Ties That Bind: a New Adult Fantasy Novel (The Spire Chronicles Book 2) (28 page)

“I’m fine,” I said, resisting the urge to take another bite. These cinnamon buns were almost better than the meds. “Really. It looks worse than it is.”

The woman looked over my bare skin with unease. With how warm they kept the house, I got away with just leggings and a tank top, revealing my arms, which were now more blue and purple than their usual snow white. It was kind of artistic, the dark colors spreading over a pale canvas like blossomed flowers; I was a veritable rose garden when I took my clothes off. Maybe not roses, more like verbena flowers, which were also pretty, so it worked either way.

“Would you like something else?” she asked, eyes darting between the yellow bruises on my face and the dark ones on my arms. “I was just about to make your father lunch…”

“Sweets are the best lunch.”

She giggled, the action lighting up her wrinkled brown face. “You used to say the same thing when you were a little girl.”

The urge was too great and I took another bite, holding back a moan as the frosting melted on my tongue. Pure, sweet heaven. No, seriously, Heaven better be made of this stuff. I’m sinning the hell out of my life if it isn’t. Well, sinning
more
.

“Really?” I asked, swallowing and taking another bite almost simultaneously.

“Yes,” she said fondly, a dreamy, faraway look in her eyes. She made her way to the stove, where steam was flowing freely from a small metal pot. “You would push a stool up to the counter and climb up to grab whatever dessert I’d made that day. You got caught every time but never stopped trying.”

I chuckled at the image. “Apparently, my sneaking skills haven’t improved after all these years.”

She giggled again, stirring the contents of the pot. I leaned against the counter and reached for another bun, the glaze making the confection slip between my sticky fingers. I watched her work while wondering how important it was to keep my shirt frosting free. Everything about her screamed “mother,” and I basked in the warmth she exuded.

“Your cheeks would be puffed out like a chipmunk, and your mother was always torn between fussing over you or taking pictures. I’m sure there’s an entire photo collection of you eating in an album somewhere.”

Right, I kept forgetting to ask Dad where he kept that stuff.
If
he still… “Do you know- That is- Did my- Are those albums still around?”

The rich aroma of coffee filled the kitchen, and I drooled around another mouthful of sour cream frosting. Magic burned a lot of calories, so I was totally justified in eating this entire plate of impending diabetes. Totally. The lady placed a cup of coffee on the counter next to me with a sympathetic smile.

“Your father put all those things in your mother’s lab.”

“The lab still exists?”

“Mhm.” She nodded, dropping her voice and leaning closer to me before continuing. “Her things have been untouched all these years. Even in your father’s room, her clothes are still there. I asked him where he wanted me to put them once they were washed, and he told me to just put them back where I’d found them. He really misses her.”

If she’d said that to me last week, I’d have blown her off. Now, as I stirred cream into my coffee, all I felt was the same deep ache I always felt when I thought of my mother, except this time it was amplified by a factor of ten. When I was younger – like, from the ages of four to last week – I assumed my dad was cold because he was mad at my mother, and by extension, me. Youthful naiveté turned bitter self-centeredness didn’t let me consider that maybe he acted that way because he was hurting, too. Rack up another point on my bitch tally, I guess. Actually, make it two points.

“What was she like?” I asked in a soft voice, the caramel tone of my coffee suddenly the most interesting thing in the world.

“Lady Wallace was… soft,” the woman said after some thought. “And graceful, like a swan. Her nose was always buried in a book. Even after you were born, she’d lug you around and read aloud from whatever book she was currently reading.” She wore a conspiring smile when she added, “I’m pretty sure you knew more about the nesting patterns of Scandinavian dragons than any other four-year-old.”

“Except maybe four-year-old Scandinavian dragons,” I grinned. It faded when I began to wonder if that was what my clearest memory of her – the dragons forming in her palm – was about.

“She was very kind, too,” the woman continued. “Always had a nice word and warm smile for everyone. Brewed potions for my morning sickness when I was pregnant.” Her face fell at the end. “Until she disappeared, anyway.”

Leaning forward, I asked, “Do you remember what happened?”

“I’m sorry, Miss–”

“Just Morgan.”

The sad expression didn’t leave her as she nodded. “Your mother just vanished. I remember her leaving your room late that night. Then, when I woke up the next morning, she was gone. Your father tried to play it off, but it soon became clear he was as in the dark as we were. I’m sorry, that’s all I know.”

My stomach felt, and looked, bloated, but I wasn’t one to let common sense dictate…well, anything. In this case, it wasn’t going to stop me from eating until I hurled. It’s only an emotional problem if food can’t fix it, and food only fails if you stop eating.

“I don’t remember if you gave birth before I left,” I said, trying to veer onto happier topics.

“No,” she said, her expression lifting.
Score.
“Madeline was born a few months after you left. She started her first year of college a few months ago.”

I nodded along as she gave more details about her daughter, pride shining through with every word. It made me wonder about my own mother. Would she have spoken about my accomplishments with that much pride? Has she been keeping up with my life? Was she even still alive?

Pouring myself another cup of coffee, I tried to focus on the woman’s – whose name I really needed to learn – words, but the talk of daughters eventually brought me to Wright. He said his daughter had just started law school. I wonder if she’d gotten the news about her father yet.

Despite Alex saying we’d be able to question him later, Wright ended up dying in the ambulance. The paramedics tried but were unable to bring him back once he flatlined. Regret gnawed at me for that. If I’d been more powerful, maybe I could’ve done a better job of healing him. I acted recklessly, running around for two days like I was on meth. And when it came time to put up or shut up, I was mute. If I had been smarter, I would have been at full strength and healing Wright wouldn’t have been a problem. If I’d been stronger and smarter and fucking psychic and… If, if, if.

