“I’m only joking.”
“I’ve seen you too close to death too many times. It’s not funny to me.”
I pressed a fingertip to his piece of chocolate and pushed it across the counter. “Then you need this at least as much as I do.”
He arched an eyebrow but swallowed his retort. He pinched his slice and popped it in his mouth. He might have been stiff and stern and one of the most obstinate people I’d ever known, but not even he could resist the seductive powers of a little warm cocoa melting on his tongue. The rigidity in his broad shoulders eased. The shadow of a smile played on his lips. “That was just enough to make me wish for more.”
“Maybe one day I’ll buy you bricks of it.” I turned to Marlis. “But for now, you’ll have to eat your crumbs and pretend we’re kings and queens.”
She accepted her piece from Gideon, closed her eyes, and savored the meager treat.
“Now,” I said. “Everyone take a plate and sit. I’ll make tea.”
***
I woke up startled, possibly as the result of a bad dream, but if so, the memory of it faded the moment I opened my eyes. Still, my heart hammered and my breath came fast and rushed. Someone in a neighboring apartment coughed—our walls were as thin as paper. Gideon’s heavy breathing carried from his sleeping pallet in the sitting room and filled the late-night silence.
I stood and eased around the edge of Marlis’s cot, careful not to wake her. On tiptoes, I left our bedroom, heading for our kitchen nook and the water pitcher on the counter beside the bread safe. “If there are any rats around,” I whispered, “you’d better be ready to fight.”
The rats remained silent, and no telltale skittering of tiny claws gave away their presence, so I crept to the counter, found a cup, and poured water from a cool, earthenware jug. In the sitting room, Gideon shifted and grunted. His dark shadow moved as he sat up, and the moonlight filtering through the window outlined his silhouette. “Evie?” he whispered. “What are you doing?”
Attempting to sneak past Gideon was pointless. Even in sleep, his senses were alert. Aeolus Daeg had trained him well, turned him into a consummate spy. Presently, Gideon claimed loyalty to me and swore an oath of fealty, yet a niggling voice of doubt whispered in my ear, questioning, suspicious. I hated that voice, but I’d learned the hard way about the cost of guileless trust.
“Thirsty,” I said.
“Dreaming again?” he asked, heedless of my weak excuse.
“Maybe.”
He rose from his floor pallet, moved to our secondhand—possibly thirdhand—settee, and patted the cushion beside him. “Come sit with me.”
A brief warmth, like a momentary sun ray piercing storm clouds, stirred in my chest. I drained my cup and set it in the dish pan. “It’s late. I should go back to bed.”
“Don’t think I haven’t noticed you avoiding me, Evie.”
The warm spot clouded over again. I sighed, crossed the room, and eased onto the settee.
“You still don’t trust me,” he said.
“You once said I should trust no one, not even you, if it meant staying safe.”
“You’re right.” The settee squeaked as he changed positions—hunching over, forearms braced on his knees. Moonlight turned his hair into a stream of pale silver, trickling down his back. “And I promised to be here for you as long as it took to regain your faith.”
“I don’t like it either, Gideon—this doubt. It’s less about trusting you than it is about trusting myself. What’s happened to me? Why does the thunder defy me?”
His arm snaked around my shoulder, and he pulled me close. I slumped against him, soaking up his warmth and strength. “If you don’t know, then I sure don’t. I believe in you, though. You have to know that.”
“I do. I can feel it. But....”
“But it’s not enough, is it?”
A knot rose in my throat. “Have I ever told you about the day my father died?” It seemed like a non-sequitur, perhaps, but my thoughts had been drifting to my father and our shared legacy more and more since my abilities had faltered.
Gideon stiffened. “Evie, you don’t—”
“I always thought he was a god. He was, in some sense, but it was more literal for me. I worshiped him, adored him, thought he would always be with me. We aren’t immortal, but our family tends to be very long-lived. And powerful. So, so powerful. We lived in a time of peace, but he could have felled a small army without much effort. I thought he was invincible.”
I paused. “The day his men carried his body home, Gerda didn’t want me to see him, and she tried to hold me back. I didn’t mean to, but I was so upset, I accidentally shocked her—gave her a little jolt. As soon as she jumped back, I took off running. I found him before she could catch me. They’d laid his body on a map table in his study. It was the only surface big enough to bear him.”
Gideon took my hand and slid his fingers between mine. “Don’t. You don’t have to tell me this.”
I tugged my hand away, unable to accept his touch at that moment. His sympathy was not the balm it should have been. “But I do. You have to understand.”
Darkness hid his face, but I felt him draw in a breath and hold it. “Understand what?”
“It wasn’t enough. The thunder wasn’t enough to save him. He was a god, descended from an ancient line. He was powerful and big and strong, and it wasn’t enough. Despite everything, he died.”
“He was killed—there’s a big difference.”
I cringed. “Semantics, Gideon.”
“What’s your point? Why are you telling me this?”
I stood, reached for the oil lamp, and lit it with a striker. Dim light spilled across the room, draping Gideon in a soft glow. His open shirt collar revealed a glimpse of collarbone and smooth skin, and the urge to touch him burned in my fingertips. Instead, I shoved my hands deep in my pockets and paced before him, covering the short distance of our sitting room—one end to the other and back again. “Father’s thunder wasn’t enough to save him, and I don’t have even that much, anymore. Even if the storms come back to me, does it matter?” I paused at the sitting room window and peered up at the night sky. “Am I nothing more than starlight? Insubstantial, fleeting....” Whispering, I said, “The end of our lineage?”
A soft snarl rumbled in his throat. “Don’t say that. The Evie I know, the Evie I gave up my home and country for, would never say that.”
I turned away from the window and raked my fingers through my hair. “My strength relies on faith, and there’s not much of that around anymore. Maybe...maybe I need to stop hiding. If people knew who I was—”
