“I didn’t hurt him, but the genius shot a hole in his own foot.” She starts to go to him, but I cut her off. “He isn’t taking visitors and he isn’t Rainier. Don’t call him that.” “He’s my son. I’ll call him whatever I like.” “Your son is dead. So’s your daughter. I know. I killed her.” She looks at me for a moment like she doesn’t believe me and then turns back to Aki. “That was a terrible thing for you to do. Still, she was lost to me a long time ago.” “It’s funny you should say that. You’re the last thing she talked about. She wanted me to tell you that she was sorry. She said that you scared her and her father and she wanted to get you back for it, but now she was sorry. What was she so sorry for? Taking the Druj?” “She was always her father’s daughter. They were just alike. Always weak and worried. Always apologizing.” “But not Rainier.” “Rainier was a good boy. He was strong like his mother. He understood how the world was and what was necessary for the family.” “He was that important and you let him die. Take you off the mother-of-the-year list. What happened to him?” She walks back and forth, looking past me at Aki. But she doesn’t try to go to him. “It was an accident. Rainier was reckless and headstrong, like all children. He went to a chemical plant and stole a large amount of ammonal, aluminum, and ammonium nitrate. He was going to use it to blow up the Springheel home. Can you imagine? It would have been such a merry thing, ending that ancient family line not with sorcery, but with something so mundane. But Rainier didn’t know how to properly handle the material. There must have been a spark or a flame. Perhaps one of his witless friends lit a cigarette. There was an explosion. That was the true tragedy of his death. It was so common and petty as to be obscene. It was a human death.” “That’s got to be a bad way to go for you.” She turns to me, looking every bit the ironclad matriarch that frightened Eleanor so much that she’d rather be a bloodsucker than a daughter. “It’s the worst possible way for a Geistwald.” I look at Aki and back at Koralin. “I see Aki over there and I see a pampered little prince taped to a chair. His heart is beating like a scared rabbit and his soul is bouncing around like a Super Ball in his chest. Then I look at you and I don’t see anything. You’re hollow and I can’t help noticing that you don’t seem to have a soul.” “The Geistwald line discarded them centuries ago. They’re done away with at birth.” “Are you dead by any chance, Koralin? Are you Death Born?” She shoots Aki an angry glance. “Der Todes Geboren. Yes. All Geistwalds are. It’s our gift. The source of our strength.” “You’re Drifters. Your whole fucking family. That’s your secret. Savants might be special, but you’re something else entirely. I bet no one even knows there’s a fourth kind of Drifter.” “Not many. The few who do either work with us or they die quickly.” “I bet. That’s a big secret to hide for centuries. Is that why you came to America? You couldn’t stay in the old country without someone finally figuring out what you were? Pretty soon you’d have to wipe out every Sub Rosa in Europe. Not the way to make friends and influence people.” “Something along those lines. But we also came for the same reasons as the Springheels. There was no room for new dynasties at home. Here it was open land and fertile soil. The East already had settled families so we
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