Page 80 of Only Cold Depths
Vesper frowned. “What do you mean?”
I shrugged, although that didn’t ease the sudden tension in my shoulders. “When I was a child, I didn’t understand what was going on with my parents and Holloway. All I knew was whenever my mother and father went to see him, one or sometimes both would stay in bed sick for days afterward.”
“You couldn’t have possibly understood the magnitude of what Holloway was doing, how he was siphoning off your parents’ magic.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “But Ididunderstand the magnitude of it. I was ten, maybe eleven, when I realized Holloway was using my parents’ truebond against them.”
“What did you do?”
I dragged a hand through my hair, hoping Vesper didn’t feel my guilt, shame, and embarrassment churning through the bond. I’d come here to comfort her, but now, I was the one who was decidedly uncomfortable.
“I’d heard all the gossipcasts and legends about truebonds being these marvelous, mystical connections no one could break or interfere with. Plus, my parents were Arrows, and they had been on countless missions. It just didn’t make sense to me.”
“What?” Vesper asked.
“Why they didn’t fight back.” Even now, all these years later, I couldn’t say the words without an angry snarl creeping into my voice. “I asked my parents point-blank why they didn’t use their truebond power against Holloway—why they didn’t justkillhim. My parents said they had tried everything, and nothing had ever worked.”
A crooked smile curved my lips. “My parents didn’t have Vesper Quill with her seer power and genius engineering brain to help them figure out that the key to blocking Holloway’s siphon power was to trust in each other’s strength and not let their fear get the better of them.”
An answering smile curved Vesper’s lips, although it was quickly replaced by a thoughtful look. “I might not have figured it out either, if I hadn’t seen Holloway take your magic during the midnight ball. I couldfeelhow much he was hurting you, and then how your pain mixed with your fear and amplified his siphon ability. You were so scared.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I was terrified I was going to lose you that night, and I almost did.”
“I was just as terrified that I was going to lose you,” I confessed, my voice as low and ragged as hers.
We fell silent, both of us lost in those dark memories.
“My parents felt that same fear, although I didn’t understand it back then. As the weeks, months, and years dragged on and on, and Holloway took more and more of their psion power, and Desdemona and Chauncey got sicker and sicker, I grew angrier and angrier.”
“What did you do?” Vesper asked.
“I waited until my father left on an Arrow mission, then confronted my mother. I thought if I talked to her alone that she might listen.” I drew in a breath and let it out, along with the rest of my shameful confession. “I called my mother weak and cowardly and a dozen other horrible names.”
“What did she do?”
My gaze drifted through the window down to the garden, where the peonies were still glimmering in the moon- and starlight. The memory—vision?—of Desdemona that I’d seen earlier flashed through my mind.
“She just . . . let me.” I dragged my hand through my hair again. “Desdemona had this dull, resigned look on her face, like she didn’t have a choice but to listen to me the same way she didn’t have a choice but to let Holloway siphon off her magic.”
I had to stop and clear a hard knot of shame out of my throat. “Even when I was yelling at her, I realized what a monster I was being, but Ijust. . .couldn’t. . .stop.”
Vesper gripped my hand, the silver flecks in her eyes swimming in a sea of dark blue sympathy. “You were just a kid, and you were afraid of losing your parents. Desdemona knew that.”
“Perhaps, but I was out of line and out of control. Just thinking about it still makes me feel like a monster. Perhaps that was the day my inner monster was truly born, even before I killed my father.”
Vesper tightened her grip on my hand, more sympathy swimming in her eyes.
I cleared another knot of shame out of my throat. “I confronted my mother in the morning. That afternoon, Holloway summoned Desdemona to Crownpoint. That was the day he siphoned off too much of her magic. She died a short time later.”
“Oh, Kyr,” Vesper murmured, the same ache in her voice that was pulsing through my heart.
“I’ve always wondered if I had just kept my mouth shut that maybe my mother wouldn’t have been so stressed that day,” I confessed, my voice low and strained. “If Desdemona might have been strong enough to survive Holloway just a little while longer.”
Vesper rocked forward and crawled across the window seat. She stopped right in front of me and gripped both my hands in hers. “I am so, so sorry. But it wasn’t your fault, Kyr.Noneof it was your fault. Holloway was too blasted greedy to stop himself from taking too much of your mother’s magic.Hekilled her, notyou.”
A fierce light burned in her eyes, and her red-hot anger sizzled through the bond and curled around my inner monster, making it whimper in relief.
“I’m the one who’s sorry. I came in here to ask how you were feeling about the Zimmers, not to bare my soul about my failures with my own family.”
Vesper cupped my left cheek in her right hand. “We comfort each other, remember?”