I wasn’t happy with “ifs” and uncertainty. I needed to know now, to be stronger now – to blast everything away until I got my way. I needed to see it, needed it all laid out at my feet. Some people could handle wallowing in the darkness, but not me. I’d blast the space full of firelight in less than a second. It was like a thirst I couldn’t quench, which admittedly, scared me sometimes. Was this normal? It made me feel like a demon hungering for power. Except in my case, it wasn’t power I was after – it was knowledge.

Not that I’d say no to more power.

“Rosa!” a voice called from the other room.

Rosa (there was one mystery solved, at least) turned around at the sound, tray of food in hand. “Yes?”

“I need your help in the garden!”

“In a minute, I need to get this food to Sir Wallace!”

“I can do it. I’m going upstairs, anyway. Promise I won’t eat the dessert,” I added with a wink as I took the tray from her.

“Are you sure?” Rosa asked. “I don’t mean to impose–”

“No problem,” I called over my shoulder, already halfway out the room.

“…Dad?” I called, knocking on his door with one knuckle. Thinking it was one thing, but actually speaking the title out loud felt, and sounded, awkward. It was the thought that counted, right?

At his approval, I stepped inside a room I hadn’t seen in eighteen years. Well, that was pretty much every room in this house, but I digress. His room was basically a bigger version of my own. Rosa had been telling the truth: everything looked like it had before I left. I couldn’t speak to the minute details, but looking around reminded me of being a little girl playing with her mother’s makeup.

I looked over the bottles on her vanity with a fond smile. Not a speck of dust on any of them. Even the order looked familiar, though that was almost certainly wishful nostalgia kicking in. One thing I knew for sure hadn’t been moved was the wooden picture frame in the corner. It held a photo of us: my father had an arm around my mother, wearing a smile I hadn’t seen since she left while she leaned against him, her arms holding up a chubby cheeked baby. We look so happy… I wonder if there’s a copy of this somewhere.

Dad was propped up against his headboard, looking like the sullen child I probably resembled when I was forced to do things I didn’t want to do.

“The doctors are being ridiculous,” he said, his voice still thick and raspy. “I do not need any more bed rest. You’ve scanned me – go tell them I’m fine.”

Please, I can’t even convince them to give me drugs.
I snorted and rolled my eyes, placing the tray on his lap. Guess the loosened strain in our relationship loosened his lips, too. Unable to resist the urge, I scanned him again to confirm he was in good health, which he was.

“You still need to rest,” I said, trying to find a civil way to word my next statement. “…At your age…”

“I can compete with any man half my age,” he declared, making a move to stand up. I pressed him back. “Bring that boy in and I’ll prove it.”

“Leave Alex out of it,” I said, ignoring how weird it felt to be touching him. Y’know, now that he wasn’t covered in blood and I wasn’t crying like a giant baby.

Staple frown in place, he asked, “How is he? His friend was discharged from the hospital and escorted through a portal to the Council yesterday.”

I nodded. “Yeah, Alex was there to say goodbye.”

“And?”

“He didn’t come back until I was asleep and he was still sleeping when I woke up, which is weird because he’s usually awake hours before I am.”

“Suddenly, I’m not so hungry anymore,” he said, poking at his food in a way I refused to admit was similar to me.
Right, no reminding him I was sharing a bed with Alex.

That did bring to mind another topic I’d been putting off, though.

“So, Tamlin told me something interesting.”

His fork made a horrible screeching sound against the plate.

Resisting the urge to make about fifty furry and doggy-style jokes was more painful than the bullet through my neck – an event I will never shut up about surviving – but I managed. Call it a personal victory.

“Well, am I pulling double-duty on being an organ donor, or am I off the hook? Because I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t even match with a werewolf.”

“That’s not how organ donations work, Morgan.”

“And now
you’re
out of a kidney, too,” I said. “Bet you wish that’s how they worked now, huh? Though with the way Tamlin talks about you, he’d probably give you both kidneys. And his liver.”

“That wasn’t how I intended for you to find out.” Dad sighed. “When your mother…left, everything hurt. At first, I thought she’d wandered off into the forests to gather herbs or visit one of the tribes; she used to do that a lot. Normally, she left a note, but I assumed she just forgot.” The wrinkles on his face seemed to multiply, and I reached for his hand almost instinctively. His hand was cold, rough with calluses, but I still held on, giving it a squeeze. “After two days, I contacted the tribes. Nothing. She had always been a free spirit, but I couldn’t understand why she abandoned us. Every time you looked up at me with those eyes –
her
eyes – and asked me when mommy was coming home, I felt my heart breaking all over again.” The idea to cauterize my tear ducts came back like a metal bat to the face at those words, and I had to semi-swallow my lips to hold the feelings in.

Dad seemed to share my sentiments, and I was polite enough to not mention how misty his eyes got as he cupped my cheek. “You look so much like her. Even back then, every year that passed had you looking more and more like a miniature version of her. Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t handle being reminded of the woman I love. I knew I wasn’t being a good father; I saw how miserable you were whenever I would pass you by without a second glance. It was cowardly and I’m anything but proud of it. However, Cassandra is – was – a good friend, and I knew she would take good care of you. It was better than keeping you here and ignoring you.”

I swallowed thickly. “Did…did you ever find out more on why she left? Surely your contacts–”

He shook his head. “I looked. Believe me, I looked. Every contact I had, every favor I could call in – it all led nowhere. She covered her tracks perfectly, vanishing like…”

“Magic?”

Dad managed a soft snort that brought a smile to my face. “A few months after Cassandra took you in, Catherine became the shaman of her pack. Her mother, the former shaman, had just passed away. We ended up speaking quite a bit, two lonely people who had lost a person that meant the world to them. Or two people, in my case.”