Page 103 of A Winding Wave of Magic
“You think I can’t See nervous energy? Everything about you speeds up just a touch.”
I huffed. “You probably would be nervous too if the future was absolutely opaque. Not to mention the fact that my mother and I are as close as you are to your dad.”
Jonathan’s brows lifted.
“Don’t tell me Penny kept that from you, of all things,” I said. “She wasn’t exactly Sybil’s biggest fan either. They hardly ever spoke.”
“Penny loved her daughter very much,” Jonathan remarked just before his phone directed him to turn onto Washington.
“Well, she had a funny way of showing it. And my mother couldn’t even be bothered to identify her own mother’s body. No, she sent a telegram asking me to fly across the country to do it instead.”
I hadn’t yet considered exactlyhowmy mother had learned of Penny’s death. If she had Seen it for herself. And when, exactly, that might have happened.
“Perhaps their estrangement was for your protection,” Jonathan replied. “Have you considered that Penny’s silence meant no one would know about Sybil, and therefore, they wouldn’t know about you?”
I let the roar of the tires answer for me as Jonathan steered onto the freeway. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure what to make of that hypothesis. Penny never spoke poorly about my mother, butwhen she did, it was never poorly, only sorrow. There was love in her voice, but her disappointment was palpable. In my mother or herself, though?
“The real question is, do you?”
I blinked. “Do I what?”
“Do you love your mum?”
I glanced back at him, but Jonathan was watching the road again.
“Why is that the real question?” I asked.
He just waited.
I sighed. “I don’t like talking about our relationship.”
“We’re a bit beyond that, don’t you think? Sybil may have some valuable information, and I’m going to meet her soon. I need to know what’s between you two. Especially if it might prevent her from becoming an ally.”
“You talk like there’s a war about to start.”
Again, no answer. I mulled over his words and tried to ignore the pressure of his gaze on my cheekbones.
“You need to trust me on this, Cass. My intuition is rarely wrong.”
“All right,” I said. “How much, exactly, did Penny tell you?”
“About Sybil? Very little. Last we spoke, it was only long enough for her to explain her bequest.”
Something occurred to me. “Then how did you know she was dead?”
He shifted uneasily in his seat. I removed my glove and hovered my hand above his where it rested on the gearshift. If he wasn’t going to tell me, I wasn’t in the mood to play coy.
“There’s no need for that,” Jonathan remarked.
I kept my hand where it was. “You want all my secrets, but you won’t give up yours? It hardly seems fair.”
He scowled at my fingers. “Cassandra, I have secrets just as you do. It’s unreasonable to expect me to give you all of them?”
My finger fluttered. “When it concerns my family and my future? I don’t think it is.” I lowered them a fraction of an inch.
“Cass, please.”
“Please yourself.”
