Page 79 of Cursed Shadows 3

Not until the Sacrament ends, at least.

Father forces a tight smile.

I see in that gesture that he tries to find the right words.

In the doorway behind me, Eamon moves an inch or so closer to my back. I feel the warmth of his chest through the thin gauzy material of his blouse, the warmth of his support as he reminds me of his presence.

Father’s eyes darken into lumps of coal.

A thread of dark hair whips around his ear as the Breeze starts to pick up and we draw closer to the First Wind.

I watch the strand tickle the sharp point of his ear for a moment, escaped from the bronzed ribbon, the same dull shade of his doublet and polished boots.

“Do you know anything about Taroh’s disappearance, Nari?” He might be speaking to me, but he looks at Eamon—and now I understand his gaze to be one of suspicion.

My mind whirls.

It trips over itself in a hurry to find the exact Quiet that Taroh went missing.

Two Quiets, father said.

I was alone in my bedchamber, reading. Before that, I saw Aleana and we had dinner in her room.

I didn’t see anyone else that Quiet. Not Eamon, not Daxeel, not his mother or Morticia, no sign of Caius or Rune or Samick or Dare.

I don’t know where they were, whether they were here in Hemlock House, maybe in their bedchamber or in the dining hall I didn’t visit, or if they were at Comlar, or even at the Gloaming.

What Idoknow is that, behind me, Eamon has tensed.

“I don’t.” My answer is as firm as my gaze. I lift my chin against father’s returning stare. “I only know that he is missing. I find I don’t care.”

“And you?” father’s hardened voice aims over my head at my beloved Eamon. It’s no secret that he’s never liked my hybrid friend. More accurately, never liked his dark blood.

I snare father’s attention back to me. “What about him?”

Still, my mind whirls to everything Eamon said at the dining table, when he told me about Taroh’s disappearance—and we all thought it was just a drunken, temporary thing, that Taroh was waist-deep in brothels by the seaside or buried in a deep grimroot haze.

Eamon never told me what he was doing that Quiet before, but since he’s not speaking up now, I think he might not be too excited to share those details.

I do remember that his shirt was ruffled and he wore the stench of plumwine, wore the stains of it on his purpled lips.

“I am here to ask questions,” father tells me, his stern gaze turned down his nose at me. “Particularly of the whereabouts of the hybrid who—as I hear it—attacked Taroh in the halls of Comlar.”

I scoff.

Attacked.

It was one punch, and Taroh had it coming.

My smile is smug. “His whereabouts?” I cock my hip to the side. “Eamon was with me.”

Slowly, father raises his chin as he considers me.

The disappointment in his pursed mouth is obvious.

“All phase,” I add and step back into Eamon. He doesn’t move behind me, he just rests his chin on the crown of my head. “So no, father, we do not know anything about Taroh’s disappearance. Neither of us left Hemlock House that Quiet. Thank you for your visit.”

With that, Eamon pulls back into the lobby and, hand on my waist, guides me with him.

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