16. Cove

Chapter 16

Cove

Since Florian had told me he’d seen Kit in the garden, I’d taken to wandering outside at odd hours. Morning, afternoon, evening—whenever I had a moment to go outside. It had only been a few days, but I hadn’t seen him yet, and...the ache in my gut that had started the day he’d left Moonstriker Tower for good seemed to be getting worse by the hour.

Not that I thought children should keep living at home forever, especially if they didn’t want to. And he hadn’t been a child when he’d left. He’d been nineteen years old, and perfectly capable of making those decisions for himself.

But he’d cut us all off entirely, without a call or a letter—not even so much as a postcard.

I understood, yes. His relationship with Delta had turned so contentious that they’d hardly been able to be in the same room as each other without it turning into a shouting match. I’d tried to help. Tried to step between them. And she’d accused me of letting her do “the hard part” of raising Winter and then trying to step in and take over.

As always, I’d backed down and followed her lead.

It had lost me my son.

I don’t believe neither of you ever told me he’s your son , Iri broke into my thoughts, sounding like she was pouting. And I don’t understand any of this. If he’s your son, why not just tell him?

I sighed and slumped onto one of the decorative wooden benches in the middle of a field of different varieties of orchids. Father gave him to Delta. He said I clearly wasn’t mature enough to be raising a child and...I wasn’t even sixteen when he was born. Father wasn’t wrong .

But . . . he’s your son. Why lie to him?

Delta said that he wouldn’t listen to her if he knew she wasn’t his mother. Father said I was to stay out of it. I was... I sighed, scrubbing my face with both hands, trying not to relive the worst days of my life. I was in no shape to be raising a son. I tried to do what I could, but it wasn’t much. Wasn’t enough .

There was silence in my head for a moment, and I hoped perhaps she had let it go.

I could never be that lucky.

Are any of the other kids yours?

I laughed aloud at that, shaking my head. If the others were mine, you would know. You were with me when they were born .

That, finally, seemed to satisfy her. It was a reasonable question, since Rain was still very much like I’d been as a child.

But Winter’s conception and birth had been a singular situation. I would never again put myself in the position to be taken advantage of in the same way.

He’s not going to come back here , Iri said. He got spotted last time. He’s too smart to come back wandering through when he’s still keeping company with a killer, and he knows you’re looking for the guy .

She was almost certainly right. As much as Delta had bemoaned him not being clever enough, Kit was quite intelligent. He had to know that coming through the garden risked being seen, and that especially now, Frost, Coral, and I would be on the lookout for him. Assuming he knew that Florian would have told us about the encounter.

Sighing, I pulled myself off the bench and turned toward the house. As I reached the back terrace, though, I heard the distinctive revving of a motor coming down the drive toward the house. Instead of going inside, I walked around the side of the building, arriving at the front just in time to see a gaudy, glittery-white sports car spin into the main circular driveway, coming to a stop across the whole width of the pavement.

Another Dawnchaser cousin, come to tell me that they were a better option for family head than Florian?

But no. The driver’s door popped open and out came a familiar figure: Ivy Dawnchaser. She was wearing a swingy white sundress and flat sandals, her honey-gold hair cut in a stylish bob, wavy and wind-blown, hanging like a cloud around her face.

She slammed the car door and turned toward the house, pausing when she saw me.

It was odd. Rain had told us what happened with her, how Adair had separated her from Oberon, and in turn she’d forgotten most of her life. I had met her for the first time after she knew Oberon, so she wouldn’t know me now. At least, she wouldn’t remember me from before. She might know who I was.

When I’d been in Dawnchaser lands as a child, she’d been twenty, about the same age as Delta. Delta had called her “brainless” on the single occasion they’d met, which was the ultimate insult in my sister’s mind. For myself, I’d hardly noticed her.

“You’re Cove Moonstriker,” she said, but she sounded a little uncertain. It was a guess.

“I am,” I agreed, inclining my head. “I was given to understand you wouldn’t remember me.”

Slowly, she nodded at that. “Should I?”

I waved the notion away. “Not especially. We’ve met, but it’s been thirty years. You were older than me and not terribly interested in a little boy, as is normal for a woman in her twenties.”

