Page 144 of Threadbound

Assuming Trixie and Rob were coming with them.

He opened his mouth to ask, then decided that bringing it up wouldn’t really serve any purpose. Either they were or they weren’t. He assumed that Bran wouldn’t drag them against their wills, so if one or both of them didn’twantto, that would be that. And if they couldn’t or if the fae didn’t want to bring them, they’d just go and leave them behind. So all bringing it up would do was cause anxiety and argument, and Jamie didn’t really have it in him to deal with any more drama, magical or mundane.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Jamie really wasn’t prepared to handle too much of anything right at that moment. He’d long ago come to terms with the fact that his father almost certainly didn’t care about his existence—might not evenknowabout his existence—and that he’d told Jamie’s momma that he had to conduct some sort of secret business to get her to leave him alone and not ask about child support.

In high school, during a fight with his momma about whether or not she should leave Bill Eckel—Jamie had tried, again and again, to convince her—Jamie’d asked her if his father even knew he existed. She’d replied that she liked to think so, and that if he hadn’t had such dangerous work, he’d have been a part of Jamie’s life.

The sixteen-year-old Jamie had scoffed at this fiction.

Which, as it turns out, was a lot more believable than finding out his father was a Sluagh werewolf-fae who had, apparently,spent the last twenty-seven years pretending to be a traitor against his people by providing information for the Sidhe Court.

His momma had saidvery important and very secret. She hadn’t been lying or making up a heroic story to make Jamie feel better.

It made him wonder just how much his momma had actually known. It filled him with regret—regret that he hadn’t asked her more questions about the fae, that he hadn’t tried to get more details about his father out of her once he was older, that he hadn’t essentially given up on his momma’s life having any real meaning.

That last was the worst part. Because he had essentially given up on his momma being anything more than a victim of Bill Eckel’s fists. Which wasn’t fair—because she had given her best to Jamie and his half-siblings, had raised and loved and protected them. If anyone had failed anyone, it was Jamie who had failed her—and Billy, Nora, Ginny, and Tommy.

He wanted to ask Mad Ally if he’d ever regretted leaving Nell. The fae’s utter lack of surprise at seeing Jamie told him that the wulver had known he existed—might even have known about his threadbond with Bran, since he seemed to have accepted that without so much as a bat of his blue eyes. Whether it was because he’d kept track of Jamie or because it had come to his attention when Jamie had actually gone through with the bond, Jamie didn’t know—and was a little afraid to ask.

Part of him hoped that Mad Ally had cared enough to have followed Jamie’s life—and part of him hoped that the wulver wasn’t cold enough to have allowed his son and his former lover to be repeatedly beaten and abused by an alcoholic, small-minded narcissist.

Jamie couldn’t make himself ask, because both options were heartbreaking.

Besides, at this precise moment, he didn’t have the time or the space to deal with his own past when both his future and Bran’s—to say nothing of Bran’s father—needed as much of their focus as they could give it.

Jamie took another sip of his whisky. The liquid burned a little, warming his throat and tight stomach.

“Jamie.” He looked up when Bran said his name.

“Yeah?”

“Are you ready?”

Jamie nodded, climbing off the bed. He hesitated, then went and put on his shoes.

“Should we—I mean. Do I need a coat?” Trixie asked.

“It is as cold in Elfhame as it is here,” Bran replied.

“Do we need luggage?” Rob hissed at Jamie.

Jamie shrugged.

“Probably better to bring it,” Bran answered, causing Rob to jump.

“Bloody hell,” Rob grumbled. “He’s got sharp hearing.”

Bran’s lips twitched. “Aye,” he agreed.

Jamie packed up both his own clothes and Bran’s, bringing the fae a sweater and coat after putting on his own. Rob and Trixie both bundled up, as well, Rob complaining that his boots were still damp.

The three of them then stood there, dressed to go outside, their bags on their shoulders as they all stared at the two fae.

“Ye take the lead,” Mad Ally said. “I’ll give ye what strength ye need.”

Bran nodded once, although Jamie could see from the set of his lips, pressed together in a line, that something was bothering him.

Jamie had opened his mouth to ask when Bran looked up, his green eyes meeting Jamie’s, and shook his head very slightly, once. Jamie shut his mouth again and swallowed. Whatever itwas, Bran didn’t want to talk about it—and he might not want the others, including Mad Ally, to know about it. Jamie wasn’t going to betray that trust, even if he was more than a little worried about what opening a doorway between the worlds would do to Bran’s strength. He knew Bran would dismiss Jamie’s worry, whether or not it was justified, because he was more than willing to accept whatever it would take to cure the poison that was killing Cairn. And the Holly King.

---