Page 94 of The Secret Keeper's Daughter

“It’s black magic,” my father says. “It’s deadly.”

“Then why would my sweet mother trust them?”

He draws a deep breath. “There was more to your ‘sweet’ mother than you knew.”

“What doesthatmean?”

Einar pushes some of his dreadlocks behind his shoulder. “I’m not denying she had a sweetness to her, but that was also balanced out by a strong and sly side.”

“What are you saying?”

He turns to Harek. “Do you want to tell her?”

My mouth falls open. “Have you been keeping more from me?”

“No!” He turns to my father. “What are you talking about?”

“You don’t know about Tyra’s fighter side?”

“What are you talking about?”

I stare at him in disbelief. My meek mother who always acquiesced to Gunnar had afighterside? Either she led a double life and I didn’t know her, or Einar and I are talking about two different people. If that’s the case, he isn’t my father and I’m not a hunter.

If only I had a photograph of her, but I hadn’t been able to grab one from the house before fleeing.

Einar starts to say something, but I interrupt him. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same person? My mother was a gentle, kindhearted woman who nursed birds and mice back to health when others would’ve tossed them into the woods.”

He looks lost in thought for a moment. “That definitely sounds like her, but Tyra was a highly complex woman with many sides. Anything she did had a purpose—there wasn’t a moment she wasn’t in full control of any situation.”

“Until she got sick.” A fresh wave of grief washes through me. “Why didn’t she try to cure herself with magic?”

“Because that’s likely what did her in.” Einar scowls. “That kind of magic always comes at a price.”

I feel sick to my stomach, and for the first time in a week, it has nothing to do with the renegade souls I absorbed. “Did she get sick trying to protect me?”

“Potentially. You said she had other children?”

“Yeah.” Tears threaten, and I blink them away. That explains why all the doctors she saw were useless. Gunnar had paid top dollar for the best, even finding other medicine men and women from towns that were a week or more away.

“With a werewolf?” My father asks, pulling me from my thoughts.

“A human. My siblings are halflings and don’t know it any more than I knew about my true nature.”

“Is he trustworthy?”

Harek roars with laughter.

Einar rubs his temples. “I take that as a no.”

“Gunnar tried to marry Eira off to a cruel and disgusting old man the moment her mother died. He’s the same person who stole her sword.”

Fire flashes in my father’s eyes. “This savage lives in Skoro, you say?”

“He’s one of the most influential men there.”

“In other words, he’s rich.”

We both nod.

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