“You’re kind of scary now,” she said. That...was bizarre. Not the comment itself, but short of Fawn, it was the most honest any Dawnchaser had ever been with me. I knew I had a reputation for being frightening and I didn’t do much to avoid it. It wasn’t as though being “scary” to most people was bad, given the nature of my job.

Still, there was no reason I needed to make Ivy Dawnchaser nervous. Not if half what Rain had said were true, and I didn’t doubt it was all true. My nephew was scrupulously honest most of the time.

So I walked over and offered her my arm. “That’s just because I’m ridiculously tall and seem to have forgotten how to smile.”

At that, she giggled. “Okay, that’s a pretty good start. But I heard from one of my asshole cousins this morning, and you need to know, I’m not going to let you take the family or lands from my nephew.”

Now that was interesting.

“Nephew? I didn’t realize you had any siblings, let alone ones with children of their own.”

After hanging back and staring at me for a moment, she tucked her hand into my arm, taking a grip on the inside of my elbow and leaning into me, meeting my eye without flinching. It was impressive for someone who was essentially sixteen years old and had already told me I was frightening. “That’s Florian. He calls me Aunt Ivy, so...nephew. I know he’s technically my cousin. Or second cousin or removed cousin or something like that. But my cousins, by and large, are assholes, and Flor and Fawn are different. So they’re my nephew and niece.”

It made sense, as much as such a thing needed to. I was impressed that she’d already come to that point with them, so soon after the incident that erased most of her life, but maybe she’d retained some things. Florian and Fawn had no relation to Oberon Gloombringer, after all. Maybe they’d been a bright spot in her life before, and they remained so now.

Regardless, she was the first person at Dawnchaser Manor other than Fawn or Florian to show up in defense of something other than her own interests, so I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt.

As we headed toward the front door, I nodded and started to explain. “I’m here for Huxley. I’ve spoken to Florian and agreed to help him find his footing in ruling a family, since I’ve been doing it myself for nearly twenty years now, but it’s not my intention to take anything away from Florian or Fawn. Only Huxley.”

She held my eye as I spoke, then for a moment afterward, gaze shrewd and assessing, then gave a nod. “Good. I didn’t remember your family having a bad reputation, but I’ve realized recently that reputation doesn’t mean anything anyway. My cousins all seemed to think I was Huxley’s sycophant, and maybe I was before, but I sure as hell don’t have any interest in following him now.”

I cocked my head, watching her. “Because of Oberon?”

“Exactly,” she agreed. “Because Hux is a fucking killer. Maybe I didn’t know Oberon Gloombringer from the next random lord, but no one gets to just go around murdering people.”

Didn’t know Oberon. It was incredible. She didn’t even know the man anymore, and there he was, still a basis on which she’d formed a major opinion. This time, though, it felt healthy to me. How could it not be healthy, to stop trusting a man who killed someone for no apparent reason?

I opened the door and led her into the front hallway.

“Did you know him,” she asked, seeming more hesitant. “Oberon Gloombringer?”

“A bit. He was twelve years older than me, so even less interested in me than you were, but we became acquainted over the years of ruling adjacent lands.” Since she’d indicated she cared most about Florian and Fawn’s wellbeing, I headed up the stairs and toward Fawn’s room, hoping that the young woman would put her at ease. That had to be part of why she’d come, right? To see them?

She nodded, biting her lip thoughtfully. “What was he like?”

Hm. Dangerous territory, given Ivy’s history. “Oberon was...easily led, I think. His father was one of those men who thinks all men need to act and dress and think a certain way, and Oberon let that become his blueprint for every aspect of his life. He followed more than he led, and he thought his father’s opinions sacrosanct.”

She quirked a brow at me, amusement dancing in her eyes. “I do remember your father, you know.”

I grinned at that. “Do you? Then you know the type of man I mean when I talk about Oberon’s father.”

“But here you are, apparently helping Fawn and Florian. Not telling them to”—she pulled her shoulders up to seem bigger and tried to insert a gruff note into her voice—“just ‘man up’ and deal with things.”

I had to stifle a laugh at the thought. “No. Some of us see the example and follow it. Some of us see the example and decide to do better. It’s always hard to know which kind of person you’ll be until you get there, no matter which path you’d prefer.”

