Page 20 of The Eternal Mirror
“Car keys,” I say. “Where are they?”
When he doesn’t hand them over straight away, I kick him again. He coughs and splutters, then uncurls one hand and waves it toward the door. “On the sideboard...by the door,” he croaks.
I look across and see the car keys in a chipped bowl, exactly where he said. What a surprise. He’s a bully, and they’re always the quickest to cave.
I have to go.
For a second, I stare down at him and contemplate whether I should finish him off. For Amber. I can tell her about it when we meet. But I realize that if she’d wanted him dead, then we wouldhave killed him the first time we came. And so again—I’ll abide by her wishes.
All the same, I can’t resist one last kick.
“For being such a fucking awful father,” I say, and turn around to head for the door.
“Wait,” the woman calls out.
I turn around slowly.
“Amber—is she okay?”
“No,” I reply, then turn back. I reach across and pick up the car keys as I pass, and then I’m out the door. Thank the gods.
I find Grimlet on the doorstep. He’s clutching a stone in his hand. “Grimlet came to help,” he says.
“Thanks, but we’re good.”
I reach down, and he drops the stone and takes my hand. I swing him onto my shoulder. We head out of this place.
And we will never come back here.
I open the truck and climb into the driver’s seat. I’d never seen any vehicles before I came to Earth three years ago. I’d spent my whole life prior to that on Astrali. There are no machines there. Or on Valandria.
I prefer horses.
When I turn on the engine, Grimlet gives a squeak and leaps off my shoulder onto the passenger seat. “What...?” he splutters.
“It’s a truck,” I reply. “It will take us where we need to go.”
I grip the wheel and let the engine idle for a moment, the low hum vibrating through my bones. Then I shift it into gear and pull out of the driveway.
For a long minute, Grimlet just stares out the open window, wide-eyed. Then, with a shriek of what I think is delight, he sticks his head out into the wind like some demented terrier. His long ears flatten against his skull, and his laughter trails behind us.
“Grimlet likes it! Faster!” he yells. “Faster!”
I give him what he wants.
The road curves out of town, the streetlights thinning, swallowed by trees and night. I drive without thinking, just letting the engine and the motion carry me forward. But my body’s starting to protest.
The adrenaline is long gone. What’s left is the drag of exhaustion...and something else. Not fear exactly. Not quite pain.
It starts in my chest, a throb just beneath the breastbone. Then a heat, low and slow, blooming like fire in wet leaves.
I grunt, easing my foot off the gas.
“Grimlet,” I say, my voice rough.
He glances back at me, ears flattened, eyes alert. “What is it?”
“I need to stop.”
