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“Surely we can stay for a week or two?” she protested in a low voice. “I just found my sister. I need to understand what happened to my father. Make sure she’s doing fine.”
He clenched his jaw and backed away, pulling her with him down the steps and toward the street. She glanced at the bulletin board and the few papers pinned to it. Not enough to draw at least four bounty hunters. They were after someone, all right. She could only hope it wasn’t them.
“Let’s see your family, then we can find Ellie and Mios. I left a message with the innkeeper for them to meet us in the tavern for drinks.” Gavin raked his fingers through his hair. “The army should have kept your records sealed. I should’ve been the only one able to access them. However, Julius clearly did as well. So we have to assume the Crows will send their people here, too.”
Fuck. She hadn’t thought about the Society for a while, but what Gavin said made sense. “We don’t know how many bounty hunters Julius hired to get me. There were three with him when he took you. Did you recognize anyone here?”
“No. These weren’t the same men. But that doesn’t mean they won’t come. Since Julius is dead, it’s possible they’d continue to hunt us, hoping to sell us to the Crows back in the Iron City.”
They rushed down the cobbled streets, which were poorly maintained. Any attempts to patch them up had already worn away, leaving behind large potholes that would prevent a carriage from going over them. The sea breeze grew stronger as they approached the coast.
Violet wished she could enjoy the salt in the air, and the way it made her battered heart flutter with a sense of belonging. But even here, everything had been tainted by the Crows.
Her childhood home appeared out of a layer of mist. It stood slightly away from the rest of the town, with its closest neighbors belonging to other fisher families. Her parents had whitewashed the wooden house with ivory stucco, but its facade was now cracked. A seafoam-green door that had seen better days hung crookedly in its frame, beaten down by the unforgiving conditions of this place. “That’s the one.”
“It’s secluded,” Gavin commented, looking around the space. He wasn’t wrong. While it was in a less affluent part of town, her family had owned this plot for generations. A piece of the beach and sea. The dilapidated front yard was new. Violet fondly remembered how her mother had taken great pride in her flowerbeds. But it didn’t seem like there had been any flowers here for a while.
They walked past a few small boats which rested on the black sand in various states of disrepair.
“A fisherman’s family. It makes sense now why you were so good at rescuing Elina that afternoon in the Hulten lake.” His tone was infused with a healthy dose of awe.
“I thought you read my records. Didn’t they go into my family’s background?”
His cheeks bloomed red, and he cleared his throat, tapping his hand against his thigh. “I paged through it. It mentioned nothing about this. It just said that…”
“What?”
“Never mind. It’s not important.” He shook his head and earned himself a narrow-eyed glare.
Violet knocked on the door. Her fingertips felt cold and sweaty with anticipation. The air stuck in her throat when a skeleton opened. It took her a moment of panic to realize that the woman standing in front of her with a tentative grin was her mother.
29
VIOLET
Skin and bones. Unlike anything Violet had ever seen before. Her mother’s mouth split into a wide smile as she recognized her. “Cora. I never thought I would see you again. I dreamed you’d be back.” Her mom swung the door open and wrapped her in what should have been one of her signature, bone-crushing hugs—except that it lacked its normal energy.
Her eyes were filled with tears when she withdrew a little to take Violet in. “You look well. So beautiful.”
“Thanks.” She swallowed past the awkwardness settling in her stomach and held her mother close. The familiar scent of daisies washed over her, reminding her of the strong woman in her memories.
“And who is this?” She stepped back fully, giving them a clear view of the living area, and pulled her into the house with surprising strength.
“I’m her husband, Gavin.”
“Husband?” Her mother’s eyes widened as she studied Gavin, and her smile became positively feline. “More to celebrate then.”
Celebrate? No, there was little to be happy about here—other than being able to see her, Thalea, and to have Gavin by her side. Everything else was a wreck.
Her childhood home hadn’t changed since she’d last been here. The same eggshell walls and wide wooden floorboards that creaked under her every step. Her father used to tell the story of how her mother and him had collected driftwood that washed in from the ocean and rebuilt parts of the house with it. It was all gray and smoothed down like a river stone.
The sea breeze howled past an open window at the side of the room.
“I’m sure you recognize little, Cora. I tried to keep it the same, just in case you ever came back. Is it still home to you?” Her mother’s smile was as brittle as her appearance, and it ached too much to continue looking at her. It was too obvious that her days were numbered.
“Yes… I remember it all.” Violet traced her fingers over the rough fabric of the side chair and shook herself out of the heavy feelings of belonging. Any happiness got squashed the instant she remembered that her father was missing.
“You came just in time for breakfast.” Thalea’s chipper tone sounded so different compared to yesterday. Was it an act? Now that she could see the state of her mother’s health, Violet understood why Thalea would ask her not to mention the situation at the mine.