My own sister had followed the example of our father more closely than I was comfortable with. She hadn’t specifically wanted to be like Father, but it was where she had ended up, nonetheless.

Ivy narrowed her eyes but nodded to me. Clearly, she was assessing my character. I didn’t think she’d cared much about me back in the day, but now, I was more than a random guest in her family’s home. I was here to kill her cousin; perhaps the closest thing she’d ever had to a sibling. As much as I wanted to put myself in her shoes, to try to understand her point of view, it was too complicated to decide on all the possible aspects of what she might think. She knew Huxley, so she knew that he was an ass. But she’d lost at least some of her memories, so how much did she remember? But also, he’d committed an actual murder.

It didn’t help that I couldn’t imagine a circumstance where I’d have to decide whether I would let Delta be killed or not. I couldn’t imagine Delta killing anyone. Blinding them with science, maybe, but actual violence wasn’t her answer to anything.

We reached the door to Fawn’s room, and I knocked. It was yanked open a moment later by a harried looking woman, whom I’d learned was Fawn’s “nurse,” though I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why Fawn had a nurse. The most dangerous thing I’d seen her do was reach for a bouquet of roses. She wasn’t infirm in any way and seemed largely self-sufficient to me. Maybe it was like something from an old story—an older woman to take care of an unmarried woman well into adulthood.

Still seemed silly to me.

“Do you need something? She’s already overstimulated,” the woman said, clearly exasperated. “She won’t nap at all.”

Nap?

“Why should she nap?” I asked the woman. “Is she sick?”

Ivy snorted, and when I turned to look at her, she was shaking with barely held laughter. “No, she’s not sick. Huxley’s just had the staff keep treating her like she’s four years old her whole life.”

I blinked at her. “She’s nearly twenty. Surely she gets to decide if she needs a nap. She’s quite capable of that.”

“She is,” Ivy agreed, composing herself and reaching over to pat my arm consolingly. Like I was her grandfather and too cute for words with my ignorance. Hells, maybe I was. I was certainly getting to the age where things people under twenty did went over my head, and I’d never seen a reason to try to keep up with trends. “You’re fine, Cove”—pausing, she looked back up to meet my eye—“I can call you Cove, right?”

“Of course.” I looked back at the nurse, shaking my head. “Is it really part of your job to make her take naps?”

“She gets cranky if she doesn’t nap,” the woman insisted, looking quite offended by the entire conversation.

I smiled back. “Don’t we all? Still, Fawn is an adult. Unless naps are medically necessary, I don’t understand why you need to press the point.”

Fawn, meanwhile, had come into the doorway to her bedroom, looking annoyed. “I told you. I’m not tired. Winnie and I want to go for a walk in the garde—Aunt Ivy!” With a shriek, Fawn threw herself at Ivy, wrapping her arms tight around the older woman. “We missed you. Are you okay? Do you feel better? You look better. Your hair is pretty. And your dress.”

With the litany of comments and questions, I decided to extract myself from Ivy’s grasp and take the nurse aside. “I’m quite serious, miss. Is there some reason Fawn isn’t allowed to see to her own needs? She is an adult.”

“Her father said—” I simply cocked my head at that, and she swallowed and cut off. “She’s not responsible. She’ll stop going to bed and eat only sweets.”

“Sounds like college.” Still, I inclined my head to her. After all, I wasn’t the source of all information. “Let’s bring in a doctor who specializes in helping people in Fawn’s situation, yes? They can help us understand what needs to happen. But I don’t think Fawn is being served by following Huxley’s wishes any more than you’re served by trying to force a grown woman to take an afternoon nap.”

When I led her out, leaving Fawn and Ivy chatting, Ivy was giving me a new look. One I thought—hoped, even—might be approval.

I took the nurse down to Huxley’s office to discuss the situation, and what Huxley had ordered her to do with his daughter. It was as Ivy had said—the woman was essentially a nanny, and her orders were to treat Fawn like she was a small child forever.

The nurse was still annoyed with me after our discussion, I suspected because she was worried her job was about to evaporate like morning dew. I thought she might be right, but I wasn’t going to make judgments without knowing anything. Instead of bulldozing everything with my own ill-informed opinions, I called a doctor I knew from Moonstriker lands, and he agreed to fly in to meet with Fawn and help make a plan for the future. With what I knew of Fawn, I suspected it was going to look very different from what the nurse wanted.

