Page 26 of A Steeping of Blood
Jin shook his head. “I’m not—I refuse to go off of anything that isn’t certain.”
Arthie recognized that wariness in his eyes, the set of his jaw. He had spent far too many years tracking down leads that resulted in dead ends. He couldn’t handle another.
Flick flipped another page of the ledger and froze. “Jin, what are your parents’ names?”
Jin leaned over her shoulder. “Shaw and Sora, why?”
She swallowed, clearly flustered at his proximity, but Jin was too frazzled himself to notice. She showed him the page, and Arthie watched the color drain from Jin’s face, something she didn’t think could happen to a vampire.
“SS and SS to administer before release,” Jin read. He looked up, his eyes meeting Arthie’s first before looking away. “And here—Siwang. That’s them. Shaw Siwang and Sora Siwang. It was dated less than two months ago.”
That was clearly not the response Flick was hoping for. Her face fell.Shipped to one place, she had said. That meant they were being sentoutof the country.
Arthie went still. “They’re not in Ettenia.”
It was no wonder none of her leads had ever amounted to anything. It was no wonder Jin had searched and searched to no avail. His parents weren’t eveninEttenia.
“Where are the vampires being sent?” Arthie asked.
Once the words left her lips, she felt a chill roll through her body, as if she knew the answer before either of them could say it. As if she’d known her life would always take her back to where it all began and ended.
Flick lifted her head. “Ceylan.”
6FLICK
It wasn’t Flick’s first time riffling through the Ram’s ledger, but time hadn’t made it any easier. The sight of her mother’s script transported Flick back to the Linden Estate, where she would try to catch her mother’s attention for a conversation over tea or breakfast or anytime, really, while Lady Linden jotted away at something or another. The vanity in her words leaped off the page, the self-importance loud in the way she had signed off on the documents that were folded and tucked into the ledger.
Everywhere Flick looked was another reminder: Her mother was not a good person.
The signs had been blatant since Flick was imprisoned inside her own house, but a part of her had known long before she’d even begun forging out of her bedroom. She’d simply never pieced together the sentence. She’d never thought the words with such certainty and finality until now.
And it made Flick utterly sad.
Lonely too, in a way, until the emotion was washed away by a sudden presence drawing near, sifting through her thoughts.
“Close it, love,” Jin said beside her gently. Neither Matteo nor Arthie were paying them any heed. “That’s it.”
She dropped the cover and immediately felt a knot loosen in her chest.
“Better?” he asked.
How did he know she was struggling? That she saw her mother on every page? She tilted her head back, and when her curls fell away, it was to find him close. Her lips parted in surprise, and his eyes followed the movement. His features softened, the anger in his gaze that he’d held since their reunion slipping away until it was just him again.
The old Jin.
The one she had kissed in an alcove of the Athereum meeting hall. The one she had watched from afar for weeks as she worked with the Casimirs, wholly aware of his reputation with other girls across White Roaring even as she wished he would notice her. She had missed the way he said her name, the way it rolled off his tongue with ease and slammed to a halt at the end, as if he was holding it back, as if he never wanted to let her go.
I’m sorry, Flick wanted to say.It’s my mother’s fault you can never enjoy a pastry again. It’s my mother’s fault you died.
“If anything, learning she’s the Ram is a good thing,” Jin said, andgoodness, she had forgotten what it was like to hear the dips and rises of his musing tone.
Still, she furrowed her brow in confusion.
“It’s ever more obvious that someone like you can never be associated with someone like that,” Jin explained. “You’re too good for her.”
She ducked her head, her neck aflame. What a delight it was, to be seen. His words wrapped her in an embrace she’d craved since that night as she had huddled in silence and isolation from place to place.
“All right?” he asked, leaning closer. His hair fell over his eyes, the tattoo on his neck catching the lantern light.Little heron, he said his parents had nicknamed him as a child. Was he anxious to see them? Were they the same people as when he was younger, or had they, too, changed like Flick’s mother?
