Lynet turned toward him, wondering if he could recognize her in so little light. She could only see his silhouetted outline and the shape of the blade in his hand.
“Lynet?” he breathed, stepping forward into the moonlight to peer at her face. His eyes gleamed under his white eyebrows as he looked at a girl who was supposed to be dead. He was thinner than she remembered, his hair grayer. If Mina was a flame, Lynet thought, then Gregory resembled the curling smoke after the flame had been blown out.
“You once told me that if I ever needed help, I should come to you,” Lynet said.
He nodded. “I remember. And I meant it. But how—” He started to reach for her face, his fingers thin and skeletal. Lynet almost flinched from them, but she stopped herself. He shook his head and took hold of her wrist, his grip surprisingly firm, his long fingers encircling her wrist completely. “There’s more light downstairs,” he said. “But tell me how you came here.”
He led her back across the landing to the winding stairs, never releasing her wrist. Lynet wanted to pull her hand away, but he seemed so frail that she was afraid she might hurt him by accident. They moved at his slow pace, and she told her story selectively as they descended, skipping over certain details—not all of Mina’s secrets were hers to tell. When she mentioned faking her death by using the snow, he halted suddenly, and Lynet nearly tripped on the step.
Gregory was staring up at her with wide eyes. “You’re even more miraculous than I thought,” he said, his voice reverent. “I’ve wanted you to know the truth for so long, but your father and Mina wouldn’t allow it. I always hoped that one day, you would find out on your own, and then you would come to me willingly.…” He smiled, skin stretched out over bone. “And now you have.”
“Are there others like … like me? Made with blood?”
His smile turned sour, and he started down the stairs again. “No, there are no others like you,” he said. He paused, his voice strained as he asked, “Have you ever seen Mina wield the same power you have? Power over glass?”
Lynet swallowed. If Mina had kept her power secret from Gregory for all these years, then what right did Lynet have to tell him about it now? The thought of Gregory knowing this secret about her stepmother, when Mina hadn’t even told Lynet, brought a bitter taste to her mouth. “No,” she said, her voice strong and clear. “I don’t think so.”
Gregory nodded. “It’s the blood. It’s something that we alone share.” They reached the bottom of the stairs, but Gregory still didn’t release her hand, clasping it between his own and looking her in the eye with an almost feverish intensity. “In some ways, Lynet,” he said, “you are my true daughter.”
Lynet swallowed dryly, and she wondered how Mina would have felt to hear him make this proclamation. She remained silent as he led her to the main floor of the church.
In the dim candlelight, Lynet saw the remains of the church reformed into a makeshift parlor. The line of altars that would normally be at the front of the room were now all joined together in the center to form a table, with the sawed halves of pews serving as chairs. Along all the walls, blocking the windows, were shelves of books. There were more piles of books on the table and all but one of the chairs.
“You live here?” Lynet said, leaving out the why as she stepped farther inside.
Gregory moved the books off the chairs, onto the floor. “All I want is a quiet place to do my work without disturbance, without people constantly begging for my help. Either they want me to grant them some favor as a magician, or else they want me to ask Mina for something, as the queen’s father.” He shook his head in disapproval. “I choose to live near the university so I can stay at the forefront of progress and learning,” he said, gesturing to the books around him, “not to pass messages to my daughter.” He lit more candles and then he turned to Lynet and said, “But that’s why you’ve come, isn’t it? You want to ask me about Mina. You want to know how to defeat her.”
Lynet swallowed, gathering the courage to speak the question she’d wanted to ask from the beginning. “Actually … I want to know if she can be cured.”
One eyebrow went up in surprise. “A cure?”
“She says she can’t love or be loved, but maybe she only thinks that’s true because her heart is glass. If there were some way to make her heart real, then maybe…” Maybe she’d remember how much we loved each other.
He set down a candle and came over to her, forehead furrowed in contemplation. She seemed to have surprised him with the question, or else he’d never considered the possibility before. “I don’t know,” he said. “But perhaps, if we work together, we could find an answer.”
She smiled, relieved. “That’s why I came to you. You know more about Mina—and about me—than anyone else does. I want to help her any way I can.”
He formed a steeple with his fingers, pressing them to his thin lips. “I think … yes, I think if I could take a sample of your blood, Lynet, then I could find out more.”
Without thinking, Lynet crossed her arms. “What could my blood tell you?”
The candlelight flickered over Gregory’s still face. “Blood is the source of our magic, Lynet. If I want to learn more about our magic and its capabilities, then I first need to study our blood. I could use my own, of course, but I’m … not as strong as I used to be.”
“No, of course not,” she said quickly. “You can use my blood.”
His lips curled into a smile. “Thank you, Lynet. Let’s do it now, shall we?”
He set off toward the end of the room and seemed to disappear behind a bookshelf, but then Lynet heard a door closing. She followed and found a small door in the corner beyond the shelf. In a few moments, the door opened again and Gregory reappeared, shutting it deliberately behind him. “My laboratory,” he offered in explanation. He had a thin knife in one hand and a glass vial in the other. “I must ask you not to go in there by yourself, Lynet, not under any circumstances. It isn’t safe unless you’re with me.”
“Oh, but—”
“Now just sit right here,” he said, ushering her to a chair and kneeling beside her.
There was nothing to fear, Lynet told herself as she held her arm out for Gregory. She had never looked away when watching Nadia, and she didn’t look away now as Gregory made a thin cut on her arm and her blood rose to the surface. He focused intently on her blood, drawing it from her vein into the vial.
Her blood in exchange for helping Mina. All in all, it was a small price to pay.
*
She thought she saw Nadia again the next day.