job. And for various reasons, you didn’t. It’s going to be hard to teach you what you need to know in so short a time. But it doesn’t mean I’m …” He spread his hands, at a loss for words.
“Disappointed,” I finished for him. “And you are. I can see it.” Why wouldn’t he be? He was a Gateminder and I was his daughter who had destroyed everything he and the Brotherhood had tried to build up. Build up and keep safe for hundreds of years. I was a failure as a Grayson. There was no sugarcoating that, either.
“I’m disappointed in a whole hell of a lot,” Archie said. “I’m disappointed I couldn’t tell my daughter not to trust the first Fae who fed her a good story. I’m disappointed her mother went so crazy even I couldn’t fix her. I’m disappointed we live in a world that’s so full of lies it seeps poison like a snakebite. But I’m not disappointed in you, Aoife.” He reached out as if to cup my cheek, but then detoured to my shoulder, patting it awkwardly. I felt like I should pull away after what had happened, but I didn’t. I allowed myself the tiny hope that maybe things would turn out all right after my tantrum. “You’re my child,” Archie said. “We’re kinda stuck with each other.”
“I do have my Weird, you know,” I told him, drawing my brows together in reproach. “You act like I need rescuing, but I can be useful.” I wanted my father to believe that more than anything.
Archie’s mouth curled into a smile. “Yeah, they seemed pretty excited about that in Ravenhouse when they caught you. It works on machines, huh?”
I nodded, adding my own smile. “Anything with moving parts. Some things are easier than others.”
Archie leaned down, and his expression was conspiratorial, like we were the same age. “Wanna see mine?”
His enthusiasm was infectious, and I thought I caught a glimpse of the boyish side that had entranced Valentina, and likely my mother. So different from his perpetual frown and judgmental gaze. I wanted to see more of that, so I said, “All right. I’d like that.” I stood back, excited, but not sure what to expect. Better to be out of the danger zone, as I’d learned when Cal and I had taken a welding class and he’d lit not one but three of his aprons on fire with his torch.
My father winked at me, then trained his eye on a pile of driftwood and dried seaweed that had washed up a few dozen feet farther down the beach. He opened his palm and blew on it, just the smallest touch of air to skin.
A split second later, the driftwood ignited with a
Archie let out a whoop, and I clapped my hand over my mouth. I’d figured out from his journal that my father could conjure fire, but seeing it in reality was a whole new dimension of thrill. I stared, unable to stifle a grin that matched my father’s miles-wide one.
I wasn’t alone. We could both do things that would be considered heresy by any Proctor.
But it wasn’t born of anything evil. It was magic, pure and simple.
“So?” My father was breathing hard from the effort, his face flushed. In the warmth of the nearby fire, my skin was no longer numb.
“Pretty neat,” I admitted. My father looked so animated, I couldn’t resist teasing him a bit. “I’ve seen better.”
I shook my head rapidly, trying not to giggle. “Please don’t. Really. It’s not necessary.”
Archie reached out and messed up the top of my hair. I didn’t care—Valentina’s beautiful curls were lost to the wind anyway. “Who taught you manners?”
It was like walking a tightrope—I took one step at a time and hoped I wouldn’t fall into a chasm. Archie was behaving like a father, me like a daughter, and I decided to just keep going until something did go wrong. “Certainly not you,” I teased.
“True enough,” Archie agreed. “Can’t say I’d have done a much better job if I’d been around. My manners are shit.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and then looked at me, pained. “See? You’re not supposed to swear in front of your teenage daughter. I’m hopeless.”
“Trust me,” I said. “I’ve heard worse.” I knew that sooner or later, we’d run into another roadblock, have another fight, and things would go back to being strange and strained. But right now, I wanted to keep taking the tiny steps, keep swaying on the rope and enjoy a few minutes alone with my father.
The way things were going, they might be the only ones I’d get.
I pointed to Archie’s pocket watch, tucked into the front of his vest. My father’s clothes were nice, but they were also out of fashion by about ten years and clearly ripped and repaired dozens of times over. He was always just a bit too unkempt to maintain the appearance of a gentleman of his station. He looked more like a professor or a clock maker than somebody who lived in a grand house and could call flame out of thin air.
Then again, I supposed I looked more like the daughter of the same than what I really was.
“My turn,” I said. “Give me that and I’ll show you what I can do.”
Archie frowned, turning the silver watch in his hands before he gave it over. “Be careful. That watch was your grandfather’s.”
I popped open the top. The face was mother-of-pearl, and the hands were black, the numerals painted on in a fine hand and intertwined with vines hiding tiny forest creatures. It was a work of art. Inside the lid was an engraving, almost worn away with age:
Pushing a little of my Weird to the forefront of my mind, I let the smallest tendril touch the watch. Here, away from the city and in Valentina’s iron-free house, the whispers and the pain weren’t nearly so bad. I could probably stay here for years before I started to go truly insane.
My Weird responded eagerly, unmuted by iron, and in the space of a heartbeat, the hands began to turn backward, still ticking off time. The dates in the face also turned back, and once I’d ensured they would stay that way as long as I held a bit of the watch in my mind, I handed it back to Archie proudly. “I can do that with anything. Came in handy when we were on the run.”
“Pretty neat,” he told me with a grin, and this time I didn’t hesitate to return it.
“What’s the inscription mean?” I asked.
“It’s the motto of the Brotherhood,” he answered. “Or was, at least. Back when the Brotherhood actually did some good.”
I started to ask what he meant but thought better of it when his smile dropped and the stone-faced expression I recognized returned. He shut the watch and shoved it into his pocket. When he looked up, he was smiling again. “But enough about that. Want to take another crack at breakfast?”
“Sure,” I agreed, and followed him inside. The hundred questions I had about Nerissa, the strange comments about the Brotherhood and my Weird could wait. I
The next two days at the Crosley house passed uneventfully. Things with my father were all right when it was just the two of us, but when Valentina was around he got gruff and awkward and had a hard time looking me in the eye. I wasn’t sure how to act either—yes, I was his daughter, but in reality he barely knew me, and the last thing I wanted was a spat with my de facto stepmother over territory she had clearly already claimed.
Valentina wasn’t completely bad, as long as we avoided serious subjects. She showed me how to apply rouge and paint my nails without getting the enamel everywhere. We sipped tea in the sunroom and everyone gathered around the piano to hear her play thunderous classical music that sounded like the ocean had broken down the dunes and come rushing through the music room.
It was a break from running, that was for sure, and there was decent food and a warm bed. Still, every time I looked toward Lovecraft and saw the orange glow against the night sky from still-burning fires, my guts churned with guilt and worry.
On the third morning, I couldn’t take it anymore. My patience caved, and with it went my placid veneer. “Are we going to stay here forever?” I said to Archie. He and I were washing up from breakfast, a task I’d taken away from Bethina by force. She thought as long as she was in Archie’s presence, she had to revert to her old job of maid, but I’d bribed her with some leftover scones and cream and sent her away with a suggestion of taking Cal for a walk along the dunes. She wasn’t a maid any longer, and I wanted her and Cal to be able to relax.
“It’s safe here,” Archie said. He was scrubbing while I dried. “Relatively so, anyway. We’re not behind walls like in New Amsterdam and San Francisco, and there are things roaming out there, but no Fae is going to risk
