Wol was up now, his back stiff. His tail swayed hypnotically in the air behind him. I recently learned normal cats can’t really do that. Hwari half rose out of the shadow too, only the top part of her body visible. They were tense. On guard.
Taking their cues from me.
My dad sat across from me.
My dad, who never said a mean word to me. He never said anything more than strictly necessary. My dad, who made sure the fridge was stocked with TV tray dinners. I don’t think I ever remember him asking if I ate. The man who never raised a hand against me. Except he also never bothered asking why my face was bruised, or how I ended up getting into a fist fight with another kid during recess.
William Hallow, who raised me until now. Who left with a phone call, leaving me with nothing but an encouraging letter on how to proceed. Then disappeared off the face of the earth until now. Until now, when everything was over.
He smiled gently at me.
The creature behind him sniffed, then coughed. A heartwrenching, body-wracking cough that came from deep within his lungs.
William Everblack Hallow’s familiar was a slender man-shaped thing covered in the drab medieval clothing reminiscent of a plague doctor. His ragged breathing rasped through the beaked mask. Every inch of his body was covered except his hands and one of his eyes, which peeked through the cracked lens.Where his reddish skin showed, I saw lesions and pockmarks. Four curved horns twisted up and away from the back of his head.
And the stench—
I cut off my Third Eye before the stench could get stronger. But it was too late. A whiff of decaying pus and rot hit me like a brick wall, and I gagged. My dad didn’t react, but his eyes latched onto mine, trying to confirm that I did indeed just identify his familiar. His mouth tugged at the corner like he wanted to say something, but he never did.
The creature was hunched over the space right behind my dad, dominating the space between me and the door. Poised to perfectly get in between my dad and me, or the door and me. Whichever came first.
I could see things like that now.
My eyes flickered over to my backpack, which was on the other side of the bed where my dad was sitting. I wondered if he could see it. Probably not. There was about five or six feet between us.
The creature’s wheezes filled the stretch of silence.
“You’re familiar is leaking in my room,” I blanched. “Hospitals are big on being sterile, you know.”
“Metaphysical fluids. Not infectious. And he’s not my familiar. Consider it a… temporary arrangement,” my dad replied smoothly.
The wheezing continued.
“Wol. Hwari. Good to see you again,” my dad said in greeting.
“William.” Wol’s tone was cold.
Hwari didn’t bother responding.
He coughed awkwardly. “Son. How have you been?”
My throat twisted with emotion, and I felt something catch in the back of it.
Don’t you dare cry. Don’t you fucking dare.
I swallowed the lump and tried to sound calm. But my voice came out raspy, shaking with every syllable. “Alive,” I said. I was going for casual. Dry. Sarcastic. Anything but the wet emotion that came out instead.
I pulled on the blanket, trying to cover myself my stomach.
He noticed, but didn’t comment. “Good,” he repeated. “We need to talk.”
“Yeah, I imagine you want the rundown.” I breathed in, getting ready to launch into an explanation of everything that happened since he disappeared. “Should I go first? It started with—”
“How much do you know?” My dad cut me off.
He didn't care about the story. Just about how much I knew. My hands made tight balls of the blankets. “Everything,” I whispered.
He smiled warmly at me. “You’ve always been a smart kid. Tell me.”
“Dad… just what the fuck is going on?”
My dad leaned back in the chair, crossing his arms. “You tell me, Jain. I thought you figured everything out.”
He was probing. Trying to see how much he knew. At least, that’s how I saw it.
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“Yeah? You sure about that?” I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking. “Because you fucking disappear off the face of the earth as I go through hell, doing all sorts of shit to stay alive. People tried to fucking kill me, Dad. And then you waltz in here and—”
My dad frowned. “Language, Son.”
And I fucking lost it.
“Hwari, next time he interrupts me, draw a circle around him and his fucking pet med school dropout,” I snapped. “Underthebed, if he tries to do anything, anything at all, you have permission to release yourself.”
Hwari streaked from my side across the air, leaving inky afterimages in her wake until she was behind my dad and the plague doctor demon-thingie. At the sound of my voice, Underthebed awoke, and dark tentacles made of smoke began to reach out from under my bed. I knew, without looking, that a set of eyes had opened beneath them.
And my dad was unfazed.
“Cute,” he said, glancing at Underthebed. “Bit of an overreaction though, don’t you think?”
“The hell it is,” I snarled. “I want explanations. Now. And I swear to god, if you’re fucking lying, I will—” I sucked in a breath. “You owe me an explanation.”
That damned smile was still on his face. “Okay. What do you want to know?”
I’d never snapped at my dad like this before. Not ever. But I think I always wanted to. Something in me broke. And my vision got really blurry.
“Ok, so you’re not going to even try and give me an excuse about why you disappeared. I didn’t need your shitty help anyway.” I wiped at my eyes with the back of my sleeve. “Is Mom alive?” I asked.
“Yes.”
She’d never told me. He’d never told me. They'd never told me.
The tear in my heart grew. I ignored it.
“I’m not even going to ask how Wol and Hwari are free then,” I said. “Where is she?”
“That’s more difficult to answer. She’s moving around in Europe. She has to stay around places where the boundaries are thin. Places that are still in this world, but not of it.”
“Lost Places.”
“Yes. Some of them are Lost Places. But she can’t stay in one place for too long. Hence, the moving around.”
“You saw her?”
My dad hesitated. “Yes.”
I stared down at my hands. “Charlotte Valentine said something to me.”
Something like a real smile reached the light of my dad’s eyes. “What did she say?
