Page 29 of Above Cursed Winds

A sound of approval rumbled in Jeremiah’s throat. He was aware he’d been too harsh on her initially. He’d already confirmed the breach hadn’t resulted from Zia’s ineptitude. Whether or not she’d purposefully taken the information was another question entirely. The boy’s account of everything his mother did for the clan, on top of the way she had conducted herself in her duties as the Peace Accords Administrator, certainly didn’t match with his idea of treason.

For the first time, he acknowledged and empathized with the difficulties of working as Nero’s second and being mother to an eight-year-old as special as Myko.

“No matter how busy she is, though, she always makes me the best dinners,” Myko was saying. “Sometimes she’ll make these really fancy dishes to help me try new things, but I always ask for spaghetti because it’s my favorite. Sometimes we have it every other day!”

“Your mom is a good mom, huh?”

“Super good mom,” Myko echoed, nodding his head victoriously at the well-adjusted hinge. “Sometimes I think she’s lonely, though.”

“Lonely?”

Jeremiah frowned, studying Myko’s features as he moved on to the next cabinet and started adjusting the hinges. Something about the thought sat ill with him.

“It’s ‘cause my mom never dates anybody. It’s just me and her.”

Hoping it wasn’t a sensitive subject, Jeremiah asked, “What about your dad?”

“Oh, they don’t date,” Myko said, his head disappearing into a cabinet. “They just sleep together.”

Startled, Jeremiah choked, coughing to clear his throat and mind from what must’ve been an unintentional slip. Though Myko didn’t expand on his statement, he looked at Jeremiah worriedly.

“You okay?”

Grunting a barely intelligible response, Jeremiah refocused on the hinge adjustment staring him in the face. While he wasn’t certain what he’d expected, he hadn’t expected that, and it made his gut churn with a foreign sensation. He kept his thoughts to himself as they continued to work on the cabinets. After six more hinges, they called it quits, stepping back to inspect their handiwork.

“If your mom hates it, then this was your idea, little man.”

Patting Myko on the shoulder, Jeremiah braced for the brief vision that floated into his subconscious and was shocked when it didn’t come.

“No vision?”

Myko beamed up at him. “I can sometimes control it once I’ve been around someone enough.” His smile faltered a bit. “But … but most people don’t give me the chance.”

Two hours later, after Jeremiah had shown and instructed Myko how to finish the raw edges on the carpeted stairs, Zia’s muffled voice sounded in the kitchen.

“What—what on earth?”

Busted.

“We’re up here, Mom!” Myko shouted.

“Myko?”

Jeremiah called out, “We’re finishing the stairs.”

The sound of her hurried approach made Jeremiah break into a smile. He didn’t move as Zia halted near the bottom of the staircase, her expression shifting between suspicion, gratefulness, and confusion.

“My kitchen?”

“Myko did half the work.” Smirking, he tilted his head toward the youngling who was curling under the raw edges of the carpeting on the last stair. “It was good practice, anyway.”

Zia’s tone was suspicious. “Practice for what?”

He shrugged, the gesture casual enough that she glared daggers at him. “You never know when you might happen along a damsel in distress.”

“Whose kitchen is half finished?”

“Precisely, Z.”

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