It was late by the time Evie finally made it home that night. The light in Lyssa’s room was already out, but when she entered the kitchen, there was her father, standing over a pot, murmuring to himself. The pungent smell of two spices that were clearly never meant to be mixed filled the air.
She tried to keep her heart calm, her breathing even, tried to act normally. Swallowing a lump in her throat, she forced a smile to her face.
“Good evening, Papa. What are you making?” Evie asked.
“Why is this so difficult?” her father replied quietly instead, sounding pinched and frustrated. Evie knew he meant well, and she felt a painful jab in her gut from the guilt of having missed dinner, missed putting Lyssa to bed. She pulled the vial from Tatianna out of her pocket and handed it to her father, hoping he didn’t see the shaking of her hands.
“Please at least try this potion, Father,” Evie said. “My healer friend said this is a new type of pain tonic and it’s been seen to be very effective.”
He placed a large hand on Evie’s cheek. “You always take care of me.” The pang in her chest turned into a crater. “So like your mother.”
Excellent. Right now, when she was on the brink of a mental break, it was certainly refreshing to also be reminded of her worst fear.
“Right,” Evie said in a hard voice. “Except I’m still here.”
Her father dropped his hand from her cheek, and there was a sudden chill to the room. “Yes.” He coughed. “Of course.” Looking like he needed something to do with his hands, her father uncapped the vial and downed it in one gulp. In that, at least, Evie felt some relief.
“Lyssa’s in bed early tonight,” Evie observed, not mentioning that she was happy to not have to worry about her sister in this moment.
“She wore herself out with the neighbor girls. How was work today?” They both sat at the table, Evie pressing her palms gently into the familiar wood before folding them nervously in front of her.
“It was…productive,” she said, not having a better word.
“As all work should be.” Her father smiled at her. “It’s good you keep busy. Idle hands lead to nothing but trouble.” She knew he was thinking about her mother again by the way his other hand reached for the medallion at his neck.
“Papa… Did you know what a hard time Mama was having with her magic, all those years ago? Did you understand how she struggled? Or was it all a shock in the end?” she asked, unsure of why she needed to know the answer. Why it mattered.
He looked caught off guard by the question, but to his credit, he answered her, and she was sure it was the truth. “I knew when it was too late.”
Leaving him to his “cooking,” Evie moved toward her bedroom. She checked in on Lyssa, who was sleeping peacefully in her bed. Then, passing by her father’s office, she saw light spilling out from under the door. Had he abandoned his culinary disaster already?
When she pushed the door entirely open, though, the room was empty.
She entered slowly, feeling wrong. This room had been off-limits to her as a child, and despite her spiral into adulthood, it still felt like breaking a rule to enter without permission.
The crackle of the fire was dwindling, offering the room the slivered ends of remaining light. There was a small bookshelf pushed against the wall, with a few thick volumes and a few thinner—clearly children’s books Evie had loved as a child.
Staring back at the door with just a little bend of her neck to see into the hallway, Evie crept farther into the space, walking around slowly, assessing.
A candle flickered, and wax dripped onto a piece of parchment angled off to the side. Parchment that looked like it had been crumpled into a ball and then uncrumpled a good ten times before it was laid flat again.
Evie pulled a pin from her hair and flung it as close to the desk as it would fall. “Oops,” she muttered quietly to herself. After jogging over lightly and bending to grab the pin, Evie straightened just enough to peek at the words on the paper. Some of the ink was blurred, but what was etched at the bottom was clearly visible, and it caused a deep shudder of horror.
It was a letter—a long one.
Signed “with love” at the bottom…from the last person she’d expected.
Nura Sage. Her mother.
