Page 32 of Devour the Dark

I turn away from them, suddenly embarrassed. “Sorry,” I mutter. “I didn’t mean to pry…”

“I don’t know,” Winnie answers. “Not entirely.”

Roc and Vane share a look. Vane gives his older brother an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

Whatever they are, it leads me to believe it’s rooted in some actual mythology, something we would recognize if we heard it. Asha’s theory is Roc and Vane, or at least their ancestors, are not from the Seven Isles. I’ve spent enough time with her in the private palace library listening to her read myths and sagas, to know that the Seven Isles and my home world are just two of many. So it stands to reason that someone further back in Roc and Vane’s line, or maybe even Roc and Vane themselves, crossed worlds just like Peter Pan did to mine. Time and clocks didn’t exist before the Bone Society, which means here, in the Isles, no one had a need for it until they did.

“What else did you learn in the Archives?” Roc asks Asha.

She sips from her wine glass while she contemplates the question. Asha has never been a person in a rush to speak. Sometimes there are long pauses between her answers while she digs through the archive of her mind looking for the best response.

“Vane’s name is his birth name, but you weren’t born a crocodile,” she finally says.

“No.” Roc smiles. “No, I was not.”

“But your birth name doesn’t appear at all. Not once.”

Their gazes catch on one another like sand burrs on cloth.

“Are you asking me a question?” Roc says.

“What’s your true name?”

“The only person alive who knows my true name is my brother and my uncle.”

“Wait,” Winnie says, turning to Vane. “You have an uncle?”

The line of Vane’s lower jaw tenses as he scowls at Roc, clearly thinking he’s said too much.

I didn’t know they had an uncle. I thought most of their family was dead.

Roc rests his elbows on the table and leans toward Asha. Asha, for her part, does not move despite the tension in the air. “I assure you, Bonescar, my name is not as interesting as my monster. Perhaps next time I shift, I’ll?—”

I stand up so fast that my chair tips over and slams into the hardwood floor. Everyone turns to me.

“Don’t, Roc. Don’t ever threaten her.”

He takes in a long breath through his nose, his chest expanding slowly and deliberately. “Fine. I’ll pinkie promise. But not until she promises to leave my past in the past.”

I’m not sure Asha can turn off her inquiring mind any more than Roc can turn off his monster, but Asha says, “I promise,” anyway, because she’s smart, and she knows when a lie is more important than the truth.

Roc holds out his pinkie to her.

Asha sits upright. “Is that necessary?”

“Of course. It’s the most sacred promise of all.”

With a disgruntled sigh, Asha hooks her pinkie finger around his and Roc gives their hands one hearty pump.

“There. It’s settled.”

“Thank you,” I tell them both, but the look Asha gives me says she will not honor that pinkie promise, no matter how sacred Roc seems to think it is. Because he made a mistake: herevealed the fact that he possesses a secret, one he was willing to fight over.

Asha will never let it go.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ROC

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