Page 76 of Swift Wings Shadowed Heart
I nearly choke, and it takes all my strength not to let the tears that burn in the back of my eyes come forth. Instead, I armor my spine with ice and walk out of the room.
Across the hall, my father’s bedroom door is opened a crack. He sleeps with his lips parted, making puffing sounds. I knock on the door.
“Father, it’s me, Rhea,” I figure announcing myself is the best way not to spook him.
He stirs. Eyes blinking open, he turns his head and looks at me. His brow furrows as he sits up.
“Are you really there?” His voice cracks with a mixture of old age and fear.
Does he think I’m a ghost? I don’t blame him. This house is full of them.
“Yes, Father. I need to talk to you. I’ll put the kettle on.” I leave without waiting for a reply.
It’s dark, so I make my way downstairs guided by my knowledge of the house. Once in the kitchen, I find matches in a drawer, light up a few oil lamps, and set the kettle on the stove after stoking the fire. It takes my father a moment to get going, but at last, I hear him moving around, the boards groaning under his weight.
By the time he enters the kitchen, our teas are done steeping. I picked chamomile for him and regular black for me since I doubt I’ll get much sleep once I leave.
We sit across from each other and sweeten our drinks with hardened sugar cubes. After taking a sip, he rubs his forehead and says, “Did they kick you out?”
I don’t even blink. I’m used to his disappointment and bitterness. “No. I’m here to ask for a favor.”
He sits straighter at this. I haven’t asked him for anything in years, not since I learned he took pleasure in denying me. There’s a glint in his eyes as he anticipates the moment he will refuse my request. Still, I have to try.
“You might get a visit from the police,” I start.
His bushy gray eyebrows draw together for only an instant, then they fall back down, and his expression settles into something that seems to sayI knew it would come to this.
I go on, “They’re going to ask you a question, and I need you to tell them that you don’t know the answer.”
“I assume,” he begins slowly, “you’re asking me to lie. I know the answer to whatever they’re going to ask, don’t I?”
I nod.
His eyes narrow. He wraps large fingers around his teacup and ponders, trying to figure out which of my previous transgressions has come back to haunt me. Before entering the Academy, I gave him plenty of trouble, tangling with any authoritative figure who got in my way. I once spooked a horse because its rider was a Neutro. The man fell in a puddle of mud, and instead of running, I laughed. He caught me and dragged me to a nearby station house, where he made a constable throw me in a cell. I was only fifteen, so when the Neutro left, the constable took me home and made my father promise to keep me out of trouble. He promised and not for the first time.
I can see he’s struggling to come up with something. I’ve been nothing but a model citizen since I entered the Academy. What could possibly have become an issue this late in the game?
He gives up and grunts in frustration. “So what is this question?”
“The Chief Inspector will ask you if Mortimer Cindergrasp was my Neutro. He doesn’t know because, for some reason, he can’t find my records.”
His eyes narrow again as thoughts speed behind his rheumy eyes. “So you want me to say I don’t know who your Neutro was,” he says slowly, each word delivered between short pauses.
I nod. “Yes. You don’t remember because Mama took me, not you.”
This isn’t a lie. He couldn’t come because he had an important client to tend to, though he inevitably learned the man’s name and has cursed it a million times since then. There is no way my father would ever forget who shattered his entire world.
“I can’t lie to the Chief Inspector, Rhealyn,” he says. “It’s a crime. Besides, Cindergrasp… he’s responsible for… everything.” He throws his hands up in the air, waving them around the house, encompassing even me. Especially me. “Everyone needs to know what a bastard he was. Maybe now that he's dead, they’ll finally listen to me.”
“You know they won’t. And if you don’t lie, theywillthrow me out of the Sky Order and into a cell.”
That glint in his eyes returns. “Will they?”
His lips twitch as if he’s suppressing a smile. Something in my chest constricts, and I find out that he can still hurt me, even after all the years I’ve spent telling myself he doesn’t matter. But then he stares into his tea, thinking for a moment. He’s not a stupid man.
His gaze darts up and meets mine, then he says, “They think… they thinkyoukilled him, don’t they?”
A flash of red blinds me for a second. My breath catches, and when my vision returns, I see my mother standing by the sink. Her arms are crossed, and she’s looking at me with immense disappointment. I shake my head and force myself back into reality. I hold my father’s gaze, but I say nothing. My throat is too tight, and I’m afraid my voice will break.
