Page 28 of The Last Wish of Bristol Keats
On that much he and his brother agreed. There was a trick in this somewhere.
CHAPTER 21
The thump of the basket against Hollis’s hip matched her gait. Bristol gripped a wine flask in each hand, as did Avery. Julia, Rose, and Sashka carried trays loaded with meats, cheeses, and treats. They had raided the pavilion tables and were taking their feast to a secluded plaza behind the palace, overlooking the Bay of Mirrors, a small shimmering inlet, home to dubious creatures. It was always quiet and empty there, and that was what they all needed—a little less of Elphame for a few hours. Glennis’s death weighed on them. And facing execution didn’t exactly brighten spirits.
As they walked, Bristol noticed the sizable notch in Hollis’s ear. Esmee said it was always trickier healing a shape-shifter. That part of Hollis was gone forever, deep in the belly of the wretched hound that had bitten it off, but it didn’t seem to bother her. At least for now. Her mind was elsewhere. “A funeral and a wedding. Strange, isn’t it?” Hollis mused.
“Strange how?” Bristol asked.
“How life goes on. Grief and happiness walking side by side. Sometimes that seems impossible.”
“My grandmother always said that news came in threes,” Rose chimed in, “the good, the bad, and the questionable.”
“Questionable?” Hollis asked.
“The kind of news you’re not sure about yet. It could be good or bad.” If news came in threes, Bristol wondered what questionable news might be headed their way.
“When is the wedding?” Julia asked. “Did Ivy say?”
Hollis shook her head, unsure. “No. But before the Choosing Ceremony.”
“And the funeral?”
“Late tomorrow,” Bristol answered. “Sunset, I think she said. Glennis had no one else, so the funeral will be here. The officers were her family.”
“What’s a Danu funeral like?” Avery asked.
None of them knew. Not even Julia. “But it’s apparently intensely personal,” she said. “Only family and close friends participate.”
Which was why they never saw Liam’s funeral. His body had been returned to his family in Greymarch. Bristol had only been to two funerals in her life—her parents’. Funerals for people who weren’t really dead. The urns with their “ashes” still sat on a shelf in her father’s workshop. She wondered what was really in them. Fireplace ashes? A bag of beans? A lifetime of lies? The urns were sealed, and she had never looked inside. Who would? Her father knew that. Paper cuts. They still sliced into her skin unexpectedly. All the things at her fingertips she never saw or knew. In a twisted way, that pain was a comfort too—proof that her father was not only crafty but devious when it came to survival. It quieted the persistent worry still nesting in her gut.
“Should we go?” Rose asked. “Do you think we’re considered close friends?”
Bristol shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’m going.”
“I am too,” Julia said.
In seconds, it was settled: They were all going.
“What about weddings?” Sashka wondered aloud. “Do you think they’re the same as ones in the mortal world?” No one knew that either. But they all thought it was odd that Melizan and Cosette would choose to get married now with so much going on.
The day after the funeral, everyone would be back to drills and preparation. Bristol’s temples pounded. Almost everyone. She would be occupied with another matter—one she hadn’t told anyone about yet. Removal of the tick. And now there was also the matter of Cael’s return—and the complication of her bargain with her mother and her promise to leave Elphame. But no one knew about that yet either. At least not the details.
You give me your word, Bristol? Your promise?
A well-crafted wince. A tilt of the head.Of course, Mother. Going back is all I ever wanted.
And without that prince.
The careful slow pull of her brows. An extra beat. A serious nod of the head. Everything her own parents had taught her.Yes, without him, of course. There’s not that much between us anyway.
Bristol could still see her mother, eyes glistening, vacillating between mother and monster, between nightmares and dreams.
A nudge.
A pause.
A grimace.
