Page 26 of Xantera
She stiffens for the briefest of moments. “I suppose he didn’t go quietly?”
The kettle whistles like a scream, the high-pitched sound cutting through us, and both of us visibly shudder. I wait for it to cease, to die in the air, because it’s like a haunting memory of Diggory, one that Belinda doesn’t have to relive but can imagine.
“No, he didn’t.”
I can’t tell if there’s exasperation or pride or fear on Belinda’s face as she turns around with two mugs that twirl with streams of smoke. In any case, her next blink wipes every emotion from her face.
“But hewasquiet about the injury that landed him in the Healing Center to begin with,” I press, taking my mug from her outstretched hand and feeling the heat of it waft up into my face.
“I know what you’re thinking.” Belinda shoots me something that almost looks like a glare as she settles back into her chair across from me, her knuckles white with how tight she grips her mug. “The answer’s no, I didn’t push him… though sometimes I want to slap some sense into that man,” she ends with a mutter.
I lean forward. “What kind of sense?”
“Just the kind that men often lack.” She forces out a chuckle.
Curiosity brews in my chest. I could ask hundreds of different follow-up questions, but I press my tongue against the back of my teeth, trying to choose one that is least invasive. My tone comes out as nonchalant as I can make it. “Was he often reckless?”
Belinda seems to have realized she said too much. My eyebrows drop, but I unscrew my lips, trying not to look too disappointed, as her face tightens back into a neutral shape. She gives a sigh. “Look, I already told the sentries everything when they came to investigate our housing unit after his disappearance, so let me spare you having to ask the same questions.” She takes a sip of her tea, lips pursed. “Diggory told me he slipped in the shower, as I suspect he told you. He didn’t tell me of any plans to run away or steal certain… objects. I don’t know what his ultimate goal was.”
There’s a finality in her voice, but I think about the way she worded each of those claims as I finally take a sip of my own tea. The sweet, earthy taste melts into my tongue and heats up the roof of my mouth. I swallow.
You don’t ask the right questions.
Or maybe I don’t peer hard enough at the answers.
“You said Diggorytoldyou that he slipped in the shower,” I start hesitantly. “Not that you believed him. What doyouthink really happened to him?”
Belinda sniffs, her face paling. “It doesn’t matter what I think.”
“But it does.” She’s his partner. Even if they never ended up falling in love,she’sthe one who’s been by Diggory’s side day in and day out for the last few decades.She’sthe one who knows him and his face and his mannerisms better than her own reflection.
“It doesn’t matter what I think,” Belinda repeats insistently.
“Well, then, how about whatIthink?” I ask. When Belinda’s eyes flare for a second, I hurry on before she can stop me, keeping my voice hushed in case anyone is listening in. “Ithink he injured himself on purpose so that he’d be in the Healing Center, marked as ineligible for the last Choosing. I think he wanted to use the Choosing to do something important while every citizen, sentry, and Guardian was looking the other way.”
There. I said it. The suspicion has been brewing inside of me for a few days now. Just like the kettle, my thoughts have been filling my head like hot steam, one on top of the other, until there’s so much pressure I can’t stand it any longer. And when Belinda says nothing in return, I know she’s had the same thought.
I cock my head. “Diggory didn’t expressly tellyou what he was doing, but you suspected, didn’t you? You knew?”
Belinda’s hand rattles against her mug. For a second, I’m worried I pushed her too hard, that she’s going to chuck her tea in my face for accusing her of keeping a secret. I should have learned my lesson from my interaction with Gaia, shouldn’t have dared to even come here.
Then Belinda’s elbow pulls back, and the mug goes crashing to the floor in a cascade of tea and ceramic shards.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!”
“Not to worry.” I stand up, feeling my forehead pinch in confusion. Does she have a tremor? “I can help you clean it up.”
I rush over to the cloth dispenser on the kitchen counter to grab something to wipe the spilled tea with while Belinda herself rushes off to snatch the broom and dustpan.
It isn’t until we’re both hunkered down on our hands and knees below the table that Belinda’s whisper comes out as a low hiss. “Our daughter was born hard of hearing and had to spend her whole life with hearing aids, but Diggory made up his own language with her using just his hands so that she could take them off when all the noises became too overwhelming. The two of them were inseparable because of that—until she was Chosen five years ago when she was twenty years old.”
I freeze, blinking at the woman’s face mere inches from mine. Had she just purposely dropped her mug so that we’d have an excuse to talk without that blinking camera picking up anything out of the ordinary? If so, I can’t allow myself to waste these precious few seconds of privacy by gawking. I nod at her to keep going.
She continues without looking at me, pretending to sweep up some more glittering shards. “While most fathers would think of this as an honor, Diggory was heartbroken. Enraged, even. He was terrified that no one would be able to communicate with our daughter in the way that he did, that she wouldn’t be able to take off her hearing aids and talk in the way that she preferred. So he sought ways to sneak into the Blood Moon Palace and visit her.”
“And you think he succeeded?” I whisper back, mopping up the liquid more slowly this time. “You think he got into the Blood Moon Palace to see your daughter?”
“I think it was all talk that I had to smother until about a month ago.”
