“How old?”
“Thirteen. I could manipulate essence enough to attend the Phrontistery but hadn’t specialized.”
“It was fifteen for me,” Mirth says, her gaze on me still steady — not remotely shying away from the topic.
It’s possible that I’m wrong. That the pieces of the incident I’ve uncovered have nothing to do with Mirth. “I was angry and frustrated about losing the football division,” I continue. “Childish.”
“You were just a child.”
“My father collapsed for the first time when I was sixteen. I haven’t been a child since he was diagnosed. Since I understood the responsibilities I would need to take on decades before they should have been mine to bear.”
Mirth takes a slow breath. “I harmed at least a half-dozen people when my power manifested. And I’m fairly certain Ikilled three of them, including … including someone who was just trying to help us.”
I don’t react. Or at least I try not to react. I had uncovered only one of those deaths. “Another kidnapping attempt?”
“Yes.” She hesitates this time. Just for a moment. Perhaps in remembrance. Or perhaps in not wanting to remember it at all. “An inside job. Armin and I were … convenient, not targeted. I believe so, at least. An … extraction unit was seemingly waiting nearby, tipped off by one of the school security guards. Presumably watching for anyone worthy of ransom to leave the protection of the school grounds. There would have been no way for them to anticipate that it would be Armin and me leaving.”
“I don’t think either of you make for a convenient kidnapping.”
Mirth laughs involuntarily, then sobers quickly. “How did you know?”
I give her a moment to work it out for herself.
Her lips twist. “The royal guard memorial fund. You didn’t just look at who the beneficiaries were from Armin’s kidnapping.”
“After I did that bit of digging about Bolan’s father, I was surprised by how many guards refuse a full payout. It’s always enough that they likely wouldn’t have to work another day in their lives. But most take the disability aid, then return to duty in some capacity within a few months.”
“The royal guard are loyal. It’s a calling, not an occupation.”
“It would have to be. There were lots of injuries between Armin’s attempted kidnapping and the sudden death of a guard who’d been assigned to your and prince Armin’s school detail. But oddly, no other fatalities.”
“So you found a record of the guard’s death benefits?” Mirth asks quietly. “Just that? Nothing of the incident itself?”
“Not a whisper. Not a single notation.”
She twists her lips. “The royal guard records aren’t as meticulous as you thought.”
“Were there more royal guard witnesses? Or any other witnesses at all?”
She opens her mouth … then pauses, thinking. “In the end … I suppose there was just my father, me, and Armin left. And only two of us were standing. Anyone who stumbled upon us in the aftermath, who dealt with the clean-up, would have had no idea that it wasn’t my father’s carnage strewn across the street. Or Armin’s …”
Mirth drops her gaze, brushing her fingers across the blanket as if using its texture to ground herself. Or perhaps she’s just thoughtful, and I have an obsessive need to read into everything she’s doing and saying. “Though … my essence would read differently than a telekinetic’s, for anyone sensitive to that sort of thing.”
I need more. I understand her reluctance to divulge the full details. We’re still practically strangers, after all. And even then, she has no idea what I would already do in order to protect her. But the Mirth who could harm a half-dozen people, including killing one of her guards, is at odds with the perfect princess I’ve had in my peripheral vision for her entire life. I’m looking right at that Mirth,theMirth, right now. I know my life is meant to be threaded through hers.
“It’s never happened again?”
“No. I’ve never voluntarily or involuntarily killed anyone again. You?”
I inhale deeply. Oddly, not relieved by her answer. Perhaps because I didn’t need to be. “I’ve had a few … close calls. Training accidents. But no, I haven’t inadvertently maimed anyone else.”
“It takes a lot of power to blind an essence-wielder so badly that a healer can’t restore at least some of their sight.”
I don’t answer that. It’s not a question, and Mirth already knows that she’s correct. I rather desperately want to ask her what triggered her. But if she wanted me to know, she would have already told me. It’s an easy guess, though, that it was the kidnapping attempt itself, the need to protect Armin, that caused her primary talent to manifest.
Mirth redirects the subject with another tap to the books on the side table. “So … that confirms what this book tells you. I’m as dangerous as an awry can be.” She’s watching me closely. “I believe there’s an entire chapter in this book on how the awry were hunted, are still hunted, and condemned for their twisted, uncontrollable essence. I’m the sort of awry that fueled the fever for those hunts.”
I try to match her dispassionate tone, though I know I fail even before I open my mouth. “And yet it would have been those with purple eyes but none of the power who were beheaded or stoned or burned.”