But it wasn’t her life, it was Fawn’s.

As the nurse left the office, still frowning like I’d told her I was buying Fawn a pony and she was going to be expected to muck out the stall, my phone rang.

Delta.

I considered for a moment. I’d spent some time angry with my sister over the last few days.

Was I ready to talk without taking out that frustration on her?

It was as good a time as any to find out. I pressed the accept call button, leaning back in the ridiculously comfortable office chair.

“Delta,” I greeted her as I put my feet up on Huxley’s desk.

“When are you coming back?” she asked, skipping all niceties.

I rolled my head back on my shoulders, looking up at the ceiling. To tell her right away, or not? A dodge, perhaps. “I haven’t even heard a peep from Huxley yet. It might be quite some time before I find him. Then there are other matters to handle here.”

“Other matters? Other matters like what?” Her irritation was sharp in my ear, and once, I would have let it guide me into changing my mind.

Now, not so much. “Other matters like the fact that Huxley’s heir is untrained and needs help. I intend to give it.”

She scoffed and when she spoke, her voice was full of derision. “The Dawnchasers can handle their own problems. Let them put head of family up as a title earned in gladiatorial combat. It’s close enough to what they’ve already done.”

It was strange, because I didn’t disagree. I didn’t think Florian would disagree. But some part of me wanted to defend them. I had met three Dawnchasers now who all seemed to be worth the time and effort I’d decided to put in. Perhaps that meant there were even more. Perhaps even some of Florian’s sneering, power-hungry cousins were only following what they’d been taught, and given a good example, they would do better. I wasn’t going to stake my life on it, but I was willing to try to help, at least.

“As I said, I intend to give them my aid. Is there something you have that needs attention immediately? I’m sure Rain can handle things, if you speak to him.”

She was avoiding that, I was sure. She was angry that he’d finally put someone’s needs ahead of hers, because he’d always been her perfect child, bending over backward to give her anything she demanded. Now that Rain had learned to live his own life, he was reveling in it; planning a wedding for the winter and making choices at every turn that were more right for Moonstriker and for him than for Delta.

“Have you forgotten what happened last time you went to Dawnchaser lands?” Her voice had gone cold. Now she was angry with me. “You started this nonsense then, too. About how lovely it was there and how you wanted to stay forever. Changed your mind quickly that time. I can’t wait around for you to get taken in again and change your mind this time too. Maybe Titania should be the one hunting down Dawnchaser. They were thick as thieves back in the day, as I recall.”

For a moment, I just sat there in my chair, blinking at the ceiling. Not truly processing the words, just stunned at my sister’s absolute cruelty.

What the actual fuck? Iri demanded, and it was followed by a thump on the other end of the line. It sounded like Delta had dropped the phone. Have I been completely wrong all these years, thinking you were a good person, Delta Moonstriker? How dare you speak to us that way?

There was fumbling on the line, movement, but no words.

Delta, like everyone, would speak to Iri in her mind. She might not even know that Iri was speaking to both of us at once. Hells, I wasn’t sure why Iri was saying it to me as well. Was she also angry with me? I understood why she might be angry with me, over the way I’d completely ignored that part of my life, kept secrets like Kit’s birth, and?—

No, Cove. I’m not angry with you. I’ll be sad if you never come back to Moonstriker lands, but you know what you’re doing, and it’s the right thing. You’re being a good person. Helping innocent people who need you. Even if you never come back, you’ll always be mine. We’ll always talk. Always work together. But you should go work now. Leave Delta and me. We need to have words.

With that, there was a click, and the line disconnected.

I stared at the phone a moment as it lit up to tell me the call had ended. Had Iri somehow ended the call? I hadn’t even known she could do that. Was she even now dressing my sister down?

Yes, she definitely was.

I shook my head and stood, slipping my phone back into a pocket. Apparently things with Delta were handled. By Iri. Which was good, since after what she’d just said to me, I wasn’t certain how I was going to speak to her again for quite a while.

Besides, Iri was right. I had plenty to do here. I’d never considered the possibility of never going back to Moonstriker lands, but...well, I’d spent a decade teaching Rain what he knew about ruling a family. Who knew what else could change in ten long years?