Page 139 of Thorn Season
“I don’t answer to you,” I spat.
But my expression must have betrayed me, because Garret’s eyes widened with understanding.
“You know who took it,” he said. “Do you have it already?”
My ragged breaths filled the silence.
“Alissa,where is the compass?” He reached for me again, but my specter knocked him aside. My hand was on the doorknob when he said gruffly, “Don’t make the same mistake as your father.”
I faltered, turning. “What are you talking about?”
“Briar visited him after she had me flogged. She saw something she shouldn’t have. She returned later to search his study and found research—years’worth of journals—documenting theories on how todestroy Spellmade objects. He’d always believed the compass was too dangerous, and if we ever found it, he didn’t want it used against you.”
My mind was working too slowly and too quickly all at once. The texts in Father’s study, the books about Spellmaking...
The last time I’d seen him, he’d emerged from my palace bedchamber. Waiting for me? Orsearching, in case I’d already recovered the compass?
“Briar’s going to claim that Heron was the one who stole the compass,” Garret said. “She’ll use his research as evidence that he was experimenting with it all these years. She’ll say he harbored a long-standing family resentment toward the Capewells and had hoped to draw Erik’s wrath upon them. She’ll claim that the compass passed toyouafter Heron’s death—thatyou’vebeen directing these copycats ever since.” His temper guttered, his eyebrow scar slanting low. “Even if Erik doesn’t believe her... he will understand what Briar didn’t. He will realize why your father wanted that compass destroyed.”
I couldn’t think past the sudden pounding in my ears.
The gaping wound in Father’s chest. His vacant face. The pool of his blood.
She’d hoped you would be more pliable without your father’s influence.
His journals had disappeared that night.
“What did she do?” I breathed.
Garret swallowed. “Please. Give me the compass and let this end. I can’t protect you.”
“What. Did. She. Do.”
His eyes swam with regret, and my stomach plunged. A slow-splintering ache threatened to fracture me open. Because with excruciating clarity, I realized I’d killed the wrong person.
My father’s murderer was still breathing.
Garret backed away, hands raised. “Briar saw Heron’s research as a betrayal—as an affront to the Hunters’ Mark. By the time I knew what she’d planned—”
“You held me as I wept.” The words were a whisper. A denial.
Briar had cleaved through my father’s heart—his heart his heart his heart—
No.
Ice spilled into me—freezing my blood, sealing the fissures of my pain before I could rupture.
Briar had cleaved—out of spite—through my father’stattoo.
“I don’t want you to share his fate.” Garret’s voice became a distant hum. “I didn’t know what she would do—”
My specter snapped around his throat.
He gasped, eyes flaring. He fumbled for his blazer.
I sent another wave rushing into him, and he slammed to the opposite wall. Pinned like a moth on a board.
“Alissa.”His body twitched under the rippling force of my specter. “I swear, I wouldn’t—”
