried and scared for her. And I’m just so entirely sad that she isn’t in my life right now.”
The pain in her voice cut a chasm deep into my soul. I hadn’t considered how much Ada needed my daughter, how much she would miss Venetia, just as I did.
“Then why did you give her up to the Academy?”
Her gaze shifted off of me to look out at the mountaintops across the range. “As much as I wanted her with me, it wasn’t right, holding her back. I taught her everything I could, and at some point, she needed to not be an extension of me. She needed to be her own person. I couldn’t keep her with me because I couldn’t be that selfish. It wasn’t right.”
I nodded, hating her answer but understanding it. She’d done the one thing I couldn’t—set Venetia free to fly or fail on her own.
Ada gave a violent shake of her head and her look jerked up to me, a glare sparking in her eyes, as though I was torturing her with questions on Venetia just for my own amusement. “What are you even doing in here, talking to me?”
Exactly. What was I doing?
Talking to her when I really wanted to drag her off the window seat. Strip her down. Set her on all fours. Wrap her hair around my hand to control her. And then fuck her like a rabid demon.
I shrugged.
