I smile up at Fraank Mountainhold, the lead Librarian in Karnach even though my stomach is in painful knots. “Yes, please. I was wondering . . .” If you know if I killed nons. “Is there a way I can read the completed dossiers on the missions I’ve been on?”
As he’s polishing his thick glasses on his worn flannel shirt, he squints at me, no doubt assessing whether I’m insane for wanting to sludge through reams of paperwork that I should’ve delighted in never seeing again. So I add lamely, “I just need to verify a few things for my own records.”
He slips the glasses back on. “Well, of course you may look at them. It’ll take a couple of days to process the transfer from Guard HQ to here, though. Are you wanting specific missions or the entire roster?”
I quickly scribble down the one Jen indicated. Mountainhold takes the request, letting me know he’ll send the file to my office when they’re in.
As I leave to head over to my parents’, I can’t help but wonder if I’m doing the right thing. Was Karl correct, so long ago? Is it better knowing if I’m the true cause of death? Or is ignorance better? Saner? Caleb says I should let it go, that Belladonna was probably lying in an effort to get under my skin. But me . . .
I’m tired of being in the dark, even if being in the light means facing hard, cold realities.
My parents’ apartment is like a museum.
Not that it was ever warm and friendly in the first place, and not that I’d ever been to it more than a handful of times anyways, but at this moment, right now, I feel like I’m in a museum. Everything is cold, perfectly positioned, and untouchable.
I follow my mother to her greenhouse, which is actually a wide deck my parents retrofitted to accommodate her craft. Plants are everywhere, from floor to ceiling. “You look thin,” is her greeting.
Stress will do that to you, I want to say. The thought of eating churns my stomach. “How have you been lately?”
“Working lots, especially now that you’re gone from home.” She moves over to her workbench to deadhead a waiting plant.
Like you didn’t work a lot even when I was at home, I can’t help but think. “How’s Dad?”
Withered flowers litter the bench as she deftly snips away. “The same as he always is.” She sighs. “Chloe, your father has been quite upset over everything going on. It’s why I’ve called you over today.”
My father has said, at the most, ten words to me over the last couple of months, and most of those were towards ambivalent greetings. “You mean when I was in the hospital at the beginning of the year?”
She’s not looking at me, which is weird. My mother has always had the ability to cut me down with a single, sharp look. But right now, her eyes are glued on the potted Dwarven orchid in front of her. “That and the whole Belladonna mess.”
“He’s gone now, Mom.”
“I know, and I am glad for it.” A wipe across her brow leaves a streak of soil, which reminds me of all the afternoons I spent with her at her nursery in California when I was little. Back when I wished I was a Nymph, too, so we’d have something in common. “But, your father is not so pleased about this turn of events.”
Excuse me? “Jens Belladonna accused me of murder!”
“I am well aware of the charges, Chloe.” She shoves the orchid to one side and lifts a fern off the ground to take its place. “Did you know your father and Belladonna are friends?”
No, no I most CERTAINLY DID NOT.
“They met as children and have maintained a relationship over the years.” She pauses. “Your father is furious with Jonah for banishing Jens. And with you for letting it happen.”
I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around this. “He accused me of murdering people!”
Now she looks at me. She’s . . . sad, which is not an emotion I’ve ever seen coming from my mother before. Not even when her parents died. “I know. But your father believes that Jens shouldn’t have lost his job, let alone be banished from Annar, for what he deems a simple misunderstanding.”
Invisible hands strangle my neck. “A misunderstanding? Doesn’t he care that some guy has been stalking me for weeks, accusing me of things that aren’t true?”
Her eyes refocus on the fern. “Your father isn’t always the easiest of people to live with, let alone understand. I tried talking to him about it, but he is resolute. He wants you to get Jonah to rescind the order, or do it yourself.”
I wish there was a chair in here, so I could sit down. I don’t trust my legs to keep me upright. “Mom, tell me you are kidding.”
She closes her eyes briefly before resuming her snipping. Bits of fern float down around us. “Your father has instructed me to let you know that there will be no further contact between any of us until this situation is remedied.”
The only sounds in the greenhouse are that of the fan whirring above us and of metal meeting plant flesh. It might as well be my skin she’s trimming, because—as strained as things have always been between us, as distant as we might be—she’s still my mother. And I cannot believe she just said what she did.