Page 111 of The Last Wish of Bristol Keats
Hollis knelt on the floor beside the chaise and gently laid her hand on Bristol’s leg. “Yes,” she answered. “I had just stepped up after—” Hollis cleared her throat, searching for the right words. “She was looking at your father like he was still alive—for the longest time—and then she said his name, Kierus. She was serene, Bristol.Kierus, that was her last word.”
Avery’s chest shuddered, and Rose pressed her hand over her mouth.
AndMairewas one of her father’s last words. My love. Each of her parents holding on to the other at the end. She remembered his last smile,I’ve saved you.He died believing that.
“Where was Tyghan?” Bristol asked. “He said he stepped away.”
“He worked on your father long after you left,” Julia said. “He refused to give up. I finally had to touch his arm and tell him he was done. He stood and walked away, trying to pull himself together. That’s where he was, in the shadows of the stones.”
“We were all surprised,” Avery said. “We thought there was bad blood between them.”
Tears trickled down Bristol’s face. “There was,” she said. “But people change.”
Somewhere along the way, Tyghan had forgiven him. Maybe even he didn’t see it coming. But there were signs. He had reduced a thousand-year sentence to one month, defying a council vote.
He was safe. Safer than he is today. Until Bristol let him out of the column. He would still be alive if she hadn’t. In some ways, Tyghan did know her father better than she did.
“He was only gone for a minute when we heard a thump,” Avery said, “and then your mother slumped forward.”
Bristol spent the night in Julia’s room. They all did. Like a tangle of pups in the back of a van, fitting in where they could, sprawled on the chaise, the bed, the sofa. A family. They talked about wounds, food, and funerals. Bristol already loved them, and she loved them even more for that. For not shying away from something painful because they knew, whether they talked about it or not, it was there—a bruise in Bristol’s heart to be healed. There would be many funerals in the coming days, and her parents deserved one too. A funeral together, just as they died together. A real one this time. It might only be the six of them attending, but they would have one.
She lay on the sofa, her head at one end and Avery’s at the other, their feet overlapping, her shoulder hurting, Sashka snoring. It felt like home.
“Did you know you could shift?” Rose whispered into the darkness. It was the last elephant in the room, and Bristol was grateful that someone finally brought it up.
“The Sisters told me, but they said to never do it. Now I know why. Was I hideous?” It was an honest question, not one fishing for ano. It was a question that had eaten at her since she saw the scales on her back, long before she heard the screams from those who spotted her from the rim of the valley.
“Frightening,” Julia said. “But definitely not hideous.”
Frighteningwas a word Bristol could live with, although she didn’t want to be frightening to her sisters if one day something made her snap and she shifted again. At the thought of her sisters, tears sprang to her eyes. How would she tell them about their parents? Because of her broken promises, they would have to live through their deaths all over again—as she was now.
Rose sighed. “I thought you were beautiful.”
“Majestic,” Sashka said, suddenly awake again. “Those fucking wings!”
“Breathtaking,” Avery agreed.
“But illegal,” Bristol replied. “Merriwind made that clear.”
“Not everyone agrees with that beanhead,” Hollis said. “The queen of Cernunnos was quick to bow.”
“Because she was frightened?” Bristol asked.
“Because the Stone made the right choice,” Julia said.
But it didn’t, Bristol thought. Sometimes even revered stones made bad decisions. She could not become the queen of Elphame, not now. She had sisters to go home to.
Early the next morning, there was a loud knock at the door. Julia groaned and stretched in her bed. “I told the guards, no visitors.”
Hollis stumbled from the chaise to the door to see who was there, her tangled pink curls flying in all directions. They heard her talking to someone in hushed tones.Now is not the time. No. All right. I’ll check.
She came back into the room. “It’s the steward of Elphame. He has something for you, Bristol. He says it can’t wait.”
The steward set a crate on the floor beside Bristol. The Cauldron of Plenty. Bristol didn’t say a word as he told her about the cauldron, her responsibilities, choosing her officers, and the court of Elphame that now awaited her. When he was finished, she asked only one question. “How does one appoint a steward to take one’s place?”
He looked at her, bewildered. “You simply name them, and if one day the time should come—”
“Thank you,” she said. “That’s all I need to know.”