“That…” I tried to put the situation into words. “That the Shin Inheritance doesn’t belong to me. That you guys changed your minds about me. And because of that, that’s why I had to fight every step of the way because you guys wanted me to fail.”
“…It’s complicated.”
“You know I almost died, Dad? I almost fucking died.”
“I can see that,” he said. “And trust me Son, there are worse things than death.”
“Then why the fuck don’t you just tell me what’s going on?!” I screamed. Everything in my head just fucking snapped, and I reached across the bedstand, grabbed the water mug, and threw it at him.
The plague doctor reached across with an arm, keeping the mug from hitting my dad on the forehead. It fell to the floor and shattered. He wheezed, bringing his arm back, but not entirely. The shadow of his arm lay across my dad’s face.
“You,” my dad said after a long moment, “are being childish, Jain.”
“Me? ME?!” I laughed. “Are you being serious right now? Do you hear yourself?”
“You don’t know everything.” My dad reached down and wiped away some of the water from his pants. “There are factors at play that—”
“Then explain them. Now.”
And it was my dad’s turn to snap at me. But his was nowhere near as explosive as mine had been. It was calm, the quiet fury of a kind man that rumbled rather than flashed. “Do not interrupt me. You’ve contracted yourself to a two-bit creature that feeds off of children’s nightmares. It looks like neither Wol nor Hwari has unlocked their jinx after contracting with you. You have no staff. You have no friends. You have nothing. I may have lost my power, but I still have enough to put you in place, Jain. And I’m still your father.”
I’d never fought with my dad before. Ever. But I didn’t back down. I couldn’t. Not now.
“Really? Because the last time I tried to summon a daevil, he answered me.” I sneered.
His eyes went flat. “You managed to summon Vine?”
“What do you think?”
“You really want to know?” My dad began. “Yes, you were the Heir. But to even name you Heir, your mother and I had to give up nearly everything we had. Everything our families have amassed over the centuries. Dealings with Fae Queens, the Underlords, and minor gods, Jain. You do not have the idea of what kind of sacrifice your mother made so that she could watch you grow up. She called in every favor, deal, ally—everything she ever met, she called up to make sure you’d be safe. All made so you could safely receive our power and be protected from our enemies when the time came.”
“No, no, no. Don’t pin your fuck-ups on ME. All the other ancestors had no problem passing on their inheritance. It’s just you two, because you two made bad decisions when you were my age. Emphasis on the fact that they’re your enemies.” My voice was cold. “And if you two were so keen on seeing me inherit everything, then why are highborne Society families getting to wedge their ways in?”
My dad clammed up.
“If you guys were sooooo meticulous, and this had been a preparation in the works for years, why the hell did I have to fight tooth and nail? Why did you tell me to fight tooth and nail?” I bit my lip. “Why the hell did you tell me you believed in me before you left? Why leave me that letter at all?”
“I wrote the letter years ago. Before… before all this happened.” He looked tired. “I meant every word of what I said on the phone.” Then, almost to himself, he said, “I was trying to be a good dad, Jain.”
“Obviously, you changed your mind? Why?”
“…Because of your Sister.”
There it was. The topic I’d been trying to avoid. We’d both been avoiding it.
I gritted my teeth. “Why does that even matter?”
“We didn’t mean to have her. It wasn’t supposed to be possible. The Shin bloodline… your mom wasn’t supposed to… it wasn’t…” My dad ran his head over his hair. “But she did happen. And your mom did keep her.”
“That doesn’t explain—” I cut myself off as an idea came to me. “It’s not mom who needs to be in those places, is it?”
My dad shook his head. “No. It’s not,” he said, his voice infinitely more tired than before. He sagged forward, his head in his hands. “Your sister. She’s…” he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that your sister needs a role in this world. Your mom scrambled to put your sister in the inheritance. To create room for your sister to exist in this world. That’s why she had to start undoing our preparations. That’s why there was space for other families to worm their way in. That’s why…” he didn’t finish.
“And you guys were ok with that? Leaving me out to hang dry?” I swallowed. “Is this some sick case of a savior sibling? Spare parts?”
He looked down at his hands. “…It’s not like that.”
“It’s exactly like that.”
“It’s not.”
I hated how he was denying it. “Were Wol and Hwari meant to be my familiars in the first place?”
“…Yes. No. It’s complicated, Jain.”
“Then what the fuck did you guys even do for me?!" My voice began to rise. "The familiars aren't for me. Half-hearted efforts made in a stupid fucking trial where I almost died. Just what was the point of this? Did you want me to just fucking die? So you could get rid of me? And you could move on with your life?"
"That's not—" He began, but I didn't let him."Fucking Jain. Always holding me back. That's what you were thinking, right? That I was just a burden. That you just wish I'd fucking die and—"
"Stop that. It's not—"
"Why, dad? Why—" I swallowed. "Did you even consider what would happen to me?"
"Not like that." He shook his head, but he was getting angrier with each word, because I was hitting home with that. I knew it. That my words were hammering away at this fucking facade of the calm, good father figure he tried so hard to curate over the years. "I... I tried, Jain."
And it stirred something deep in me that I didn't know I had. The fact that I could see the lies on his face and I fucking blew up, screaming. "THEN EXPLAIN HOW. YOU CAN'T. YOU CAN'T NAME ONE FUCKING THING YOU TRIED BECAUSE THERE ISN'T ANY. DO IT. I DARE YOU. NAME ONE THING. NAME ONE THING YOU EVER DID FOR ME—"
“EVERYTHING!” He screamed. "I GAVE UP EVERYTHING!"