Finn scooped up the pictures one by one, looking at them with eagerness, curiosity, and questions filling his eyes. I’d never seen him seem so excited before, not even when we were kids, it was his birthday, and he was tearing into a pile of presents. But I kept my mouth shut while he examined the photos. Anything I said right now would just sound like sour grapes.
“I met your father when I was nineteen,” Deirdre said, steepling her hands together. “Another boy brought me here on a date, but once I saw your father, I only had eyes for Fletcher, and he for me. One thing led to another, and before I knew it, we were engaged. It was one of the happiest times of my life.”
Well, that explained the engagement ring in the casket box. Although I still wondered about its missing diamond.
Finn looked up from the photos, and Deirdre favored him with another smile, which he returned with an even wider one of his own. I don’t know how long they would have kept smiling at each other if Bria hadn’t cleared her throat.
“So what happened?” Bria asked. “If you were so happy, then why did you leave Ashland?”
Everyone could hear the sharper, unasked question in her words. Why did you leave Finn?
Deirdre winced, her shoulders slumping. “Fletcher and I were planning our wedding when I found out I was pregnant. My parents were very traditional, very old-fashioned, and more concerned with their magic, money, and social status than anything else. They didn’t approve of Fletcher, said that he was beneath my station. But they especially didn’t like the idea of my having his baby. They were both very strong Ice elementals, you see, and I inherited their magic. They wanted me to marry someone who also had Ice magic, to keep our family legacy intact. Not someone like Fletcher, who didn’t have any elemental power at all. Of course, I didn’t care about any of that, but when I told my parents I was pregnant, they threw me out and cut me off financially. They wouldn’t even speak to me.”
She paused and pinched the bridge of her nose, as if she were fighting back tears. After a few seconds, she dropped her hand, cleared her throat, and continued.
“But I loved Fletcher, and I was determined to be with him, despite my parents. And we were happy, especially after you were born. See?”
She tapped her long red nail on the photo of Fletcher holding newborn Finn, with her standing off to the side. I thought that Finn might say something about how unhappy Deirdre looked in the photo, but he didn’t seem to notice her flat expression. Or maybe it was just my bias against her that made me see her that way.
“So what happened?” Bria asked again, a snide note creeping into her voice. “If y’all were one big happy family?”
I raised my eyebrows at my sister, who was rarely that snarky. Bria didn’t seem to like Deirdre any more than I did. She shrugged back at me, completely unapologetic. Well, if she wanted to be the bad guy for a change, I wasn’t going to stop her. More power to her.
Deirdre drew in a breath, as though the next part was particularly painful for her to recall. “Fletcher worked a lot of late nights, but running a restaurant means long hours, and I knew how devoted he was to the Pork Pit. But one night, he came home covered in blood. And that wasn’t the worst part. Some men stormed into the house after him.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And I finally learned what Fletcher was really doing all those late nights. That he was an assassin.”
She shuddered, as if the memory still horrified her. “He killed the men right in front of me. Laid their throats open with his knives like it was nothing. But not before one of them attacked me.”
Deirdre fell silent for several seconds, her gasps of breath coming quicker and quicker, until she was almost panting for air, as though she was still traumatized by what had happened. Even I might have believed that she was genuinely upset, if not for Fletcher’s letter warning that every word out of her mouth was a lie.
But Finn? He swallowed it hook, line, and sinker, leaning over and squeezing her hand. Deirdre threaded her fingers through his, as if drawing comfort from his touch. Once her breathing had returned to normal, she continued her story.
“After that, it was . . . hard for me to be with Fletcher. Of course, he claimed that he would never hurt me, but I just couldn’t believe him. Not after what I’d seen him do to those men. Even though I had been trained to use my Ice magic to defend myself, I was afraid to even leave the house, for fear that one of his enemies would be waiting to try to hurt me—or you, Finn. That was my greatest worry.”
Finn nodded, his face as somber as a preacher’s on Sunday, as if her words made perfect sense. I thought her story had more holes than a sack full of doughnuts.